URBAN CIVILIZATIONS AND CITY THEORIES

This paper first discusses the relationship between the individual, the city and the urban society, seeking a proper understanding of the concepts that involve the structure and transformations of cities. Thus, taking the process of industrialization as a reference point for the emergence of today's cities, this paper proposes to develop a study of the theories of cities, with emphasis on contemporary trends. The central aim of this study is to analyze the formation of cities in various historical periods, from ancient times to the present day, emphasizing the origin of Brazilian cities. The method of procedure adopted was descriptive-analytical, in order to implement an approach between the legal, social and urban areas. Then, we present a retrospective of the various forms of development of the cities, whose lack of planning has serious repercussions in the health, environmental, economic and especially social fields. The studies showed that with the arrival of technical progress and industrial civilization, the traditional view is overcome, thus multiplying the problems that a city faces: population growth, housing conditions of the population and especially, enrichment of certain social strata, which translates the resulting social inequalities that compromise much of the population.