Land price and development, a criticism to the logic of urbanization: a case study of urban space production in Timoteo, MG, Brazil

Abstract

This brief essay aims to demonstrate the fundamental importance of the cost of producing and managing urban space from a developing country perspective. It also indicates, based upon vast literature, that the price of urban investments ends up to have an expelling trend to citizens away from the benefits which they cannot afford. This fact suggests a vice cycle in which the more the City invests the more expensive it becomes to its citizens who, helplessly, move out into unserviced neighborhoods. Furthermore, it analyses the production of space in a middle-sized city in Brazil based on parcel approval documents from the 1930s to the 1990s. It also uses Kevin Lynch’s city landscape theoretical framework to help interpret the evolution of urban space in Timoteo. This paper ends with some suggestions to the problem posed.urban cost, urban dynamics, land price, city landscape, urban space.