The Changing Patterns of Population in Sao Paulo State, Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID4492192
AuthorsPreston E James (corresponding author)
Year1938
Volume28
Issue3
Pages353
Publication date1938-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/209735
OpenAlexW2333798216
LanguageEN
Citations received6

L OOSE attachment to the land is one of the persistent themes of Brazilian geography. For more than four centuries an economic system of destructive exploitation has continued to force the discovery of new resources to exploit or new products to bring wealth and has been reflected in population patterns of marked instability. As each new bonanza appears on the economic horizon, there is a rush to the territory that produces it; but this movement of population is unlike the sweep of the North American frontier across the Corn Belt after the Civil War, for it is largely recruited from nearby areas of previous concentration and is matched by the decline or decadence of the older settlements. This process continues, even in the present turbulent period, in Sao Paulo state. The reasons for the persistence of this theme cannot be reduced to any simple formula. That destructive exploitation is the expected process of settlement in an area of vast size occupied by a relatively small population does not quite explain the slow rate of population increase or the persistence of destructive exploitation in the areas of denser population. Of basic importance are such inherited cultural traits as the system of landholding aristocracy and landless, povertyburdened workers and the deeply ingrained habit of the wealthy people of spending surplus income for speculation or for better living today rather than investing it for the future, whence, in a region of cheap land, decrease in price for an agricultural product, instead of bringing about a concentration and the use of more intensive methods on the better soils, forces the abandonment of areas of decreasing profit in favor of virgin lands or of new products.' And now, against this background, is appearing an urban industrial growth. Never, perhaps, have industries been planted in a

Geography · Population · Socioeconomics · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Demography · Urban Development and Societal Issues

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub