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Result of cooperation between Nepo
and Nesur, atlas allows qualified reading of RMC problems

Um atlas that promotes the spatial distribution of demographic, economic data and social issues relating to the Metropolitan Region of Campinas (RMC) has just been designed jointly by the Population Study Center (Nepo) and the Internal Center for Urban and Regional Social Economy (Nesur), both from Unicamp. The objective of the work, the first concrete result of a broader research that the two bodies intend to carry out on the RMC, is to offer an auxiliary planning tool for the institutions and people responsible for the destiny of the young political-administrative instance, formed by 19 municipalities and a contingent of 2,3 million people. By reading maps and graphs, according to the authors, it is possible to understand that several of the problems dealt with only at the local level are, in fact, of a regional nature. “The atlas clearly shows the points of complementarity between cities. This finding opens up perspectives for the organization of a set of interactions from the metropolitan space, with the goal of better ordering of the MRC”, says professor José Marcos Pinto da Cunha, coordinator of Nepo and one of the study's executors.

To design the atlas, researchers from Nepo and Nesur basically used data from the 1991 and 2000 censuses, carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Demographic, economic and social indicators were spatialized using the urban area as a reference, generated from satellite images. This was superimposed on the RMC map, in order to delimit the areas that concentrate positive and negative aspects, as well as those that indicate the interaction between the municipalities. “When we look at the various maps generated by this methodology, we realize that the problems do not respect municipal borders, that is, they take on a metropolitan dimension. Therefore, it is clear that they cannot continue to be faced only from a local perspective and effort”, explains professor José Marcos.

According to Unicamp experts, by spatially distributing the information, the atlas allows a more qualified reading of the reality of the Metropolitan Region, given that cities do not have a harmonious development. “Through this technique, we were able to create a gradient of the RMC situation, as if it were a continuous surface”, explains Áurea Davanzo, researcher at Nesur. This scenario becomes clearer when observed, for example, the maps that display the income and education conditions of family heads. Both reveal the existence of what the authors of the work classified as “mountains of wealth and poverty”.

According to the researchers, it is possible to perceive the direct relationship between income and education, in terms of spatial location. Thus, the axis formed by the areas of Campinas, Valinhos and Vinhedo (the mountain range of wealth) is the one with the highest concentration of heads of families with an income above 10 minimum wages and with 12 years of study or more. The axis that goes in the opposite direction, made up of neighborhoods of Campinas, Hortolândia and Sumaré (poverty mountain range), has high proportions of heads of households with no or low education and income. In the opinion of Maria Conceição Silvério, also a researcher at Nesur, the atlas could prove to be a very useful tool for public managers.

She recalls that, currently, both city halls and metropolitan bodies have difficulty in making a more accurate reading of data on the RMC. “I believe that the spatialization of information and the comparison between the periods of 1991 and 2000 will facilitate the understanding of the problems common to municipalities, and may even help in defining a regional agenda”, she imagines. “The atlas, in our opinion, is a provocation for us to stop thinking about isolated solutions and reflect on regional alternatives. The focus, more than ever, should no longer be the citizen of Campinas, for example, but rather the metropolitan citizen”, adds professor José Marcos, for whom the RMC situation is still “manageable”.

According to the Nepo coordinator, the atlas will be publicly released in the coming weeks. The material will not be published in book form, at least initially. The idea, he says, is to distribute the product on CDs and publish the content on the pages of Nepo (www.unicamp.br/nepo) and the Institute of Economics (www.eco.unicamp.br). Professor José Marcos highlights that this work is the first result of a broader research that Nepo and Nesur intend to develop on the Metropolitan Region of Campinas, entitled “Intrametropolitan Dynamics and Socio-Demographic Vulnerability in the Metropolises of the Interior of São Paulo: Campinas and Santos ”. The request for financing the study is being analyzed by Fapesp, but the professor states that he is optimistic about its release.

“While the money doesn't come out, we're doing what we can, with the resources already available. The atlas on RMC, for example, was designed with money obtained from CNPq, as well as Nesur's own resources. In the coming months, we hope to also create an atlas for the Metropolitan Region of Santos”, he adds. The Nepo coordinator also states that the broader study on São Paulo's metropolises will analyze the vulnerability of these areas not only from the perspective of poverty. “There are other elements that can contribute to greater or lesser vulnerability of families in the metropolitan space, such as the job market, environmental issues, etc.”, he points out. The intention, according to him, is to add other indicators to the study in addition to those provided by the IBGE census, in order to build a qualified database. “Afterwards, the possibility of creating a kind of Metropolis Observatory is open, including with the participation of other groups interested in the subject”.

For the coordinator of Nesur, professor Rinaldo Barcia Fonseca, the cooperation between the two Unicamp bodies, which has always existed and is now deepened, expands the University's capacity to think about RMC. “The atlas is the first result of this joint effort to gather and process information about the Metropolitan Region, using new spatial representation techniques. This information, in addition to supporting academic reflection on what we could call 'the metropolitan issue', can greatly help public managers when designing policies to deal with what the law creating the RMC called 'public functions of common interest' ”.