Residential location and housing production in the metropolitan region of São Paulo

Abstract

The determinants of urban residential location choices represent an important element for understanding the emergence of spatial patterns of distribution of social groups, which, in turn, influence the configuration of unequal access to the opportunities offered in an urban context. While the dominant theoretical approach towards the theme is based on neoclassical models where residential choices result from a trade-off between housing consumption and commuting costs to work, many researchers criticise this orthodox economic view. Contributing to this debate, this project aims to analyse the production of urban space from the concept of "life cycle of urban locations", here understood as a succession of phases that relate the dynamics of housing production with the residential location of social groups. To investigate changes in the occupation of urban locations over time, socio-territorial patterns will be empirically analysed from the integration of data of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (MASP) for the years 1991, 2000 and 2010.