Juiz de Fora-MG: uma análise da reestruturação urbana entre o discurso e a realidade

Abstract

To understand the city of Juiz de Fora in contemporary times, we should cast a look at its past, when historical basis were established to make Juiz de Fora a polarized city with great importance in the Zona da Mata Mineira. Medium-sized city, easily accessible by road and rail, it is located close to major national cities: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte. Juiz de Fora is characterized by significant changes which not only affect the old urban space, but also determine a new configuration, and has been the focus of attraction for large construction projects, institutions of higher education, cultural and artistic events of investments in general, causing economic growth in several sectors, mainly services and real estate. Gathering empirical and historical facts, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion about strategic planning and its implementation in a Minas Gerais State town that followed the average Catalan perspective. It is based on the premise of the globalization process presently undergone by large cities, ie, transform the city into protagonists in relations in the world today. It also aims to analyze the current urban planning of Juiz de Fora through urban interventions, its growth and its urban problems. In addition, it proposes to identify the key elements in the production of space: discuss the strategic planning of the city, their actions, essential services within the urban area of the municipality and how all this affects the local population. Juiz de Fora has been repeating the model and the dominant discourse of capitalist cities, marked by the logic of the market and the differential appropriation of wealth and consequently generating a differentiated consumption. The city space is then marketed and becomes a focus of action of different actors, with different goals. Two examples are presented: the first is situated in the eastern city, one of the poorest areas which is the High Three Mills, consisting in a poor neighborhood; the other is located in the central region of the city is the Dom Bosco neighborhood, a poor neighborhood in the middle of large urban interventions in the city. In this context which raises the debate between rhetoric and reality, we are led to discuss the framework for the design of urban policy of the current municipality.