Metropolization and regional differentiations: intra-urban structures and metropolitan dynamics in Belém and Manaus

Abstract This article aims to analyze the relationship between metropolis and region in the Brazilian Amazon. Such metropolization process, however, does not reveal a possible particularity at the macro-regional level. The configuration of an economic borderline that spreads in an unbalanced and differentiated way in the Amazon inland is also responsible for the formation of distinct regional metropolitan structures. The metropolises that have been formed there are the product, condition and means of a movement of differentiation that can be exemplified by the differences between the two major agglomerations of the region: Belém and Manaus. Considering elements of the intra-urban structure of these metropolises, the aim is to show the importance and meaning of these formations in view of differentiated processes of production of the space in the region.