O ESPAÇO DO CIDADÃO: UM ESTUDO SOBRE AS CALÇADAS EM GUARAPUAVA - PR

Abstract

The sidewalk is an urban structure dedicated to the mobility of pedestrians, theferore it is treated in municipal laws as public space, being object of specific norms for construction and maintenance by the owners of real estate and of inspection by the city hall. Despite this, sidewalks are public spaces, of public use, but of private responsibility. The simple observation of spaces in the city shows sidewalks invaded and spatially occupied by residents or commerce. In this sense, this work seeks to understand socio-spatial practices on the sidewalks of three neighborhoods in the City of Guarapuava-PR. Through this research, we carried out a reflection on the public space of sidewalks in the context of the city. We sought to emphasize the influence of this public space in the urban sociability. Thus, this work approaches the process of production of the urban space in the city of Guarapuava, specifically the public space of the sidewalks, regarding its inherent socio-spatial practices. From the theoretical-conceptual standpoint, we seek a clearer notion of public space, facing a generalization of acceptances around the concept, a fact that leads to the misunderstanding of what indeed is the public space in the city, considering the current circumstances. With regard to theoretical aspects, this research aims to contribute to urban and city studies, emphasizing socio-spatial practices as mediators of the multiple forms of use and appropriation of the public space, that is, the contents that give the movement to the process of constitution of the city as a complex space and of multiple places and identities. Based on the fieldwork (empirical instrument), associated to the methodological theoretical framework, focused on analytical dimensions based on the ideas of centrality and accessibility, and the vision of different social subjects, we seek, based on the dialectical articulation of procedures, how the public space of sidewalks influences the process of structuring the city through the expression of the various socio-spatial practices. The conclusions point to a construction of a confused relationship of the residents with the sidewalk, which they appropriate territorially and symbolically as a continuity of the house, losing with it a notion of sidewalk as a public space wide and the construction of citizenship.