Índices de urbanização e urbanidade em perspectiva histórica: São Paulo, 1798-1930

Abstract

Recent historiography on the history of urbanization in Brazil has been formulating new problems and variables for analysis as well as involving new actors in the debate. Information technology (SIG) has been used to spatialize social processes in time and map issues on various scales of observation. Studies are now providing outlines and colour for previously vague layers. This paper focuses on some of the research results obtained by the projects ‘The city as business: the real estate market in São Paulo (1809-1914)’ and ‘Levels of urbanization and urbanity in historical perspective: São Paulo, 1765-1914’, both funded by CNPq, and outlined by the 2012 book São Paulo: um novo olhar sobre a história ”“ a evolução do comércio de varejo e as transformações da vida urbana (in English, ‘São Paulo: a new look at its history ”“ the evolution of retailing and the transformations of urban life’). We went back in time to compare urban censuses and tithes with documentation from the Obras Particulares (in English, Private Buildings) series of São Paulo’s Municipal Historical Archives (AHSP), as well as from almanacs, newspaper advertisements, photos, and old plans, to detect changes in levels of urbanization and urbanity from a long-term perspective. The scope was broadened to spatialize the process of the city’s transformation, focusing on material aspects (building programs, typologies, most and least verticalized areas), social aspects (landlords, tenants, uses, and users), and real estate aspects (most and least expensive areas). The analysis distinguishes, for instance, types of commerce, identifies service locations, and reconstitutes lost territorialities and thus urbanity levels, applying a methodology as yet unexplored by historiography.