Segregação, espaço e territorialidade: relações de influências do plano diretor municipal na São Luís contemporânea

Abstract

São Luís is the scene of cultural diversity and demonstrates socio-environmental aspects that placed it under tourist, political and academic visibility during a good part of its history. Industrial processes, in the middle of the 20th century, made the city the setting for major transformations delimited by urban articulations, the relationship with the rural and the post 1950s, a period that determines changes in the capital and brings problems of modernity, such as the emergence of new divisions (political emancipations, emergence of neighborhoods, etc.), large developments in urban infrastructure and mobility, as well as the sharp increase in population and the emergence of marginalized areas. In this sense, three periods were established for the analysis: before 1950, between 1950-1990 and after 1990. This research had the general objective of analyzing the occupation process, the relationship between urban expansion and public planning policies, and the influences over the territory of the capital of the State of Maranhão through the Municipal Master Plan. Intraurban relations and their expansions over the last few decades were compared, in order to define influences on the process of territorialization of the city that generates social conflicts, the scarcity of debates on urban policy and the paradoxical contemporary spatialization of the World Heritage city. The research starts from an empirical study, with a quali-quantitative approach, basic nature, descriptive objective and case study procedures. After the bibliographic review, the research proceeded to the analysis of documents and the understanding of the socio-spatial relationship of the city, with semi-structured interviews with personalities such as: Frederico Burnett (UEMA), Luiz Eduardo Santos (UFMA), Horace Sant'Ana (UFMA) and Guilherme Zagallo (OAB), to then demonstrate the occupation process, public urban planning policies and influences on the territory of São Luís over the years and the obstacle that led to the approval of Law n.o 7.122/2023. For justification, we have the need to understand the flow of transformations and the problematic of the use and occupation of the city, with modifications of the urban environment in function of the development and expansions that delay in resolutions of this environment. As a result, we have that São Luís is subject to planning in the construction of a fictitious development without the recognition of urban problems, of a social debate of its territories, of an updated reflection of this society and of the socio-spatial flows that are recurrent precedents of urban planning. Reflection pointed out in the approval of the Master Plan, on March 1, 2023, almost 17 years after the previous one, denying, among others, positions contrary to this by organized social movements and the Public Ministry itself, reaffirming a dominant structure with the participation of public entities and the private capital elite.