Urban core as a centrality that expresses urban functions: Comparative study of the cities of Chapecó and Videira/SC

Abstract

According to Gordon Cullen (1988), cities can generate well-being and provide life facilities such as job offers, access to services and social interaction. They are attractive territories that intrinsically create fields of interactions and relationships in different scopes, intensities, ranges and complexities, which makes the understanding of the urban fact increasingly complex (THEMATICS). The west of Santa Catarina, as an object, consist of small and medium-sized urban structures poorly understood in their complexities (PROBLEM). Thus, the objective was to express and reveal the essence and importance of these in the urban network that they form, enabling the understanding of the urbanization process from the study of the central urban centers of the cities of Chapecó and Videira (OBJECTIVE). RENNER (2018) when studying the growth of cities, evidenced elements that explain the anatomy, identity, as well as the importance and relationships of each city, both in its own structure and in the network. The Urban Nucleus reveals, through its typology, circulation channels and vegetated spaces, the “heart” of these urban structures, as well as the elements that give meaning to their centrality (METHODOLOGY). The comparative study carried out between the cities of western Santa Catarina showed how the Urban Center reveals the structures of these networks and express their strength in the urban network that they form, helping in the macro understanding of the dynamics of the territory both by the urban inequalities that compose and by the socio-spatial segregation that ranks and differentiates them in terms of attractiveness and opportunities (RESULTS).

Keywords: urban nucleus, urban form, Chapecó, Videira.