Medium-Sized Cities, Gated Communities, and Urban Legislation: Reflections from Campina Grande/PB and Mossoró/RN

Abstract

This article focuses on investigating the influence of urban legislation on the reconfiguration process of the Brazilian urban periphery in the 21st century, using the establishment of gated communities in the medium-sized cities of Campina Grande and Mossoró as a reference. The methodological procedures included: bibliographic research; data and/or information collection from municipal governments; environmental licenses issued by the Secretariat of Urban Services and Environment of Campina Grande; laws and decrees published in the Mossoró Official Journal (JOM) and the Mossoró Official Gazette (DOM); as well as data systematization using maps and tables; and data analysis. The obtained data demonstrate the intrinsic relationship between municipal urban legislation and the new content of the urban periphery, highlighting the contradictions of its neoliberal content in the flexibilization of urban expansion processes and revealing the specificities of the urban policy instrument – the urban perimeter – in the analyzed medium-sized cities.