The role of shopping centres in the metropolization process in Fortaleza (Brazil) and Lisbon (Portugal)

Considering that shopping centres are increasingly connected with global capital flows, this article focuses on the role of this retail concept in the process of metropolization. Using Lisbon and Fortaleza metropolises, we have developed a case study methodology to unfold the relationship between the spatial dissemination of shopping centres and the evolution of both metropolises. We have concluded that internationalisation of capital through investments in the shopping centres has produced urban-based impacts, visible both in the production of new centralities and in the consolidation of existing ones, which as a whole strengthens and enhances the metropolization of the studied areas.


Introduction
At the beginning of the 21 st century, with the increase of the flow of capital, people and goods, large metropolises suffer the effects of globalisation (Brenner & Theodore, 2002;Jonas et al., 2015;Keil, 2017) that makes them be continually evolving. Quite often, influenced by globalisation, urban areas are used by some stakeholders for the reproduction of capital. This produces significant impacts in the structuring of some metropolises (Brenner & Keil, 2014;Pacione, 2009;Peck, 2004). As Krätke (2007:1) referred "The urban regions' global functions are strengthening the economic power of certain metropolitan regions and thus have an amplifying effect on the process of metropolization of the EU urban and regional system". The current urban landscape of large cities across the world reflects this relation. Large office buildings that delimit the skyscrapers of several CBD celebrates the standard transition to a post-industrial economy but also mirrors the influence of globalisation in the structuring of several metropolises.
Globalisation's effects in terms of production of new urban space in metropolises -occasionally connected with the transition to new post-industrial economic approaches -are seen through economic, technological, social and cultural processes (Abrantes, 2001), producing effects as the metropolises are spreading, and resulting in a new urban structure (Brenner & Schmid, 2015). Metropolization is, at the same time, a process that exacerbates the homogenisation of space, intensifies fragmentation, and modifies the hierarchy of urban areas (Lencioni, 2020). The metropolitan scale has been studied through the three distinct but interrelated economic, spatial and political dimensions (d'Albergo & Lefèvre, 2018). Furthermore, the expansion of large cities contributes to the fragmentation of the wider metropolitan regions. These areas, thus, make socio-inequalities more visible and even exacerbate them. Space as a result of the social division of labour materialises in socio-spatial inequality within cities, meaning that space is also divided and hierarchised.
The growth of metropolises is traditionally linked with the housing sector. Peripheral locations provide vacant areas for the edification of new urbanisations for populations of different social classes. Although this may vary significantly according to the respective country, one may include here, areas with housing designed to a higher socioeconomic status, to the middle class in search of better and also affordable housing and to poorer groups.
In the last decades, consumption is increasingly assuming a prominent role in the metropolization of some regions. The retail sector is usually understood as accompanying the evolution of cities and their dynamics (Guimarães, 2019), i.e., as new urban areas appeared or gained vitality, new stores are opened. The opposite also applies, as the decline of some areas is seen to produce a loss of vitality of the commercial fabric. However, since the appearance and dissemination of shopping centres, retail began to be seen as possessing a proactive stance in the evolution of urban areas.
Shopping centres cannot be considered a radical transformation of the retail, although they can be conceived as heirs of an evolutionary path through which galleries, department stores and other establishments have undergone (Pintaudi, 2010;De Simone, 2013;Gonçalves, 2017). Regardless of the geographical context, the analysis of shopping centres cannot be dissociated from the evolution that the retail format experienced in the USA.
If someone is to be highlighted, Victor Gruen is a unanimous reference. In the 1960 book, it becomes clear that for Gruen and Smith (1960), shopping centres are more than shopping destinations. They underly a cooperative spirit through which "individual business enterprises […] are ready to submit to certain over-all rules in order to further their common welfare" (Gruen & Smith, 1960: 11). In the post-war period, Gruen's vision of regional shopping centres in the USA suburban areas, contributing to the urban sprawl and car dependence (Pimlott, 2007) is a milestone in the definition of this retail format. It unquestionably demonstrates the link between the retail format and the evolution of cities and urban regions. This evolution must, however, be seen as a part of a planned development and framed within its temporal context. As Mennel (2004) discusses, in the post-war period, cities were affected by traffic, and suburban expansion was desirable. Thus, according to this author, the construction of shopping centres in peripheral locations also underlined a rationale in which these retail precincts addressed the need to fulfil the consumer demand of a growing suburban population. This is corroborated by Gruen and Smith (1960:31) when they clarified that the location of a shopping centre must not only take in consideration current population but also the future and because the USA saw a significant growth in population since the 1940s, that represented, at that time, "a challenge and an opportunity to developers, planners, retailers and all who are interested in a healthy development of our communities". Moreover, to some extent, shopping centre planning also reflects Gruen' understanding of what a city is, as he reduces to "three the qualities or characteristics that make a city, they might be Compactness; Intensity of public life; A small-grained pattern in which all types of human activities are intermingled in close proximity" (1964:28); whose attributes one may state he tried to replicate in shopping centres. In fact, we may assume this last preposition as accurate when reading his latter book (1973), where he assumes the risks and negativity of unifunctional centres (in which he included not only shopping centres but also financial centres, cultural centres, and others), in what he called an anti-city (Gruen, 1973).
One may say that nowadays, shopping centres follow Gruen's rationale, as the preponderance of this retail format in today's society extends well further than just being shopping destinations (McGreevy, 2016). They are also important spaces for leisure and social encounters (Scharoun, 2012). Since their inception, they have spread rapidly through different cities of the planet in such a way it can be considered a globalised retail concept (Gonçalves & Silva, 2017).
Investments performed in shopping centres are often associated with real estate and global capital, thus, associated with the process of socioeconomic restructuring of some metropolitan areas. In this article, we aim to produce novel understandings about the behaviour of the shopping centre industry within the consolidation of metropolises, thus, assuming the strong relationship between this industry and large capital, exacerbated by the globalisation that characterises most of today's societies.
Our empirical study involved the analysis of Lisbon and Fortaleza metropolitan areas. Recognising the differences between both areas, we intend to highlight not only the similarities but also the differences that may arise from both case studies, thus, the findings of this article will contribute to enlarging the knowledge on the subject. Moreover, the incorporation of these case studies will add some knowledge about these specific geographical contexts less approached in the literature on the subject. Our research is supported by the following research question: How does the evolution of shopping centres in Fortaleza and Lisbon metropolitan areas relate to the metropolization of both areas? We argue that shopping centres in both metropolitan areas arise as mechanisms of global forces, through private investors demands and produce new locations, eventually consolidating them as new centralities; thus, they are to be seen as essential elements of the process of metropolization.
This research is focused on the connection between shopping centres and metropolization. Having established this aim, we do not intend by any means to state that this relationship explains the whole process of metropolization. Having said this, we recognise that the process of consolidation of a given metropolis is explained by a wider set of factors. For instance, Colsaet et al., (2018) performed a comprehensive research through a systematic review on the relationship between land take and urban expansion and found a wide variety of determinants that they classified into several dimensions, namely demography, social processes, economy, infrastructures and transport, policy and institutions, incentives, governance, geographical constraints, path dependency and neighbouring effects. As the research also shows, most studies tend to focus on a restrict number of determinants, an option we also follow in the current article, primarily resorting to determinants that those authors inserted in the economic dimension.

Methodology
This article is supported by a case study methodology. The metropolitan areas of Fortaleza, Brazil, and Lisbon, Portugal are the areas where we will develop our empirical research in order to test the previously defined argument, reflect and obtain conclusions regarding the role of shopping centres in the process of metropolization in both regions. We aim not only to analyse the relationship between the dissemination of shopping centres and the metropolization of Fortaleza and Lisbon but also to discuss the similarities and differences between processes in both areas. To this regard, Fortaleza and Lisbon present similarities and differences of great relevance for the analysis of the relationship between shopping centres and metropolization. On the one hand, there is a strong concentration of shopping centres in both metropolitan areas. On the other hand, the urban cycles and (re)production of shopping centres do not occur simultaneously. These situations encourage a cross-sectional look at the case study between Lisbon in the European context and Fortaleza in the Latin American context, which will transpire some novel understandings to the scientific literature on the subject. We have retrieved data that allow us to analyse the evolution of shopping centres in both metropolitan areas and to inform us about the spatial dissemination of these shopping centres and the relation with the metropolization of Fortaleza and Lisbon. For the analysis of Fortaleza, data from the Brazilian Association of Shopping Centres, from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and the Institute of Research and Economic Strategy of Ceará was used. Regarding Lisbon, we collect data from the National Statistics and the Portuguese Association of Shopping Centres. Because maps facilitate the understanding of territories and are effective sources of communication (Kitchin & Tate, 2000), we present maps that support the analysis of the dynamics of the metropolises, in both case studies, using geographical information system software ArcGis.

Fortaleza
Fortaleza Metropolitan Region (FMR) is located in the Northeast of Brazil and plays a key role in the urban network of Ceará. The region possesses a relevant demographic dimension, as well as a significant economic influence in what concerns the wider region in the Brazilian Northeast. The Northeast of Fortaleza Metropolitan Region is a macro-region of the state of Ceará, consisting of nineteen municipalities, covering an area of 5,783.60 km² (3.89% of the state), with a population of 4,074,730 in 2018 (42.8 % of the state) (IBGE, 2018). FMR is going through a process of economic restructuring and, gradually, has been incorporating elements that place it in a position of economic interest and competitiveness on the global arena (Costa & Amora, 2015).
FMR fits into a new metropolitan model, whose trend of urban expansion is progressively incorporating cities within an increasingly broad and complex metropolitan system. It is a recent expansion of the metropolis-centred structure, which creates a pattern of interurban network with progressively less precise limits. Such dynamics that characterise Fortaleza also fit other metropoles around the world. However, the new spatial scales of organisation in the globalised world have been revealed in this Latin American metropolis in its full socio-spatial transformation (Borsdorf, 2003;Hidalgo, 2008). In the last decades, the growth of metropolitan areas worldwide, as a consequence of the globalisation process and productive restructuring, caused a significant restructuring in the morphology of the urbes (De Mattos, 2001). FMR is an area affected by such evolution, especially in the last years of the 20 th century and beginning of the 21 st century. It is also important to point out that the establishment of public policies inserted in a spectrum ranging from Brazilian neo-development to the conservative neoliberal turn, had and has potent effects in the growth and development of the Brazilian metropolises.
In this globalisation process, Fortaleza includes a territorial dynamic of both decentralisation and urban/metropolitan concentration. Therefore, there is a dispersion of economic activity at the metropolitan level, facilitated by the evolution and modernisation of the network infrastructure, logistics and the telecommunications sector, in which one can witness an expansion of functions related to retail and services. Academic narratives argue that the relevant phenomena of globalisation and neoliberal logic influenced the formation of a polycentric metropolitan system in Latin American cities through modernisation of retail, including the emergence and proliferation of the shopping centre typology, creating centralities outside the central core (Napadensky-Pastene & Orellana-Mcbridge, 2019).

The space production in FMR: evolution of retail and the metropolization
The emergence and dissemination of shopping centres is a phenomenon considered recent in the global, Brazilian and Fortalezensea context, and understood as being in a full phase of expansion in Latin American, Middle East, Asia, as well as in some European countries.
The growth of cities and urban transformations, have made shopping centres in Brazil since the 1960s and especially in the last decades go through a substantial expansion, contributing to the metropolization and urbanisation process. In December 2018, a total of 563 shopping centres existed in Brazil (Abrasce, 2019). The emergence and expansion of shopping centres in Brazil resulted from macroeconomic factors such as the merger of productive capital with financial capital associated with that industry. This is evident when the National Monetary Council (CNM) determined, in 1978, the allocation of about 40 % of pension funds for real estate. In the 1980s, in the first phase of expansion, there was a growth in this sector nationwide. In the 1990s, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) (public bank) created a specific credit line for the implementation and expansion of this sector across the country. In the 2000s, the adopted developmental economic policy resulted in new foreign investors entering in Brazil, a real increase in the minimum wage, an increase of the power to consume, access to credit and debit cards, an increase to motorisation, e.g., cars and motorcycles, and an improvement in urban mobility infrastructure. These were elements that allowed this sector to expand (Brazilian Government, 2020;IBGE, 2018).
Concerning the Fortaleza's production of space, there is an intrinsic relationship between the new centralities, as they were appearing and consolidating, and shopping centres. Such relations represent the culmination of new structural processes in the urban/metropolitan space, thus encouraging new vectors of valorisation and urban expansion (Figure 1).
In the area surrounding shopping centres, an increase in the vitality and new activities in retail and services was found, of which the new centrality of Aldeota is an example (Figure 2). In this case, shopping centres were considered big anchors of the relationship between commercial dynamics and the production of a new centrality. Thus, these retail precincts can be perceived in the context of the centralities as a new space-time articulation, which implies a new social configuration (Gonçalves, 2017). They are considered big anchors who have acted and act by changing land use and occupation in their immediate surroundings, with new commercial functions. This new centrality of Aldeota has the largest concentration of shopping centres in Fortaleza and has become one of the most important commercial axes of the city. In this context, the same rationale is applicable to the whole FMR, particularly in the last three decades. Figure 3 shows us how the dissemination of shopping centres occurred in the metropolis, supporting the consolidation of this area as polycentric. This evolution can also be apprehended through Table 1 in which three main stages are clearly distinguishable. The expansion and consolidation of shopping centres through socio-political practice Fortaleza municipality Small-sized, medium-sized; with regional coverage 3 After the 2010s Begining of peripheral shopping centres coincide with the so-called boom and is linked with the triad of commercial-real estate-financial capital. This last period also presents itself through the production and reproduction in the urban/metropolitan space South, West, Southeast of the metropolitan region of Fortaleza 000m². This means that in just over six years, the GLA more than doubled.
An expansion was observed in the number of shopping centres inaugurated in previously unexplored Fortaleza neighbourhoods, such as Parangaba, Jóquei Clube, and Papicu, as well as in the wider Fortaleza Metropolitan Region, in the municipalities of Caucaia, Maranguape and Eusébio. In this current stage, shopping centres have new stakeholders involved, with new processes being often associated to the construction of condominiums and commercial towers, thus evidencing new urban landscapes that introduce some fragmentation in the metropolis. The development strategies involving stakeholders relate to sociospatial formations, spatial selectivity, fragmentation and changes in consumer culture. Moreover, shopping centres tend to present new location logics, responding to the dynamics of real-estate stakeholders that produce new urban space in the metropolis. Thus, the expanding metropolitan axes deepened the contradictory modernisation of the urban spaces incorporating to its logic the commercial-real estate-financial capital.
The role of shopping centres in the metropolization process 205 It is understood that the Fortaleza metropolitan area sees today with the potential for real estate investments of international, national, regional or local character. Moreover, current policy instruments intertwine global financial markets and the urban built environment (Ferreira, 2014). Within the framework of the global economy, it has both the capacity for dispersion and geographic mobility and the capacity for territorial concentration. In this way, it shows the attraction and performance of international economic groups such as Ancar Ivanhoe (Brazilian and Canadian capital), Aliansce Sonae Shopping Centers (a joint capital between the USA, Portugal and Canada, currently the leading company dealing with the management of shopping centres in Brazil). The recent investment from national and international companies in the shopping centre industry is strongly correlated to the increase of the population income in Brazil. In FMR, the income per capita has increased by 85.2% from 1991 to 2010 (IPEA, 2015). The acceleration in the process of construction of new shopping centres in Fortaleza is intertwined with the urban transformations of the region, within a scenario of economic globalisation. Linked with this evolution, is the role of the state, introducing urban policies that aim to place FMR in the scenario of national and global competitiveness. Thus, the investment of national and international companies, sometimes in collaboration with local companies, is a direct consequence of the role of the state as an infrastructure planner, and the adoption of neoliberal planning policies, favouring public-private partnerships.
Looking at Fortaleza metropolitan region, models and forms of urban governance imply governmental arrangements between public and private actors; in other words, there are pacts and bilateral agreements. On the one hand, Federal Law regulates public-private partnerships since 2004. In this sense, the role of the state on the urban policymaking towards urban land is visible through the readjustment of laws and planning. On the other hand, the urban and architectural parameters are flexible through normative urban planning, and there is a predilection for major urban interventions such as shopping centres.
Concerning urban policy, laws and plans have contributed to the attraction of new businesses in the FMR. Since the development of the Fortaleza metropolitan region in the 1970s, several urban plans have been implemented. None of these plans and laws contains any objective restriction for the opening of shopping centres. In fact, when these plans are adopted and implemented, they are made more flexible, promoting the construction of shopping centres under the premise that this will generate revenue for municipalities, and favouring this last parameter instead of urban planning that promotes inclusion and social justice.

Lisbon
Lisbon metropolitan area is divided in two by Tagus River, with Lisbon located in the north bank. In the 20 th century, after the 2 nd World War, rural migration and the development of public transports, especially on the north bank of the Tagus River, resulted in a significant growth of the urban area. After 1970, suburbanisation widened. If in 1900and 1950, the city of Lisbon had, respectively, 72.84% and 67.52% of the population residing in the Lisbon metropolitan region (AML), this value suffered a meaningful decrease, to 58,76% in 1960, 46.1% in 1970, and 34.8% in 1986(Barata-Salgueiro, 1999. In 1991, Lisbon municipality had 26,3% of the population in the metropolitan area, and in 2011 it had already decreased to 19,4%. Within the same period, the north bank of AML gained population but decreased its relative weight within the whole AML. As the residential function of the city of Lisbon was losing preponderance, the opposite occurred in the large majority of the remaining municipalities. Although they remained less relevant, the municipalities on the southern bank further solidified their position. Between 1991 and 2011 there was an increase of 21.7% in the resident population in the southern bank of Tagus river, while in the municipalities of the north bank the increase was of 8.6%. The metropolization of the AML was consolidated through a less evident hierarchical relation between Lisbon and the remaining municipalities; thus, "with the increase in size and functional complexity, the city became a metropolis" (Barata-Salgueiro, 2001:52). The relevance of this city in the metropolitan context was dissolved with the functional enrichment of the suburbs. Thus, in an evolutionary process that extends until today, some less important urban centres have become autonomous, and their relationship with the city of Lisbon became of one less of dependence and more based on dialogue, where the city's traditional hierarchical structure tends to fade. Within this evolution, as in other Western European cities, some smaller-scale processes occurred simultaneously. Among these, one may enhance the loss of relevance of the main traditional centre of commerce of Lisbon (Guimarães, 2016) and the development of a wide set of suburban road nodes that consolidate the integration of the peripheries as metropolitan spaces. Moreover, the rise of large companies, such as SONAE and Jerónimo Martins (Barata-Salgueiro, 2001), after the fall of the dictatorial regime, proved to be essential in the evolution of the commercial environment of the country.

The connection between the evolution of retail and the metropolization in AML
In this region, the centrality and accessibility that characterised the hierarchy of main centres of commerce as classified by Berry et al. (1963) were diluted through the second half of the 20 th century. Its place was taken by a post-hierarchical structure (Cachinho, 2011), through transformations in the patterns of mobility and accessibility and the evolution of retail with the appearance of new retail concepts. The modernisation of retail in Portugal and Lisbon arrived with some delay in relation to the same process that occurred in other Western European countries (Guimarães, 2016). Until the mid-1970s, the retail fabric was characterised by small independent stores with a familiar management structure (Barata-Salgueiro, 1996). During this period, the capital associated with retail was mostly local. According to the Portuguese association of shopping centres, there are fifty shopping centres in AML. Of these, only three were inaugurated in the 1970s, nine in the 1980s, twenty in the 1990s, seventeen in the 2000s and only one after 2010 (Figure 4, Table 2).
In the first stage, developers associated with real estate built shopping centres, whose precincts were exploited as mere real estate assets (Cachinho, 2002), as individual stores within the retail precinct were sold to individual retailers who, thus, opened a store from a specific retail typology without concern for the overall tenant mix of the shopping centre (Guimarães, 2018). The second stage occurred in the 1980s, with an improvement of the design of new retail precincts and with the introduction of a planned tenant mix and anchored stores. However, as in the previous decade, shopping centres were small sized. They were mainly located in the Lisbon municipality. The third stage (1990s) is characterised by the large dissemination of shopping centres throughout the AML, although half were still inaugurated within the municipality of Lisbon. Two features stand out in this period: (i) the size of new shopping centres is significantly larger than in the previous decades; (ii) the appearance of large capital associated with retail investments, most of all due to a set of new large retail developers that become key actors in the industry, building not only larger retail precincts but decentralising their location throughout the metropolis, corresponding to a maturing of the shopping centre industry in the region. The fourth stage (2000s) produced a radically different pattern. The location of new shopping centres no longer favours Lisbon municipality, but they are developed in the remaining municipalities of the metropolitan region. Most shopping centres opened in the new millennium are substantially larger in size than those that preceded them. In many cases, the capital used in these investments continues to be associated with real estate assets, but there is a transfer of the marketing and management of these companies to other ones specialised in retail; occasionally other companies belonging to the same holding. The well-known process of retail internationalisation (Burt et al., 2003;Reynolds & Cuthbertson, 2004), emerged with a strong dynamism in Portugal and was associated with global capital. Companies such as the group Auchan and MULTI Corporation illustrate the entrance of international capital in Portugal, in general, and in Lisbon, in particular. As the evolution of shopping centres happened with some delay in Portugal, the market was not saturated and, thus, it became Shopping Centers Opening date 1970 -1980 1981 -1990 1991 -2000 2001 -2011 Administrative limit attractive for foreign investment from more matured retail companies. In time, some large Portuguese companies gained prominence and started to perform considerable investments in the retail; later on, these same companies have continued their internationalisation. Eventually, in a process that has emerged late but has rapidly spread, the commercial landscape of large shopping centres is owned by a restricted set of large companies. To this stage, this evolution in AML approaches Lefebvre's (2004) conception of cities' implosion-explosion and Keil's (2018) discussion about the fragmentation of the urban explosion, lived spaces of particularity, differentiation and multiple centralities from which the urban fabric has to be understood. Lastly, in the last stage that extends to the present-day, we watch a stagnation of new shopping centres. This evolution is explained by the spatial saturation that discouraged the opening of new shopping centres in conjunction with the global economic crisis. Thus, instead of investing in new retail precincts, this stage is mainly characterised by the renovation of existing ones (Table 3).
Overall, while the city of Lisbon was losing population and was unable to respond to societal changes and the shortage of affordable vacant areas, the remaining municipalities benefited from a rising number of inhabitants and functional enrichment. The road nodes that facilitated intra-metropolitan accessibility have triggered, by the different municipalities, the competition for attracting investments, allowing the rapid dissemination of shopping centres (Table 2). In fact, through the growing effort to attract investment, policymakers were struggling to adjust their institutions and practices to what they felt to be the new rules of globalised and liberalised intra-urban competition (Boudreau, 2003;Donald, 2001).
The aforementioned evolution of shopping centres in Lisbon also reflects national planning laws that regulate the industry, mainly with a reactive stance. The first law was approved in 1989 and was amended several times in the 1990s and 2000s. Renovation of existent shopping centres --with regional coverage Source: After Cachinho (2005) Its role was never to restrict the opening of shoping centres but rather to control it somehow, involving national, regional and municipal public authorities. The liberal nature of these laws is transpired not only by the lack of restrictiveness that characterised them, but also by the authorisation fees that promoters have to pay, and by other benefits that are offered to the respective municipality. In this latter category, we should include the urban improvement brought to the commercial units and its surroundings and also the political gains obtained by elected politicians for the opening of shopping centres within the municipality limits.
As the above information informs us, the evolution of shopping centres in Fortaleza and Lisbon metropolitan area occurred with some similarities, as the dissemination of shopping centres throughout both metropolitan regions happened in a similar way. Nevertheless, temporarily, a difference can be seen. In Lisbon, the beginning of the dissemination of the shopping centres can be traced to the 1970s, whereas the dissemination occurred with some delay in Fortaleza. In the latter region, the opening of new retail precincts was particularly relevant after 2004 until to the current days, while in Lisbon the opening of new shopping centres was more intense in the 1990s and early 2000s. Currently, while AML is experiencing a period of clear stagnation when it comes to developing new shopping centres, Fortaleza still did not reach that phase.

Conclusion
Using Fortaleza, in Brazil, and Lisbon, in Portugal as case studies, we aimed to unfold the main features of the relation between metropolization and shopping centres in both metropolitan areas and discuss similarities and differences.
The behaviour of the shopping centre industry in the metropolization of Lisbon and Fortaleza is mixed, both accompanied the urban change, sometimes leading those same changes. Shopping centres with their activity-agglutinating nature, assembling various branches of commerce, services and leisure, in combination with their size and scale, began to occupy significant portions of urban territory, formed new centralities and reinforced already existent ones, thus, shaping the dynamics of both metropolises. Still, some significant dissimilarities were found. Early manifestations of the metropolization of Lisbon that can be traced to the middle of the last century was not accompanied by transformations in the retail sector, which continued to follow a traditional hierarchical structure of centres of commerce. Roughly, this pattern extended to the end of the 1980s. Although shopping centres already appeared by this period, the intrinsic connection of these retail precincts with local capital helped to reproduce and consolidate the pre-existent centres of commerce. It is only in the 1990s with the entrance of large capital in retail that wide dissemination of shopping centres was seen throughout the metropolis in already urbanised but deprived areas, functionally enriching them, helping not with the structuring of the process of metropolization but rather with its consolidation. In Fortaleza, shopping centres were also important elements in the consolidation of the metropolitan area in its current form. In this region, the opening of new shopping centres was particularly relevant after 2004. Still, the role of shopping centres in that process was more relevant as they not only helped to consolidate the metropolization of Fortaleza but were also fundamental in the structuring of several centralities that nowadays characterise that region.
Nevertheless, in both metropoles, shopping centres were important instruments in the consolidation of new urban centralities within their respective metropolitan areas. Thus, we can relate these new expansions and valuations of space with the evolution of new commercial practices and locations, especially shopping centres that assumed a greater impulse to the pace of globalisation. By supporting the consolidation of some new urban centralities, shopping centres are connected with the vitality of certain districts and end up being an expression of the socially stratified private property.
Overall, in our case studies, global capital is associated to the shopping centre industry, and we have looked at how specific regions are explored and shaped by it. Thus, shopping centres should be seen as a visible mechanism that arises from the relation between the financialisation of space and the neoliberalization of capital.
The dissemination of shopping centres in both metropoles acted in the redefinition of their centralities and even in the production of the two metropolises. Moreover, it represents the materialisation of the current process of accumulation and reproduction of capital, through which a new network of relations between the traditional urban centre of the metropolis and their surroundings is established.