2023-07-03 02:33:05
Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil
Capitals saw population shrink
The release of the first data from the 2022 Census this week by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) revealed that the cities of Salvador, Natal, Belém and Porto Alegre had population reductions above 5% in the last 12 years.
Although with smaller percentages, the number of residents in Belo Horizonte, Recife, Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro also shrunk in the period. At the same time, timid increases were recorded, below 2%, in São Paulo and Curitiba, signaling a reduction in the pace of population growth.
According to Ricardo Ojima, a researcher at the Department of Demography and Actuarial Sciences at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), not only in Brazil but throughout the world, there is a demographic movement characterized by the relocation of the population in the cities around the big cities. metropolises.
He cites the example of Salvador, which had a 9.6% loss in the number of residents, the most significant reduction among all capitals. Ricardo Ojima observes that previous censuses had already shown a very intense population growth in the municipalities surrounding the Bahian metropolis.
In the new edition, increases were detected in the populations of cities such as Lauro de Freitas and Camaçari. When Salvador is considered together with the surrounding municipalities, the total loss of the number of residents drops to 4.7%, well below the rate of 9.6% recorded in isolation by the capital of Bahia.
“This deconcentration of the population is a general trend in several capitals. This movement is observed in the country as a whole, especially in the South and Southeast, but also in other regions. growth? The attraction of the metropolitan region is no longer directed towards the headquarters. It is not just a movement of population leaving the capital of the headquarters to its surroundings. This also occurs. But people from smaller cities and other locations that previously migrated to a metropolitan region looking for headquarters, today they migrate and settle in the surroundings”, he observes.
Factors
Neighbors to Natal, São Gonçalo do Amarante and Parnamirim recorded population growth of over 20% in the last 12 years. In Belo Horizonte, the phenomenon is repeated. The population of the capital of Minas Gerais shrank by 2.5%. But when considering Belo Horizonte and all the cities around it, the number of residents grew by 4.4%. For the researcher, different factors explain this phenomenon.
“One of them is the issue of the cost of living in the metropolitan area, which is higher. Land prices are higher. As there is more infrastructure, there is an impact on real estate market prices. So there is the traditional peripheralization movement, with the low-income population looking for lower-cost locations, with lower-value housing. But there is also a movement of middle and high-income layers that are moving in search of closed horizontal condominiums in peripheral areas. And these condominiums expand in the surrounding cities because the capitals do not have land available for these developments”.
This movement cited by Ricardo Ojima was highlighted, in 2020, in a study by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV). Based on Federal Revenue data, the researchers involved mapped the cities with the highest average income per inhabitant.
At the top of the ranking was Nova Lima (MG), a municipality that experienced an intense growth in the number of luxury condominiums on the border with Belo Horizonte in the last decade. In second place, Santana do Parnaíba (SP) appeared, which has a similar characteristic and is about 40 minutes from the center of São Paulo.
Not by chance, according to the results of the 2022 Census, these two cities recorded high population growth. In Santana do Parnaíba, the increase was 41.6%.
Based on the data, the researchers analyzed lifestyles of the richest and observed that their presence as residents of a city contributes to boost local economic activities. “People with greater purchasing power choose places with better quality of life and do not just follow economic criteria. Especially because where high-income people live there is a job market for doctors, lawyers or liberal professionals in general”, they wrote.
The development of economic activities and services in the municipalities around the capitals is also highlighted by Ricardo Ojima as another factor of population attraction.
“It is something that is also related to a change in the standard model of dormitory towns. Before, the surrounding municipalities basically served as a place of residence and those who lived there commuted daily to work or study in the central areas. Today you have a complementarity . There is a development of economic activities and services in the municipalities surrounding the capitals. So there are new profiles of residents in addition to those who work or study in the metropolitan headquarters”.
Aging
In the view of FGV economist and researcher Marcelo Neri, flight from the capitals is also associated with an aging population. According to data from the 2022 Census, since the last census carried out in 2010, the Brazilian population has jumped by 12.3 million, reaching a total of 203 million. The result was well below estimates. The pace of population growth, calculated at 0.52% per year, slowed down earlier than IBGE’s own projections indicated.
“The main factor behind these data is the reduction in the fertility rate. In 1970, each woman had 5.8 children and today has less than two. On the other hand, there is an aging population and an increase in life expectancy This elderly population will still grow. This ends up generating a demographic pyramid more concentrated in the elderly population”, explains Neri.
According to him, when the population ages, there is an increase in demand for places considered more pleasant to live. He cites Balneário Camboriú, which saw its number of residents rise 4.28% since 2010. In the neighboring city Camboriú, the jump was 65.3%.
“If we look at the data, we see that the greatest population growth occurs in areas on the country’s agricultural frontier and also in more traditional places, as seen in Santa Catarina, in highly prosperous locations where there is already wealth. There is no new wealth being created. generated. Balneário Camboriú is an example. It is a city that has become a pole of attraction for the population, which shows that growth is often not motivated only by productive activity, but also by quality of life. It is an important element in this scenario of population aging”.
reverse movement
Not all the capitals registered a drop or a slight increase in the volume of residents. In an opposite movement, Manaus had a population growth of 14.5% in the last 12 years. There was an increase of 261,533 residents, the largest variation in the country in absolute numbers.
Robust growth rates, above 9%, were also observed for example in Brasília, João Pessoa and Boa Vista. In the Midwest, there was an increase of more than 10% in Goiânia, Campo Grande and Cuiabá. It is the only region in the country where all the state capitals had a population increase.
“These cities in the Midwest still have room for growth to take place. The advance of agribusiness is one of the drivers of this development in the region and ends up also attracting labor from other types of services. But it is important to point out that the advances of agribusiness are not necessarily in the capitals. So this growth is also due to other factors. But most likely, in the not too distant future, what is happening in other capitals in the country will happen there. The population will also start to head to surrounding municipalities”, evaluates Ricardo Ojima.
He also draws attention to the territorial issue. “Manaus is an example. Due to its size, it is able to accommodate new populations. Unlike other capitals that already have a territory limited by the surrounding municipalities. This is the case of Salvador. There is not much else for the population to go in the most periphery of the Bahian capital and so the population overflows to the neighboring cities. In Belém, it is the same thing. The capital of Pará is compressed and there is this overflow to the surrounding municipalities. And there is a significant growth, for example, of Ananindeua “.
macrocephalic region
Geographer Marcos Castro de Lima, a researcher at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), draws attention to particular aspects of the growth of the Amazonian capital that give it a high power of attraction.
“It is the westernmost metropolis in Brazil. If we look at the map, it is the metropolis farthest from any other metropolis. This means that it has command of the entire urban network in the western Amazon, which involves other states in the region. . To give you an idea, Manaus exceeds 2 million inhabitants while the second city in Amazonas exceeds a little more than 100 thousand. So you have what we call in urban geography a macrocephalic region: a large metropolis commands the actions in smaller cities “.
He compares the situation in Manaus with that of Belém, which recorded a 6.5% drop in its population. “The state of Pará has a less concentrated and more distributed population: it has the metropolitan region of Belém, it has the region of the iron complex of Carajás and it has the Tapajós region referenced in the city of Santarém. They are different cities that represent important axes of dynamics urban areas. And this has repercussions on this process. There was first a stagnation of population growth in Belém and now a decrease. While Manaus is only growing. Until 1980, Belém was the main and most populous metropolis in the Amazon. But since the 1991 Census, Manaus It’s getting further and further away.”
According to the geographer, two variables explain the growth of Manaus. One of them is the birth rate above the average of the rest of the country. The other is migration.
“Manaus is a metropolis that has a high migratory volume, largely due to its industrial park where a very large volume of companies are installed. The city has a very cosmopolitan population, as it attracts not only people from the interior of Amazonas, but also people who came from other states and other countries”.
For the researcher, population growth is not influenced by deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon rainforest. According to him, the Amazon still has an occupation and urbanization still very influenced by the rivers, which curbs the arrival of enterprises that devastate the environment.
“We don’t have a very developed road network. The only road we have in relation to the rest of Brazil is the BR-319, whose middle section is somewhat precarious and does not allow for continuous circulation. So I assess that there is no a relationship with deforestation. What actually contributes to population growth is the Industrial Pole of Manaus. Deforestation occurs in the Amazon, it has arrived a little in the south of the state, but it is not as expressive as in the eastern Amazon”.
* collaborated with Tâmara Freire, reporter for Rádio Nacional in Rio de Janeiro
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