Impacts of the Land Use and Occupation Law on Socio-Spatial Inequalities of Accessibility to Activities in Fortaleza

Abstract The disconnection between land use and transport planning has been identified as one of the main factors for the low and unequal levels of accessibility to activities in Brazilian metropolises. In this article, the impacts of Fortaleza’s urban legislation are analyzed on road density, on land-use diversity, and, consequently, on socio-spatial inequalities in access to activities over the city’s territory. For that, a literature review was initially undergone, addressing studies focused on the relationship between urban accessibility and land-use diversity. Then, Fortaleza’s LUOS (1996) was presented and discussed, allowing to raise empirical hypotheses about the phenomena under study. Finally, the proposed hypotheses were investigated by means of indicators capable of measuring them, supported by diagnostic exploratory analyses of the patterns of spatial dependence observed in the city. In short, the results found in this research indicate that the LUOS (1996), by means of its deliberations, has interfered in the spatial distribution of land use in Fortaleza, not being able, though, to reduce the existing inadequacies and, as a consequence, contributing to maintaining a state of inequality in the accessibility to activities between different socioeconomic groups.