Middle-Sized Cities: a Perspective Through the Commuting

Abstract

Among other aspects, the middle-sized cities are characterized by the importance of their urban functions, and as a consequence, by the roles they play at the regional level. Such centers exert a strong attraction over their surroundings because of their large offers of work, trade activities and specialized services. Considering this background, this article brings an analysis about the commuting, taking as a basis the data from the sample of 2000 and 2010 of the population census, provided by IBGE. Six middle-sized cities in the states of Sao Paulo and Parana have been analyzed. The results show that the urban network, even in the interior of the country, has become progressively more complex regarding to the commuting among cities. The increasing concentration of economic activities in major cities has enhanced changes on people's lifestyle, resulting in an increase of the flows that converges on them, but more than that, setting up a complex scenario of spatial interactions.