All rights reservedRebeca Maria Ramos Tabosa1,Ribeiro da Silveira, José AugustoSilva, Milena Dutra da2024-10-232024-10-232016978-85-7785-551-1https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/2104Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southHistorically, urban development in Brazil was marked by a socio-spatial inequalities accumulation process and the adoption of public policies that structured a center - periphery urban expansion model responsible for continuous displacement of urban sprawl into rural areas, semirural and natural spaces. It is observed that the last decades have seen a topping urban growth, with a form of anomalous structure which shows the fragmentation and mix of urban territories and "semi-rural" territories, which features real growths in the urban area. In this sense, Joao Pessoa, capital of Paraiba, located in north-eastern Brazil, considered medium-sized city, with a population of about 791,438 inhabitants (IBGE, 2015), has an accelerated urban expansion and suffers intense processes of use and occupation ground modification, with infrastructural disability and low levels of urban provisions in the "new spaces" added to the city. This scenario raises questions about the quality of urban life offered to the population living in the urban edges, making it necessary diagnose and measure this quality of urban life, with a purpose to make decisions within the urban and environmental planning to this dynamic and dispersed space. Investigate the dynamics of urban expansion present in medium-sized cities, besides providing the understanding of local and regional processes and phenomena, also provides a comparative understanding of global processes, given the significant role played by these cities to the current global urbanization, to be continued even for decades in the future.EnglishopenAccessconferenceObject909-914