Roberta Mendonça De Carvalho, teaching associate professor in the urban studies program at the University of Pittsburgh, will deliver a talk titled "500 Cities in 50 Years: Fragmentation and Urban Expansion in the Amazon" at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, in 112 Walker Building at Penn State University Park. The talk will also be accessible via Zoom.
De Carvalho will discuss how the creation of more than 500 municipalities over the past 50 years has transformed the Brazilian Amazon into an increasingly urbanized region. Her talk will examine the Amazon not only as a forest frontier but also as a region where cities, population growth and development have become closely connected to environmental change.
Drawing on spatial analysis and socioeconomic data, De Carvalho will trace how government-led development, population growth and local political pressures contributed to the creation of new municipalities across the region. She will examine how this process has produced a fragmented landscape characterized by uneven urban growth and deforestation.
De Carvalho will also take a closer look at one Amazonian city to illustrate the effects of rapid population growth and urban expansion. She will discuss why understanding cities is important to addressing environmental challenges in the Amazon, where urban development and changes to the surrounding forest are closely linked.
Born and raised in Belém, Pará, one of the Amazon's major urban centers, De Carvalho studies urbanization and territorial change in the region, with a focus on ecosystem services, territorial fragmentation and social and environmental dynamics. At the University of Pittsburgh, she also serves as director of undergraduate studies for the Urban Studies Program and coordinates the Amazonian Studies Program. She earned her doctorate in geography from the University of Florida and is an international associate researcher with the Laboratory for Geopolitical Studies of the Legal Amazon.
De Carvalho's lecture is part of the fall 2026 Coffee Hour seminar series hosted by Penn State's Department of Geography. To learn more and access Zoom information, visit the Coffee Hour event webpage.
