Intelligibility in Large Spatial Systems The Case of Porto Alegre Metropolitan Region

space syntax; metropolitan planning; large scale movement; urban modeling In 2006, almost 1,500 Brazilian municipalities, with population over 20,000 people or located in metropolitan areas approved or reviewed their master plans, influenced by new law requirements and principles such as the social function of property, urban sustainability, popular participation and democratic public management. At this moment, urban transportation debate went over and above its limits as a public service to be provided and reached an urban mobility approach. The discussion crossed different points of view. However, the influence of the urban grid on pedestrian and vehicle movement has been seldom referred to. Urban space structuring is seen as a generic process in public transportation policies, described by abstract center/periphery models where costs are often related exclusively to metric distances. Consequent problems from this incomplete approach, under a spatial point of view, become worse in Brazilian metropolitan areas, once recent master plans of metropolitan municipalities brought out difficulties in understanding themselves as parts of the metropolitan whole. This was expressed not only in the number of spaces which didn't join up to form coherent continuities but also in the lac