Comércio e urbanização: uma análise da evolução das redes de supermercados e atacarejos de Parnamirim/RN

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand how supermarket chains evolved in the city of Parnamirim and their relationship with the urban space. Knowing that commerce undergoes several transformations to constantly innovate its service structure, supermarkets are an example of how changeable commercial forms are. Seeking to meet the needs of a growing consumer market, the supermarket segment adopted mechanisms to achieve greater proximity with its customers, using strategies such as infrastructure improvements or an increase in the range of products offered. Supermarkets are governed by urban metamorphoses that are capable of increasing the circulation of capital. In these terms, supermarkets acquire a unique importance in urban life. The hypothesis that guided the study presented is that the diffusion of supermarkets tends to follow urban growth and the income pattern of the neighborhoods. Thus, the objective of the study is to understand how the supermarket segment evolved in Parnamirim/RN and how this diffusion is related to the expansion of the urban space. The study presented herein defends the hypothesis that supermarket chains in the city of Parnamirim are important participants in the urban changes that the city has undergone. In this sense, the time frame used was from 1972, when the first Cash & Carry store was opened in the city, until 2024, when the adoption of e-commerce as a sales instrument in the supermarket sector began. The procedures included bibliographic research; documentary research, through the consultation of data from the Demographic Census/IBGE and the City Hall of Parnamirim; interviews; application of questionnaires; collection of photographic records obtained from blogs and newspaper articles. As a result, we found that supermarket chains in the city of Parnamirim are important participants in the urban changes that the city has undergone. Despite their genesis in the central space and the persistence of this spatial pattern today, supermarkets show a diverse spatial distribution and a tendency towards decentralization towards peripheral neighborhoods. This new spatial pattern also generates changes in the urban infrastructure where the establishment is located, causing the commercial area to increase in value.