URBAN STRUCTURE AND REPRESENTATIONS

THE INVENTION OF THE SOUTH ZONE AND THE MAKING OF A NEW PROCESS OF SPACIAL SEGREGATION IN RIO DE JANEIRO IN THE FIRST DECADES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

In Rio de Janeiro, space segregation was already known at least since de mid nineteenth century. However, only in the first decades of the twetieth century there would be th basis for a new configuration of the space segregation in the city, with the creation and occupation of Copacabana district, causing th “invention” of the South Zone, “toponyn” until then not used, and of its opposite, the large area that became known as th “suburb”, a term wich until then had another meaning. The toponymy associated to these new areas of the expanding city was related to an representation that provided the grounds of residential segregation in Rio for many decades, until the end of the twentieth century, in the form of the dicotomy south zone/suburbs. The aim of this work is to show this process of consturuction of these representations and the process of change and building of a new model of segragation in Rio de Janeiro in the first decades of the twentieth century.