Central places and gorvernance in the metropolitan area of São Paulo: regionalism dilemmas fecing the tertiary sector development in the cities

Abstract

This paper discusses the restructuralization of central urban areas in the recent process of the third sector development in the metropolitan area in the city of São Paulo, aiming to investigate the influences of the local government policies, of the cities competitiveness and also of the “new regionalism” on the so called urban dispersion, which seeks to characterize the territorial and political fragmentation process between governments and cities and their meaning to the local and regional governance. Considering local governance, this paper proposes to rescue some important references of the contemporary urbanism, including the postmodern urbanism, the strategic planning of cities and the new regionalism. On the other hand, concerning the regional governance that involves several government and cities levels, it intends to investigate the strategic roles of regional politics on the development of central areas and the global competitiveness of the whole metropolitan are