Urban sprawl in relation to mobility systems: The metropolitan region of Rosario, Argentina

Abstract

Transport systems historically have been catalysts of urbanization and concentrating components. Around these infrastructures have tended to locate new settlements and villages. However, processes that have been registered especially since the last decades of the 20th century, such as the development of technologies, deep neoliberal policies and new dynamics of international capital changes occur in the geographic-territorial production accelerate the processes of urbanization mainly around the roads. The present work intends to investigate the role of these infrastructures in the dynamics of urban sprawl that are registered in contemporary metropolis, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of Rosario in Argentina (RMR). Through a critical-interpretative analysis of the RMR transformation process, a multi-scale approach to the urban dispersion process is carried out in relation to the mobility systems. This region, especially since the end of the 1980s, has undergone numerous changes in its regional internal structure, transforming large areas of rural land for both new productive components and residential uses. In this context, mobility systems are positioned as poles attractors of the changes of land use.