Singularities and Similarities of Amazonia's Small Towns: A Comparative Analysis of Urban Categorizations and Typologies of the Amazon Estuary-Delta Region = Singularidades e semelhanças das pequenas cidades amazônicas: uma análise comparativa das categorizações e tipologias urbanas da região do estuário-delta amazônico

Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon Estuary-Delta (AED) covers an area of over 160,000 km2 and includes forty-nine mostly small urban centers. Despite development hurdles, these small towns are hubs of social and economic life. This paper has a twofold goal: to present a review of typologies developed to categorize urban areas in Brazil, and the Amazon region in particular; and to assess the extent to which these different typologies can be used to distinguish the singularities of small towns in the region. Most typologies do not capture the diversity of urban realities in the region; this needs to be considered in public policy programs.