GROWTH POLES IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL∗

Growth pole concepts appear particularly useful to regional planners who are faced with the task of designing a strategy for analyzing and inducing regional growth. This study employs a form of trend surface analysis which identifies urban places that may be interpreted as growth poles and measures trends in growth outward from those poles. An empirical example is provided for the State of São Paulo, Brazil, for the period 1940 to 1960. Two types of growth poles are identified: 1) natural poles that result from a rapid postwar industrialization, and 2) planned poles that result from state governmental efforts to control economic growth.