A cidade alta em alta? Circuitos e cenários das dinâmicas comerciais do centro velho de Salvador

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to analyze the spatiality of commercial dynamics of the "Upper Town" of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. This former fashionable retail area in the Old Center of the city has gone through several successive phases of development during the last decades, but still today constitutes the densest commercial area of the city. On a practical level, our objective is to characterize the commercial dynamics of the area, based on three interrelated factors in the formation of dynamics: organization of retail firms; personal and professional characteristics of the merchants; perceptions and opinions of the merchants. On a theoretical level, our objective is to discuss the validity of dualist theories of Third World urban economies, based on the empirical results of this specific case of a total area, the Upper Town, that englobes both a priori modern and traditional commercial structures, i.e. new shopping malls and old shopping streets. Finally, in order to stress the pragmatic character of the study, our objective is to evaluate the difficulties and the potentialities of the retail area. The analyses reveal a very heterogeneous and internally hierarchized Upper Town. The shopping malls and the principal avenue, Sete de Setembro, present the highest intensity of activities and concentrate the largest firms that form a link between these commercial spaces. In spite of this structural similarity between the malls and some parts of the shopping streets, locational and functional strategies of the small firms, as well as the characteristics of merchants express a dissociation between the spaces. The predominance of small firms, the qualitative heterogeneity of the establishments, problems of inftastructure and security, and the lack of dynamism of the merchants of shopping streets stand out as the ftagilities of the Upper Town. On the other hand, rescue of historical and cultural values, the extremely diversified scale of retail and service activities, proximity of tourist areas and location in a point of convergence of transportation should constitute the bases for future development of the area.