| Summary: | The objective of this article is to understand the fragmentation of the territory from a political-administrative perspective and the dynamics of the formation of cities in Rio Grande do Norte and, therefore, show the urban that presents itself as a result of this fragmentation. The article is based on the idea that the territory of the Potiguar fragmented under the influence of two well-defined dynamics: one related to traditional economies such as sugar cane, livestock and agriculture; and another politic, articulated to the interests of oligarchies and local political groups that used the process of creating municipalities to establish their electoral territories. The reflections exposed in the text resulted from the dialogue undertaken with the bibliography related to the topic, as well as authors who discuss the reality of the RN and the result of research that we carry out in the context of the academy. The results of the research showed that the process of fragmentation of the territory supported by the indicated vectors produced a diverse urban network, marked by the presence of an expressive number of cities with less than twenty thousand inhabitants, of few cities with intermediate functions that assume important roles In the urban-regional context, and the presence of two urban-regional centralities represented by Natal, the capital of the RN and by Mossoró the second largest city, located in the west of the state. However, this configuration of the potiguar urban network did not inhibit the emergence of an urban reality that, through developed social and spatial practices, articulates with the reproduction of the contemporary world as totality.
|
|---|