Herve THÉRY

Abstract:

One of the remarkable peculiarities of Brazil is that one can observe, until today, the complete cycle of birth, growth and decline – and sometimes disappearance – of cities in short time spans, often less than a century. This is particularly the case for the cities being created on the pioneer fronts, the coffee front in the first half of the 20th century in the States of São Paulo and Paraná, the soybean front since the 1970s in Mato Grosso. Older cases allow to follow the cycle up to the final decline, such as the gold towns of Minas Gerais, which reached their peak in the 18th century, suffered a sharp decline in the 19th century and sometimes have known a recent renaissance thanks to tourism. In addition, the country has, on several occasions, created ex-nihilo new cities to become state capitals or, on two occasions, of the entire country, on dates that span between the end of the  19th century and the end of the 20th century.

We will therefore analyze these three cases, focusing in the first on the example of Londrina (Paraná), founded in 1929, in the second on that of Sinop (Mato Grosso), founded in 1974 and in the third on those of Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais), founded in 1711 and Paraty (Rio de Janeiro), founded in 1597. Among the foundations of regional capitals we chose the examples of Belo Horizonte (1897) and Palmas (1989) and at national level Brasília (Federal District), founded in 1960, which reached in 2017 the three millions inhabitants mark.

In each case we will analyze the reasons for the founding of the city, generally related to an economic cycle of production of ores or agricultural commodities for export. Then the modalities of its growth and its positioning in the pre-existing urban networks and in the transport networks existing or created for the occasion (“royal route” for gold export, coffee railways, trans Amazonian roads). Special attention will be paid to cities that for a time played the role of boca do sertão (mouth of the wilderness), gateways to frontier zones, which may last longer or shorter before they are supplanted by competitors as the pioneer front advances.

Then we will focus on the ulterior destiny of those cities after the peak of the economic cycle that gave birth to them, either growth stabilized on other bases, or a more or less pronounced decline, followed or not by a recovery in another situation. In the case of voluntarily created capitals, it will be examined whether this initiative has had the desired success in giving the new city a real role of command and rebalancing the territory in their area of influence.

The extraordinary dynamism of the Brazilian urban network thus offers many examples, observable until today, of lifetime of urban systems, much more than in the older countries of Europe or Asia, where the origins of the cities are so remote and their history so long and complex that it is difficult to reconstruct their life trajectory.

Dr. Hervé Théry is Specially Appointed Professor at Universidade de São Paulo-USP since 2005, and Emeritus Senior Researcher at CREDA – Documentation and Research Centre on the Americas, CNRS-University Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, where he was Researcher from 1979 to 2016. After graduating in History (1972) and Geography (1973) and his Doctorate in Geography (1976) at University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) he specialized on the pioneer fronts in the Brazilian Amazon basin and the dynamics of Brazil’s territory. He has been Professor at the École Normale Supérieure, in charge of the Geography Department (1998-2002), Environment expert at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Scientific and technical board), (1994-1996), Member (1993-2002) and Chair (2000-2002) of the International Advisory Group (indicated by the G7 countries and the World Bank) of the Pilot program for the conservation of the Brazil tropical forests. His main publication are Le Brésil, Armand Colin, Paris, 6th édition 2012, Le Brésil, pays émergé, 2016, Armand Colin, Paris, and Atlas do Brasil, Disparidades e dinâmicas do território (with Neli Aparecida de Mello-Théry), 2005, Edições da Universidade de São Paulo EDUSP, São Paulo, third edition due to be published in February 2018. He is Chief Editor (with Neli Aparecida de Mello-Théry) of the French-Brazilian geography review Confins (http://journals.openedition.org/confins/).