A DIVIDED CITY: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FORMATION OF THE TERRITORY OF BELO HORIZONTE AND THE DECHARACTERIZATION OF THE CITY OF SANTA LUZIA-MG

A relação entre a formação do território de Belo Horizonte e a descaracterização da cidade de Santa Luzia-MG

Abstract

Abstract: This theoretical review analyzes the process of formation and expansion of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (RMBH), highlighting how socio-spatial segregation has constituted a structuring element in the production of urban space since the genesis of the capital of Minas Gerais. The founding of Belo Horizonte, conceived under republican and modernist ideals, was based on an exclusionary project that privileged the political and economic elites, displacing the low-income population to peripheral areas. This segregating logic was reproduced and intensified throughout the 20th century, especially with the industrialization and institutionalization of the RMBH in the decades from 1940 to 1970, when housing policies such as those of the National Housing Bank (BNH) consolidated the expulsion of the popular classes to the urban fringes. In the contemporary context, the expansion to the northern axis of the capital and the implementation of large urban projects—such as the Linha Verde (Green Line) and the Cidade Administrativa (Administrative City)—have reaffirmed this dynamic, boosting real estate appreciation and territorial fragmentation. The case of Santa Luzia exemplifies this process: the district of São Benedito, formed mostly by migrants, has become a space marked by the absence of local identity and socioeconomic dependence on Belo Horizonte. The city, of historical and imperial origin, suffers cultural erasure as it is incorporated into the capitalist metropolitan logic. Thus, the research shows that Belo Horizonte, by reproducing its model of segregation, extends its influence and dominance over the surrounding cities, transforming them into peripheral extensions of its own urban territory.