The expansion of São Paulo based on subdivision agents and middle-class neighborhoods: the performance of Novo Mundo Investimentos Ltda. in the North Zone (1935-1985)

• Grant number: 22/08822-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2022
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Ana Claudia Scaglione Veiga de Castro
• Grantee: Deborah Sandes de Almeida
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to address the role of private initiative - in particular the agents of subdivision - in the process of territorial expansion of São Paulo, focusing on the implementation of planned residential neighborhoods aimed at the urban middle classes throughout the twentieth century. Located in the outskirts of the city growth vectors, these neighborhoods seem to be intrinsically linked to the transportation infrastructure, enabling the displacement of the population to regions beyond the central districts. In a first moment, these vectors developed from the railroad; then, they expanded with the arrival of the tramway and especially the bus - which expanded the area of public transport coverage to the interior of these territories - and were consolidated with the implementation of highways, which increased local and regional connections. We propose here to analyze the action of one of these companies in particular - Novo Mundo Investimentos Ltda., belonging to Novo Mundo Organizations - in the implementation of the allotment Parque São Domingos, along the margins of Anhanguera Highway and near the railway junction of the current CPTM lines 7 and 8. We seek to advance in the understanding of the logic of construction of the city, especially the implementation and occupation of peripheral, suburban and/or beyond-river areas by planned and regular residential neighborhoods, little evidenced by urban historiography, which in most of the studies already prepared on the subject emphasizes the process of metropolization of the city by the bias of peripheralization, from the precariousness and informal and irregular settlements.