As identidades do território invisível - paisagens de Valongo "entre serras"

Abstract

The majority of humankind currently lives in fragmented urban territories. In general, these have been developing since the 19th century industrial revolution, leaving behind the canonic city and its organization models determined by criteria of relevance. These territories broadly consist of expanded existing centers, emerging new centralities, and coalescing built nuclei, which engulf unbuilt farmland and forest areas within the urban grid, challenging acquired basic notions of spacion al perception. In recent decades many studies have focused on the understanding of urban spread and densification on phenomena. However, very few have paid attentio to interstitial urban areas or those that fi t poorly such concepts as catalysis or enhancement potention al. In such territories, each fragment consists of an autonomous unit that interacts insuffi ciently with the whole due to unfamiliarity or withdrawal from the bustling areas, triggered whether by their location or by inadequate service provision. Inhabiting these territories presupposes fast displacements between outlying points, distorting the perception of spatial relations, and forging a vague knowledge of local structures. Altogether this makes those interstion al areas unknown. Likewise, the de-ruralization and the underlying socioeconomic changes of earlier rural areas (that are now part of the urban territory), still generates a certain degree of incomprehension when confronting the organization of society and such spation al materialization. The convergence of these factors nurtures misperceptions or misunderstandings that translate as illegibility in the ways of regarding the physical dimension of contemporary urbanity. The least known areas of the territory, possibly misunderstood in their miscegenation on of rural and urban elements, lacking polarization on ability for their defi cient service provision, remain marginalized. These areas, to a large extent, aside from the fl uxes of full urban operation, become 'insulated' and constitute a part of what can be considered an invisible territory. In order to improve our understanding about such complex realities of the contemporary urban territory it is necessary to formulate phenomena behind the more pronounced insulation character of some of its fragments. To start with we need to identify them as these areas are located on a specifi c territory, delimited and restricted to an identitary landscape grounding. This must be understood in its interconnection with the urban structure. Likewise, it is crucial to proceed to their effective interpretation, avoiding an analytical detachment and performing a closer observation. In pursuing this approach it will be possible to establish relations among elements that constitute the urban areas, instigating the understanding of the invisible territory and its desirable integration in the holistic conception of the contemporary urban territory.