O território e a forma urbana : o papel do suporte físico natural na conformação das cidades novas planejadas do norte do Paraná

Abstract

Based on the urban morphology, this work investigates to what extent the territory, as natural support, was considered in the layout of new towns in northern Paraná. Many planned new towns were founded in that region in the mid-twentieth century as part of a process of land speculation, setting up an intense urban network. As a rule, new towns planned by private colonization companies depict orthogonal standardized layouts drawing very little attention to environmental, spatial and aesthetic issues. However, as shown in this work, different urban conformations can be found in northern Paraná planned new towns, which means that the planning strategy favored environmental issues, despite the commercial nature of the enterprise. Thus the shape and layout of 72 planned cities were analyzed. This analysis led to grouping these towns into four categories: regular shape and regular pattern; regular shape and irregular pattern; irregular shape and regular pattern; and irregular shape and pattern. In contrasting these conformations with the local topography, it was noted that the irregularity of these conformations resulted from adaptation to geographical circumstances. Basically, regular shapes were built when the site was flatter. Moreover, it was noted that the analyzed layouts have in general considerable aesthetic arrangements.