Digital cities and spatial justice

Digital cities and spatial justice

Editors Antonio Angelo Martins da Fonseca Antonio Puentes Brais Estévez Vilariño

2017

Layout Xosé Lois Piñeira

Design Karén Manukyan

Print Tórculo Artes Graficas S.A.

ISBN 978-84-697-4984-5

Índice Wayne D.K. Davies Urban social justice guidelines in illiberal times........................................................ 11 Julio C. Pedrassoli Urban expansion and housing in equality in São Paulo. Metropolotian regions in the last 30 Years and approach rrom cartography and remote sensinng .........................25 Reinaldo Pérez Machado and Julio C. Pedrassoli Remote sensing application to identify and analize slums over the São Paulo Metropolitan Area............................................................................................................... 41 Alejandro López González and María José Piñeira Mantiñán Urban decline and deindustralization: Experiences in Spain .................................... 59 Ángel Miramontes Carballada The urban population of southern Europe in the first decade of the XXI century. The cases of Spain and Portugal ........................................................................................ 83 Cleonice Moreira da Silva and Antonio Angelo Martins da Fonseca Contexts and contents of recent metropolization in Brazil since the creation of the Metropolitan Region of Feira de Santana ................................................................. 103 Maria da Paz de Jesus Rodrigues and Maria José Piñeira Mantiñán The habitable politics and the production of the urban area in the small cities of the Território de Identidade do Sisal................................................................................117 Anne Péné-Annete , Sébastia Gadal and Jūratė Kamičaitytė-Virbašienė Pioneering cities of mining: Comparison of the Eastern Venezuela and Eastern Siberia ................................................................................................................................ 135

Pioneering cities of mining: Comparison of the Eastern Venezuela and Eastern Siberia Anne Péné-Annete Kaunas University Sébastien Gadal Aix-Marseille Université Jūratė Kamičaitytė-Virbašienė Kaunas University

Abstract The development of the mine, gas and oil extraction in the Eastern Venezuela (Oriente and Guayana regions) and the Far Eastern (Oriental Siberia) is characterized by the emergence of pioneer small and medium cities during the last fifty years and an emerging process of metropolisation since 2000 (Yakutsk, Ciudad Guayana). In Eastern Venezuela, the urbanization is partially planned, generally “spontaneous”. In Yakutia, dynamics of urbanization is planned. In the both cases, urban dynamics is driven by the exploitation of the natural resources and the immigration. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, some mining towns disappeared in the 1990 and 2000. Since the beginning of the 2010’s mining urban regions are under a double process of territorial integration with Russian Europe and Asia. In Venezuela, small and medium sized cities are growing with the emergence of new mining territories and the exploitation of the Orinoco Belt (extra heavy oil). This article analyses the main territorial dynamics of these small and medium sized cities.

1. Introduction Research in geography on small and medium-sized cities, particularly in Europe, concerning European territories or territories of developing countries, was renewed in recent years (Gadal, 2014). They are based in particular on geo-quantitative approaches with the use of socio-demographic and economic databases; and specific criteria for each country and institution. Based on specific statistical thresholds for each country, multiple definitions of the small and medium-sized city can be chosen with reference to a combination of geographical criteria such as

135

Pioneering cities of mining: Comparison of the Eastern Venezuela and Eastern Siberia

demographic weight, local centre function radiating over a “small region”, urban morphology - through the types of habitat - concentration of shops, elements of urban cultural life, etc. (Moriconi-Ebrard and Pumain, 1997; Rozenblat, 2007). Small and medium-sized cities act as local and regional centres. The area served by the town generally corresponds to a region smaller than the medium city. So, the small town - the instigator of economic development of “small area” - serves as a link between the agricultural territories and the medium city, how-much better equipped, serves a larger population, ensuring an intermediation role in the urban hierarchy (Desmarais, 1984). The concentration of goods and services gives people a better living environment. The development of the mine, gas and oil extraction in the Eastern Venezuela (Oriente and Guayana regions) and the Far Eastern (Oriental Siberia) is characterized by the emergence of pioneer small and medium cities during the last fifty years and an emerging process of metropolisation since 2000. This article analyses the main territorial dynamics of these small and medium sized cities.

2. Is there a specificity of mining cities? In the case of cities arising from mining (minerals, gold, silver, diamonds, hydrocarbons) in developing countries, and some become heavy industrial cities, the theoretical foundations presented above are valid also (Bairoch, 1985). However, dynamics related to further integration, often brutal, to globalization (and its hazards) also overlap. Thus, because of the very high dependence of mining and energy activities in global commodity prices, the actors in the governance of small and medium towns are caught up in the economic mechanisms that they don’t control or, conversely, may find themselves blocked. Furthermore, uncontrolled urban growth in Venezuela is accentuated due to the influx of migrant population, attracted by a new “The Golden” (“El Dorado”) from Brazil and Guyana; or conversely by processes of de-urbanization and metropolisation with the closing

136


of mines and the integration of these territories to the globalized regions inside the Federal space in Russia and Asia (China and South-Korea). If the flux of mine and construction’s workers from Caucasus (Armenia) and Central Asia is controlled in Yakutia, central Asiatic and South Siberian illegal migrations are growing. If the mining urban lands are integrated to the metropolised territories at the federal level, they are territorially and societally disconnected of the oblast or Republic structuring the space at the local and regional levels in “globalized alien urban colonies” spots. In this context, the central or federal government has to share and negotiate the development role (if any) with other actors - local authorities at all levels, public and private companies coveting these new frontiers. Local elected officials, but also an important associative body in Venezuela, and called informal sector representatives, may be in a posture of defiance towards the public and private power, yet with an institutional legitimacy in urban production. So, the choice of voluntarist public policy in mining and hydrocarbon regions, whether with the Soviet legacy or with the voluntary planning of Bolivarian socialism, has a major impact on the dynamics of urban growth. In Russia, as in the Republic of Yakutia the state and local authorities have a percentage of the mining companies, mining territories are controlled by the extracting enterprises like Alrossa in Mirny. “Globalized alien urban colonies” are co-managed with the local authorities and the mining industry.

3. What are emerging urban and territorial structures in mining cities? The main issues focus on the formation of specific urban networks in the energy and mining areas in developing countries. Are these networks characterized by the dynamic of polycentric structure or otherwise metropolisation? It is also questionable whether there are specific urban networks in energetic-industrial pioneer fronts. In other words, how can the knowledge about the process of

137


urbanization of the old industrialized countries from the First Industrial Revolution help to analyze the characteristics of urban growth in the current frontier areas in developing countries? Is it still relevant to analyze the current urban dynamics of the pioneering energy-industrial fronts, distinguishing between those in the developing countries and those in the formerly industrialized regions? Figure 1. Urban growth and urban network of the Great Eastern of Venezuela

Source: Les pôles de développement du Grand Est du Venezuela, PhD memory of Geography, 2011,University Paris 3 Sorbonne, p. 145. Translated legend : Urban framework (armature urbaine) ; Urban growth rate (taux de croissance urbaine 1990-2001) ; Regional sub-networks (Sous-réseaux régionaux) ; North eastern and caribbean network (réseau nord oriental et caraïbe) ; network of the eastern Llanos (réseau des Llanos orientaux) ; Guayana network (réseau guyanais) ; Connection within the network and between networks (connexion au sein du réseau et entre les réseaux)

138


The small and medium-sized cities of the pioneering energy-industrial front of the Greater East of Venezuela (Orinoco Belt, Mining Arch, Guayana) illustrate the question, as well as the mining cities of the Far Eastern in Yakutia (Oriental Siberia). They form an undeveloped urban network, compared to the rest of Venezuela or Central Siberia. The two most important metropolises of the regional urban network, Ciudad Guayana and Barcelona-Puerto-la-Cruz, polarize the urban network of the Greater East, being 6th and 7th according to the urban hierarchy according to the demographic weight (Fig. 1).

4. Geo-demographic and geospatial analysis of the territories of pioneering cities of mining The analysis of territorial and urban structures and dynamics is based on field observation, demographic statistical data, cartographic series (Gadal et al., 2016), as well as on GIS and remote sensing approaches through a diachronic study of urban growth in pioneering fronts (Examples from the Greater East of Venezuela and Yakutia in Eastern Siberia). This approach makes it possible to elucidate elements of response on the characteristics of polycentric territorial structures and of metropolisation. At the turn of the century, the metropolisation process is less developed in Venezuela than in other more metropolised countries of Latin America - Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. On the scale of Venezuela over the last twenty years, the development of polycentrism is done at the expense of Caracas and relatives satellite towns. Since the 1990s a new regional metropolisation stage begins where the cities of Greater East Venezuela emerge - Barcelona-Puerto la Cruz, Ciudad Bolívar and Ciudad Guayana - because of the new period of the boom in mining (gold, diamonds, etc.) and the energy (extra heavy oil, conventional oil, gas) frontier. Three subsets of small towns and medium cities seem to constitute the armature of a polycentric frontier. As they were studied, it is possible to analyses the emergence

139


of “intermediate city” [in the French case, between the medium city (urban area between 20 000 and 200 000 inhabitants) and the big city (urban area exceeds 500 000 inhabitants)] that allows to qualify the analysis under polycentric structure and metropolisation. « Intermediate cities can be defined as an “in-between functional”: they generally occupy a secondary position in the urban system in which they fit and have important strategic functions without holding the role of regional metropolis. » (Deraëve, 2015). In the case of Yakutia, there is an emerging process of metropolisation centered on Yakutsk with the emergence of an urban network of small towns and villages along the river Lena for one hundred kilometers. Mining towns in the Arctic region and central Yakutia have undergone a massive process of de-urbanization in contrast to others (South, West and North-East of the Sakha Republic). Their development depends on the extraction of natural resources: diamonds, gold, silver, graphite, coal, etc. Figure 2. Urban growth of Yakutsk region (1973-1992-2000-2005-2012).

Source: Landsat 1, 5 and 7 series, USGS, S. Gadal, CNRS ESPACE UMR 7300

140


Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), alone accounts for 34% of the total population of the Republic, with 311000 inhabitants in a territory five times larger than France. The city of Yakutsk expended from 108000 inhabitants in 1970 to 311000 in 2017 (urban growth from 1973 to 2012, Fig. 2). DMSP remote sensing analyze of urban changes of the region of Yakutsk among 1992 and 2013 shows a process of urban densification of the small and medium towns, an emerging North-South urban corridor within the Lena River as well as to the East-West (Fig. 3). Figure 3. Urban structure change in Yakutsk and Central Yakutia: 1992-2010.

Source: DMPS F10-F18 series, NOAA, S. Gadal, CNRS ESPACE UMR 7300

5. Conclusion The comparison between two mining regions in two continents with different climatic and geological conditions makes it possible to question territorial dynamics linked to globalization over the last thirty years, which are characterized in particular by the establishment of transnational mining companies in different regions rich in minerals. In addition, Far Eastern Siberia and the Greater Eastern Venezuela are each part of a national State, which in some ways, over the last fifty years, has valued and continues to value mining as part of planning territorial government.

141


In this context, the dynamics of formation of networks of medium size and small towns in these regions of pioneer fronts (it is still difficult to access and away from the major axes of territorial development) highlights unique and original processes of urbanization or de-urbanization, as well as those of metropolisation, both in the Greater East of Venezuela and in the Far East of Eastern Siberia.

6. Acknowledgement This research is supported by : For the Eastern Siberia, the ANR-15-CE22-0006 PUR (Polar Urban Centers) and the RSF n° 15-18-20047 Landscape Ontology: Semantics, Semiotics, and Geographic Modeling. For the Eastern Venezuela, the research program “The territories of the city, in the archipelago of the West Indies and the Guiana Shield : spaces, societies and relations (from the 16th to the 21 st century), EA 929-AIHP GEODE, University of French West Indies.

7. References BAIROCH, P. (1985). De Jéricho à Mexico. Villes et économie dans l’histoire. Gallimard: Paris. DERAËVE S. (2015). “Les villes intermédiaires françaises face aux mutations des systèmes productifs : enjeux et stratégies territoriales. Les territoires français à l’épreuve des mutations industrielles, BAGF, 525-536. GADAL S. (2014). “Le rôle moteur des petites villes dans la constitution des territoires métropolisés (entre les années 1970 et aujourd’hui) ”. In BONIDEAU T. & LAMARRE C. (Eds). Capitales ou villes d’appui ? Les petites villes et leurs campagnes du Moyen-Âge au XXIe siècle. Éditions universitaires de Dijon: Dijon.

142


GADAL, S., EYRAUD F. & PRISYAZHNIY M. (2016). “Post-soviet geo-demographic dynamics and metropolisation processes in the Republic of Sakha (Russian Federation)”. Arctic XXIe, Vol. 7, n° 1, 4-17. MANZAGOL C. (2003). Villes moyennes et mondialisation : renouvellement de l’analyse et des stratégies. Editions Trames: Montréal. MORICONI-EBRARD, F. (1993). L’urbanisation du monde depuis 1950. Editions Anthropos, collection Villes: Paris. MORICONI-EBRARD, F & PUMAIN, D. (1997). “City size distributions and metropolisation”. GeoJournal, n° 43, 307-314. PÉNÉ-ANNETTE, A. (2016). “La relance de l’extraction minière dans la Guyane vénézuélienne ?”. IdeAs, Idées d’Amérique, 8. [Available in : http://ideas.revues. org/1807]. PÉNÉ-ANNETTE, A. ; PIRELA A. & RAMOUSSE D. (2012). “El Proyecto Socialista Orinoco : un nuevo territorio vinculado a la explotación petrolera en Venezuela”. Cuadernos del Cendes, n° 80, 1-45. [Available in http://saber.ucv.ve/ ojs/index.php/rev_cc/article/view/3635]. PÉNÉ-ANNETTE, A. (2011). Les pôles de développement du Grand Est du Venezuela. Développement régional et urbain de l’Oriente et de la Guyane vénézuélienne. PhD Geography and urban planning. - UMR-CREDA Paris 3-Sorbonne la Nouvelle. ROZENBLAT, C. (2007). “Villes et réseaux “petits-mondes”. In DA CUNHA A., & MATTHEY L. (Eds). La ville et l’urbain : des savoirs émergents. Editions polytechniques et universitaires romandes: Lausanne. Pp. 81-104.

143