From the frontier to the metropolitan environment: particularities of Amazon medium cities -Altamira and Castanhal in the State of Pará

Abstract

The diversity of the realities represented by medium-sized cities requires the recognition of the particularities of these urban centers and their regional articulations, especially when taking into account thedifferences between the Brazilian macro-regions, as is the case of Amazonia in relation to the rest of the country. In this sense, the problem arises from that research, delimited by the following questions: how are the cities of Castanhal and Altamira characterized in terms of their spatial situations, urban structures and regional articulations? And how do these urban centers, from their particularities, stand before all medium-sized cities? From the development of methodological procedures such as bibliographical and documentary surveys and field work, it can be seen that the analysis of the cities of Castanhal and Altamira, in the State of Pará reveals how indispensable it is to consider regional Amazonian particularities in the search for recognition of medium-sized cities from their roles in the urban network. In addition, it also shows that even in the case of a macro-regional context common to two cities, their particularities continue to impose themselves, which led, in the present analysis, to the admission of Castanhal as a medium-sized city of metropolitan surroundings and Altamira as at the Amazon frontier.