Browsing 2016 - 4th WPSC "Global crisis, planning & challenges to spatial justice in the North and in the South", Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Јuly 3-8th by Author "Alcantara, Denise de"
Major changes have affected Rio de Janeiro’s metropolitan periphery in recent years since Brazilian federal programs for the acceleration of growth (PAC 1 e 2) were launched (2007-2011) with large public investments in transportation, energy, urban infrastructure, and social housing. The Metropolitan Ring Road (Arco Metropolitano) inaugurated in 2014 is one of them and connects important future economic growth poles: the petrochemical complex, to the East; and an expanding hub port complex at Sepetiba bay, at the westernmost side. The ring road, supposedly, will bring economic development along its route through the impacted municipalities, cutting through either dense and poor peripheral settlements, or not yet occupied or urbanized areas, including farmland, forested parks and even a conservation unit consisting of a large mangrove swamp preserve in Guanabara Bay called APA Guapimirim.
This article addresses the impacts caused by the ring road and other public and private investments and how they influence land use and occupation of the urban and peri-urban open space systems of Rio’s metro region in its westernmost side, encompassing the Sepetiba sedimentary basin, with more than 85% of the territory consisting of land not yet occupied or urbanized. The pressure of global interests are forcing the once rural character of the territory to transition into a block of land for speculation and profit, due to the increase in land values and its likelihood for urbanization, a situation that is occurring across the metro region as a whole.