Análise da dinâmica urbano-regional de Caxias/MA: especificidades no processo de transição de cidade pequena para cidade média.

Abstract

From a former cotton and textile manufacturing center in the Itapecuru river valley at the end of the 19th century, the city of Caxias has now become an important node in the urban network of the state of Maranhão, contributing to the supply of goods and services to the population and companies. in its region of immediate urban influence. In recent years, the city of Caxias has become a sub-regional hub for retail trade, as well as offering highly complex health services and higher education to the population of municipalities in its area of influence. The study sought to understand how the city of Caxias participates in the urban network of Maranhão and Brazil, based on its contemporary functional importance and the socioeconomic and spatial dynamics in the region where it is located. To this end, we sought to understand what currently motivates the main interests of private agents, federal and state governments for the installation of projects, infrastructures and services of a regional nature and their main implications for the city. In this sense, we sought to understand the socioeconomic and spatial processes that enabled the functional rise of the city of Caxias in the Maranhão urban network, in the last 20 years, as well as, identify and analyze the functional and spatial growth trends of the city and its process of transformation of status into the small town category.