Identifying Brazilian functional regions: a network approach, 1980–2010

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to identify functional regions that reflect the contiguous spatial economic reach of major Brazilian urban centres. We use data from commuting to work and study between municipalities and apply network analysis methods for the periods of 1980, 2000 and 2010, aiming to find regions with the maximal internal consistency of their commuting flows in each period. Our results provide functional regions that serve as an alternative geographical division for Brazil, with the advantage of broadening the scope for regional analysis, policies and planning.

KEYWORDS:

• network analysis
• commuting flows
• city-region
• Brazil
• metropolitan regions
• population arrangements

JEL:

• R10

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For a review of the history and concepts of the city-region, see Davoudi (2008), Parr (2005) and Rodríguez-Pose (2008).

2. However, this does not ensure robustness. To verify if the resulting partition is not a product of randomness, a bootstrap resampling can be performed.

3. It is not possible to identify such flows in the 1991 Census.

4. Article 6, point XXXIV of the Federal Constitution; and Article 403 of the Consolidation of Labour Laws.

5. For comparison purposes, according to data from IBGE (2016), between 1980 and 2010 the Brazilian population grew by 60.3%.

6. Measured by the broad consumer price index (IPCA), 12-month inflation peaked at 6821% at the beginning of 1990.

7. Projections from IBGE (2018) point to a maximum share of this group at around 71% in 2016–17.

8. The Louvain method was also used by De Montis et al. (2013), Verhetsel et al. (2018) and Wu et al. (2019). In general, the modularities obtained here are superior to those of the above articles, which may be associated with the use of weighting by the inverse of the Gaussian distance, which induces greater compactness.

9. Sorocaba had established its MR in 2014 (State Complementary Law 1241/2014), while São José dos Campos became part of the MR of the Paraíba Valley and North Coast, instituted in 2012 (State Complementary Law 1166/2012).

10. Before the 1988 Constitution, the MRs were defined by federal law, in which case nine regions were established still in the 1970s: Belém, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Paulo. From 1988 onwards, the states of the federation became responsible for creating or changing the MRs.

11. Network centrality aims to measure the preponderance of a node within the network. Four approaches are among the most common in the literature: in-degree, betweenness, closeness and eigenvector centralities. For the descriptions and ways of measuring them, see Wasserman and Faust (1994).

12. We thank a reviewer for pointing this out.

13. Água Limpa (GO), Davinópolis (GO), Divino de São Lourenço (ES), Francisco Ayres (PI), Junqueiro (AL), Livramento (PB), São Miguel do Tapuio (PI), São Sebastião do Umbuzeiro (PB) and Vila Flor (RN).

Additional information

Funding

The authors are thankful for the support received from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Coordinating Agency for Advanced Training of Graduate Personnel – CAPES) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq - Council for Scientific and Technological Development).