Configuração espacial, Copa do Mundo 2014 e valorização imobiliária no bairro de Lagoa Nova (Natal / Brasil)

Abstract

Mega-event urban works are referred in the literature as the expression of capitalist accumulation and of the creative destruction of city sections. The added value generated by the spatial transformation brought about by the works is able to enhance real estate values in the built environment. Space, therefore, reveals itself as a variable - dependent or independent - of economic interests, possessing or assuming profit potentials within its configurational properties. Among these properties, preeminence is given to spatial accessibility understood as the enablement of the movement generated essentially by the spatial configuration defined by the way barriers and permeability are articulated. In some situations the works are developed in areas of high accessibility, functioning as supporting vectors in the valorization process. In others, they share the leading role with space in this process, by bringing about new connections. In the neighbourhood of Lagoa Nova, in Natal / Brazil, the implementation of the Arena das Dunas, during the 2014 World Cup, at the same time that altered the local landscape, merged with a trend of gradual real estate appreciation over the last 20 years, coinciding with the transformation of the locality into a new active center. Given this, we seek to understand, through Space Syntax Analysis, the relationships linking topological accessibility generated by the spatial configuration itself and by urban works of great impact, and real estate appreciation in Lagoa Nova. Quantitative measures of integration (as centrality potential) and choice (as crossing potential) were applied by means of the linear representations of segments maps (lines split at intersections to cover the urban street layout). We also aimed to relate higher real estate values to the consolidation of a high integration and crossing core, which would present itself as a locational advantage within a logic of strategic implementation of the arena. Residential apartment values - categorized according to the number of bedrooms (from 1 to 4) - were collected from notary purchase and sale deeds with reference to a five-year period (2012 to 2016). The analysis was performed in the light of the intersection between the location of these values and integration and choice measurements in a georeferenced mappable base.