Geolocation of addresses in squares of São Paulo (1870-1940): urban history and collaborative computing

• Grant number: 24/23802-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Luis Antonio Coelho Ferla
• Grantee: Larissa dos Santos Arruda
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/03700-7 - Pauliceia 2.0: collaborative mapping of the History of São Paulo (1870-1940) - phase 2, AP.ESCIENCE.R

Abstract

The research project in question is part of an existing one, called "Pauliceia 2.0: Mapeamento colaborativo da História de São Paulo (1870-1940) financed by the Fapesp eScience Program and the result of a partnership between Unifesp (Guarulhos and São José dos Campos campus), INPE (National Institute of Space Research), Emory University from USA and ITA (Technological Institute of Aeronautics).The Pauliceia 2.0 is a tool that enables new approaches to investigating the past through the use of digital technologies and its main objective is to enable the collaborative mapping of the history of São Paulo. To carry out this task, it is necessary for researchers to locate historical addresses in order to spatialize their research. However, there is no way to perform this task with Google Maps and, because of this, the project team is developing a geolocator adapted to the project's scope. In this sense, using qGis, a free Software Geographic Information System (GIS) that allows analyzing and managing geographic data, Pauliceia 2.0 aims to make available, on the internet, an open platform that allows collaborative mapping of the history of São Paulo between the years 1870 to 1940.The geolocator is a resource that allows you to identify the location of a specific point, object or person based on a geographic coordinate system. From this perspective, using registration books, a study is carried out on the numbering of properties and, with this, creating a geographic database that helps to increase and improve the geolocator for historical addresses on the platform. Initially, the geolocator used by Pauliceia operated in a pilot area - the city center of São Paulo -; however, it has been expanded through a group of scholarship holders whose function is to georeference neighborhoods such as: Penha, Santana, Mooca, Lapa, Barra Funda, Santa Cecília, Liberdade, Pinheiros and Bela Vista. Therefore, this research project aims to help expand the geolocator area by studying how the numbering of squares in the city of São Paulo was established in the years 1870 to 1940. This happens because the numbering of properties, especially in urban areas like São Paulo, is a fundamental aspect for the organization and location of strategic points in the city. However, the way this numbering was implemented around the squares throughout the proposed area may reveal a complex interaction between legal prescriptions and social and urban practices.Thus, this project seeks, firstly, to understand the process of registration of properties around the squares based on the analysis of tensions and contradictions between municipal codes and laws and the urban reality experienced by the inhabitants of the time, and secondly, seeks to develop a database that takes into account the specificity of the numbering of squares so that such areas can be integrated into the geolocator of the Pauliceia 2.0 platform.