The different paces and shapes of cities in two different regions of Brazil.

The urbanization process in Brazil has occurred in accelerate pace all over the country, albeit some lags when comparing it regionally. Exactly this lag is representative of Brazil’s complex urbanization process once it highlights how context and period are essential to understand it. Considering this we aim to think about contemporary urban characteristics of two regions, pointing similarities as much as bring the particular process underlying them. One of them is the Southeast region, the most urbanized and with almost complete urbanization process; and the other is the North region with an on-going urbanization process, recently accelerate. Further, this paper aim to addresses important characteristics of those regions that made them totally opposite but carrying the same problems of lack of planning of the urban space. Then, for Southeast we have a concentration of some of the biggest cities in the country through an urbanization process that merges sprawl and conurbation, opposing to the North region, where the main urban centres, although historical just recently started their massive urbanization and the consequences was a compression of time in its process. Comparing them we expect to discuss how urbanization is a multiple process, leading to different cities arrangements.