Application of the Grade of Membership model (GoM) to delineate an Urban Hierarchy in Brazilian Amazonia

Douglas Sathler 55-31-34270841 douglas@cedeplar.ufmg.br Geographer, Ph.D. student, Graduate Program in Demography, Center for Regional Development and Planning (Cedeplar/UFMG) Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brazil

Roberto L. Monte-Mr 55-31-3482-8007 monte-mor@cedeplar.ufmg.br Architect, Ph.D. in Urban Planning (UCLA), Associate Professor at Cedeplar/UFMG, Center for Regional Development and Planning, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brazil

Carla Jorge Machado 55-31-3409-7159 carla@cedeplar.ufmg.br Economist, Ph.D. in Population dynamics (Johns Hopkins University), Associate Professor at Cedeplar/UFMG, Center for Regional Development and Planning, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brazil

Alfredo Costa 55-31-3581-1016 alfredo.ufmg@yahoo.com.br Undergraduate Student in Geography at IGC/UFMG, Institute of Geosciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brazil

Extended Summary The Amazonian urban network has been developing along with the arisal of middle size cities and the multiplication of new towns and small urban agglomerations along the main regional roads and rivers. Three decades ago, Amazonia was known for its small number of cities and towns, spread around the forest and connected only through streams, which was the only way to integrate the localities. Most of the population was engaged in very different activities as compared to those in urban centers and the regional economy was essentially focused on the occupations related to rivers and forests. Notwithstanding the significant demographical growth of the state capitals in the past decades, the recent birth of urban centers with impressive population in the inner region has assured more balance to the Amazon urban net. In that context, the rising of middle-size cities and small towns seem to break the huge difficult to populate a significant part of Amazonia. In the last decades, the researchers cold verify a true urban explosion near to the main regional roads, in one of the largest migration movements ever (Matos, 2005). The growth rates were higher than the national averages due those migration flows, especially those that came from to the Northwest and South of Brazil. According to the Brazilian Demographic Census Bureau, the Geometric Growth Rate (GGR) for the Legal Amazonia population between 1970 and 1980 (4,43 % per year) had been higher than the national average rates in that same period of time (2,5 % per year). Between 1980 and 1991 the GGR value in that region decreased to 3,51% per year, and it continued to decrease even more between 1991-2000 (2,48 % per year). Those expressive decreases of the GGR occurred because of reorientation of the internal migration movements within the country. However, the recently observed GGRs in Amazonia were still in relatively higher levels when compared to the other Brazilian regional values. Considering the recent history of the cities` growth, Table 1 presents the municipalities distribution for population size groups between 1970 and 2007. In 1970, there were only twenty municipalities with population larger than 50 thousand inhabitants, among which only five had more than 100 thousand inhabitants. In that year, 239 (around 72%) municipalities in the rest of the region presented population smaller than 20 thousand people. Farther on, the complexity of the Amazonian urban network increased in 1980, including 12 municipalities with more than 100 thousand people and 31 municipalities with population between 50 and 100 thousand residents. In 1991, there were a little more than 500 municipalities in Amazonia and, among those of them, 16 had a population between 100 thousand and 1 million residents. In addition to this, in that year, Belm and Manaus exceeded 1 million people and, despite the growth of 140 new territorial unities because of ongoing emancipation processes in the last decade, the participation of the municipalities with middle or large population size kept rising. In other words, the municipalities with more than 50 thousand residents represented around 12% of all urban centers in the region. The decade of 1990 was marked, in all parts of the country, by an explosion of little municipalities as a result of the emancipations that occurred in that period of time. In that period, 255 new municipalities in Amazonia arose. In fact, most of the new territorialities were born with less than 20 thousand residents. As such, the percentage participation of that group of cities, with population of up to 20 thousand people, had been rising, reaching values near to what can be observed in 1970. Furthermore, we

have to highlight that the number of municipalities with more than 100 thousand people increased from 18 to 21 between 1991 and 2000.
Table 1 - Municipalities in Amazonia sorted by population size groups between 1970 e 2007 Inhabitants number less than 20.000 20.000 to 50.000 50.000 to 10.0000 100.000 to 1.000.000 more than 1.000.000 Total
Source: IBGE. 1970 to 2000.

1970 239 73 15 5 0 332

(%) 71,99 21,99 4,52 1,51 0,00 100

1980 221 102 31 12 0 366

(%) 60,38 27,87 8,47 3,28 0,00 100

1991 303 142 43 16 2 506

(%) 59,88 28,06 8,50 3,16 0,40 100

2000 530 167 43 19 2 761

(%) 69,65 21,94 5,65 2,50 0,26 100

2007 516 170 49 24 2 761

(%) 67,81 22,34 6,44 3,15 0,26 100

According to the most recent dataset, it seems clear that the modifications between 2000 and 2007 were concentrated in the middle-sized cities in Amazonia. The number of municipalities with more than 100.000 habitants was 19 in 2000 and it increased to 24 in 2007. Likewise, the municipalities with population between 50.000 and 100.000 increased to 49 in the last analyzed year, against 43 in 2000. In addition, Map 1 clearly shows the impact of the main roads in the development of urban agglomerations in Amazonia. There are several areas in which the urban tissue expansion was more intense, for instance near the main roads that cross the South, Southeast and East of Amazonia and following the margin of Amazonas River to Manaus. However, there are huge areas without occupation according to that map. In such a situation, we can highlight the Southwest and the Northwest of Par, considerable parts of Amazonas state, the South of Roraima and the North of Amap.

In that context, the present study aims to contribute for a better comprehension of the urban hierarchy and for the relationship between the cities in Amazonia. For this task, it is suggested the application of the Grade of Membership model (GoM) that is useful to delineate profiles and to identify city groups with similar characteristics. Moreover, that model permits describing the differences between these city groups.

Differently than most of cluster analysis statistic methods, GoM do not consider that people and objects are organized in well defined groups. In GoM, the same observation could have a determined grade of membership in multiples groups and, because of this propriety, it is called fuzzy model. In addition, GoM also has the capacity to analyze categorical data in short samples with a large number of variables. In this paper, the model will be helpful to select and identify the hierarchy patterns between the cities in Amazonia with the support of variables of diverse natures, according to the table 2.
Natureza das variveis 1 - spatial Table 2 - Internal variables to the GoM model Variveis 1.1 - Real distance between na analyzed city and a more populated center 1.2 - Variable that represents the number of times that na analyzed city was mentioned as the nearest urban center with larger population 2.1 - Municipality urbanization degree 2.2 - Municipality population in 2007 2.3 - Municipality geometric growth rate between 2000 and 2007 2.4 - Regional geometric growth rate between 2000 and 2007 3.1 - Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 3.2 - Municipality participation fund 3.3 - Poverty proportion 3.4 - HDI (Human Development Index) 4.1 - % of people with access to treated water 4.2 - % of people with access to the garbage collecting 4.3 - % of people with eletric energy at home 4.4 - Number of high schools 4.5 - Number of elementary schools 4.6 - Number of registrations in high school 4.6 - Number of registrations in elementary school 4.6 - Number of registrations in college 4.9 - Hospital 4.10 - Hospital beds 4.11 - Outpatient units 4.12 - Health station 4.13 - Health centers 5.1 - Fleet of vehicles 5.2 - % of people with computer 5.3 - % of people with TV 5.4 - % of people with refrigerator 5.5 -% of people with phone 6.1 - A variable will be created that will represent the number of funcionalities of the municipality to a total of functions that will be predefined
Source: Elaborated by Douglas Sathler

2 - Demographic

3 - Socioeconomic

4 - Infrastructure e services

5 - Goods acecibility

6 - Functionality

The diverse sorts of variables present in the model aim to establish a classification of the greatness and influence capacity of the cities in Amazonia. For this purpose, the model intends to consider aspects beyond the pure economic and demographic analysis. In that sense, the variables which measure the functionality and the basic and specialized service offers are very useful. Likewise, the indexes which measure the goods access and the other that measure equipments and infra-structures present in the cities. The incorporation of spatial variables seems to be very important because the urban hierarchy is also defined by the influence of the city net distribution, with clear impacts on the ways they relate. It is valid to assume the idea that, in general, the greater distance between a certain city and a more populated center, the greater`s regional

importance, as can be seen in variable 1.1. Likewise, a certain city takes on a leading role if mentioned often as being the nearest urban center with a large population. Understanding the hierarchy organization of the cities in Amazonia seems to be an interesting exercise for the comprehension of the regional net urban dynamics. In that sense, the necessity of policies that try to establish more structured urban nets in Amazonia seems evident. A more equal population distribution in the Amazon territory could bring a series of benefits, especially when it comes to the access to services of several types and levels of sophistication. References Cerqueira, C. A. 2004. Tipologia e caractersticas dos estabelecimentos escolares brasileiros. Tese (Thesis) Center for Regional Development and Planning (Cedeplar/UFMG). Matos, R. 2005. Espacialidades em rede: Populao, urbanizao e migrao no Brasil contemporneo. Belo Horizonte. Sawyer, D. R. T. O, Leite, I. C., Alexandrino, R. 2000. Perfis de utilizao de servios de sade no Brasil. Cincia e Sade Coletiva (Journal), 7(4): 757 76.