Parques urbanos de Fortaleza-Ceará (BR): espaço vivido e qualidade de vida / Urban parks of Fortaleza-Ceará (BR): lived space and quality of life

This research is part of a thesis that was supported by the theoretical and paradigmatic principles proposed in the humanistic geography in the search for the category of living space represented by urban parks as relational locus, in which individuals at various scales promote permanent and successive exchanges in the physical and perceptual sense. The questioning that guided the research was focused on the identification and characterization of the urban parks of the city of Fortaleza throughout a historic period. At various times, the collected speeches and impressions of the subjects in the empirical research were able to reveal important elements of the role of these environments in the citizens’ quality of life. In this study, the quality of life category is portrayed as spaces of leisure, entertainment and activities focused on physical and mental health. In this sense, both the formulation of the hypothesis and the interpretation of data had as parameter the qualitative ISSN 2318-2962 Caderno de Geografia, v.24, n.42, 2014 2 analysis supporting the methodological approach and the data processing. The results indicate the precariousness with which the environments of the parks are represented in the urban design. The daily struggle of non-governmental organizations and the civil society to defend the conservation and permanence of these public places revealed counterpoints to a policy which contributes to a disruptive and discontinuous city environment. The social and spatial inequality reproduced at different degrees in the city of Fortaleza is particularly evident in the parks which are "emblematically neutral" regarding the permanent social flows. They consist of few green areas squeezed in by the buildings environments of "exception" aimed at the physical and psychological comfort of the citizens of the metropolis. The capital of Ceará has lost spaces intended for squares and parks due to the real estate market growth, stratified land-use and little legal effectiveness of the Master Plan for Urban Development regarding the Code of Rules and Regulations of the Municipality, which is at the mercy of an economic perspective which is damaging to the collective interests.