The book "Escalas da Diversidade Intraurbana" (Scales of Intra-Urban Diversity)is aimed at learning the effects of scale upon understanding intra-urban sociospatial diversity. In order to attain this objective, the study was broken down into six parts. In the first four, a theoretical approach towards intra–urban models is developed, considering their principles and methods of manipulating spatial data. In the last two, an impirical investigation of the sociospatial diversity of the city of Recife is carried out at different periods and on different scales. In the first part, we seek to address the main intra-urban models that have been used to describe sociospatial patterns considering a single scale of analysis. In the second, we seek to investigate the methods that have been applied for the representation of intra-urban structure. In the third, methods of spatial data analysis are adopted that are based on the hypotheses of self-correlation of geostatistics and self-similarity to the fractal theory. In the fourth, multiscale intra-urban models based on the hypothesis of spatial self-organization are analysed. In the fifth, an historical background to the main actions, plans and information adopted with the aim of controlling and understanding Recife’s sociospatial diversity is studied. In the sixth and final part, we demonstrate how this diversity may be learnt on various scales from the development of a methodology using census data and satellite images. The recomposition of the input developed in each of these parts permits the conclusion that the Recife’s social patterns are spatially dependent and manifested on many scales, there being a tendency for areas with better living conditions in the city to remain smaller and more grouped when analysed on a single scale, and more disperse, when analysed on larger scales.
"This book stands out, at the same time, for its theoretical deep and methodological rigour, intrisic qualities of the homonimous thesis (which I had the honour to be a member of the examination board) and the characteristics of the author as a researcher. At the same time, it preserves the necessary didatic posture, which anables the almost natural conversion of the thesis into a book of public interest that will welcome those (academics or not) attracted for the mutiple faces of the social and urban diversity, and its physical and spatial effects in cities, particularly in Recife. The first part of the book synthetizes, in a descriptive and dissertative manner, the theories and representation (idealization) models of the cities, preparing the readers to a precise diving into the reality of a city whose socio-spatial diversity is at the same time its richness and historical problem. The theoretical synthesis of the four initial precised and well referenced chapters discusses about a still little known issue which has been revealed little by little on urban studies, based on the recognition of the complexity, descentralization, non-linearity, and multiplicity of city scales as a phenomenon and object of study. This initial theoretical rigour added to the dissertative rigour and analytical precision at the final part of the book is translated into a work which already occupies an enhanced place on the contemporary thinking about the urban development in Brazil."
Dr. Fabiano Sobreira, professor UNICEUB.
"The city is the greatest and most complex human artefact. It is a expression of economic forces; it is a product of empirical sciences; but also it is locus of the social living and interaction. It is not possible to syncronically understand all social processes that operate inside it; neither those that constitute the relation between closer and remote urban spaces. Maybe this is one of the reason why the urban object interests so many knowledge fields and being permited the required integration of researchers from different scientific and artistic underground. Mauro Normando Macêdo Barros Filho is one of these researchers who investigate this fantastic human creation through a multidisciplinary prism, searching for new questions that reveal new answers (or new answers to reveal new questions)in order to comprehend much better its socio-spatial dynamics. He arguments that studies based on multiscale models permit a much better identification, representation, description, and analysis of urban phenomena, in particular they help on the understanding of the dynamics in diacronic studies and the sociospatial intra-urban diversity. This book should attract students and researchers who search for new question or answers (or new answers and questions) about the city. Here they will find approaches and analytical procedures to enrich their understandings."
Dr. Luiz Amorim, professor UFPE.
The book has 340 pages, 65 illustrations,34 graphs, and 16 tables. It was written in Portuguese and is available on Brazilian bookshops such as Livraria Cultura, Livraria Imperatriz , and Livraria Jaqueira. For more information about how to purchase it please contact me by email.
