Volta Redonda, Brazil, South America
 
Year1941latitude: ° 0'
longitude: ° 0'
Period
Initiator(s)
Planning organization
Nationality initiator(s)
Designer(s) / Architect(s)
Design organization
Inhabitants259,000 (2008)
Target population
Town website
Town related linkshttp://www.cpdoc.fgv.br/nav_fatos_imagens/fotos/csn/pop_p43.htm
http://www.portalvr.com/
http://www.unifoa.edu.br/oremvr2005/cidade.htm
http://www.getulio50.org.br/textos/gvap2.htm
http://www.postcardman.net/11101.jpg
Literature

type of New Town: > scale of autonomy
New-Town-in-Town
Satellite
New Town
Company Town
> client
Private Corporation
Public Corporation
> policy
Capital
Decentralization
Industrialization
Resettlement
Economic
 
Volta Redonda is an industrial city in the southern region of the state of Rio de Janeiro on the Paraiba River. Its proximity to sources of hydroelectricity, basic raw materials and the industrial centers of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo favoured its selection as the site of a huge government-run steel mill - and made it one of the most ambitious industrial projects carried out in South America. The biggest iron and steel mills in the southern hemisphere are located there, as well as a lot of other industries.
The city was founded in 1941, and construction of the steel mill began the following year, with production starting in 1946. Within a decade Volta Redonda was producing more than half of Brazil's ingots and rolled steel. Near the mills is a model residential community for the steel workers. The urban structure of the company town represents the priorities of the company - slums for the poor and nice neighbourhoods for the management sprawl on opposite sides of the river. The river itself is so polluted by industrial and domestic effluence that its plant and animal life have been almost completely destroyed. Apart from industrial conflict and pollution, according to a report in the Jornal do Brazil the citizens of Volta Redonda also have to cope with the highest incidence of hypertension and deaths caused by cardiovascular disease in the country. All this in what four decades ago must have been one of the healthiest climates in Brazil.

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