Capitalism and Urban Morphology over a long time period: Rio de Janeiro (18th to 21st Century)

Abstract

There is a long tradition on the study of the Latin-American city which establishes that its urban morphologies have always presented structural differences when compared to those of Europe and the USA. This work questions such tradition by considering that Brazil, since the colony period, is part of the global capitalist system and that the production of the urban space responds to the demands of such system in its different stages. Taking Rio de Janeiro as example, this work aims to demonstrate that since 18th century up to the present the evolution of the carioca urban morphology followed and reproduced, with different levels of intensity and temporal lags, the same morphological patterns and regulation criteria of the central capitalism cities.