Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística

About the publication - 2017

Intra-urban Typology: Spaces of socioeconomic differentiation in the Urban Concentrations in Brazil portrays the diversity of population’s  living conditions. Aware of the need for deepening our knowledge on the ways the internal structure of the cities is organized, the IBGE presents some results obtained in more details than that of municipalities. This effort contributes to the urban planning made by national institutions and expands the communication with international organizations dedicated to the transformation of urban spaces in a sustainable way.

The adopted methodology in its elaboration was based on successive analyses of thematic groups related to housing adequacy and socioeconomic conditions of the population, in the 63 largest Urban Concentrations in the Country (more than 300 thousand residents), as well as the cities of Palmas and Boa Vista, which are the capitals of the states of Tocantins and Roraima, respectively.  A total 435 municipalities, with more than 96 million residents, or 50.4% of the Brazil population in that year, according to the 2010 Census, were analyzed.

The results enabled the creation of 11 intra-urban types that represent the diversity of the residents’  living conditions in the urban  tissue of our cities. The analysis of data was made in four dimensions: the first one differentiates each intra-urban type from its respective subtypes; the second discusses  the distribution of types at national scale and in the Major Regions of the country; the third identifies some frame patterns of living conditions associated with the urban shape that characterizes them; and, lastly, the fourth one  gathers the Urban Concentrations that have the same population size in accordance with the population distribution  by intra-urban types.

This publication concludes a series of studies about the levels of urbanization designed by the IBGE. This publication introduces the main conceptual points, the methodology employed and  the analyses conducted. A collection of appendixes at the end of the publication, with illustrated maps, tables, graphics and charts completes its content.