A Rua Sapucaí como vitrine de uma nova expressão de centralidade noturna BeloHorizontina

Abstract

The present study investigated Sapucaí Street, in the Floresta neighborhood of Belo Horizonte, viewed as an emerging nocturnal urban centrality, examining how the requalification promoted by the Belo Horizonte City Hall (PBH) contributed to the consolidation of this role. The study is grounded in the theoretical premise that urban centrality results from the concentration of fixed elements and flows, as well as from processes of social appropriation and symbolic construction of space, drawing on authors such as Lefebvre, Corrêa, Milton Santos, Harvey, Zukin, and Smith. The methodological steps consisted of bibliographic and documentary research and systematic field observation, which made it possible to analyze the public's profile, the forms of public space use, and the variation of pedestrian flow by day and shift, as well as a digital data analysis, collected via Google Maps and Instagram, which allowed the classification of the establishments along the street. The results indicate that Sapucaí Street's centrality was not created by the municipal requalification, but rather intensified and formalized by it, in addition to having been subjected to processes of spatial transformation. The research shows that the street consolidated itself as a space of leisure, sociability, and nocturnal consumption over the last decade through the everyday use of its patrons, while also revealing gradual signs of socio-spatial selectivity, processes already observed previously in the Savassi centrality. It is concluded, therefore, that empirical observation, together with digital analysis, constitutes a methodological key to understanding the study of nocturnal centralities, a topic still little discussed in Brazilian urban geography. Sapucaí Street currently stands as a field of dispute between use value and exchange value in urban space.