The Effects of Accessibility on the Economic and Social Development in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

<p>This thesis looks at the effects of accessibility on the economic and social development in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Certain indicators, representative of economic and social development were obtained from the Brazilian National Census and these were plotted against distance from Sao Paulo City for analysis. In this case, distance being used as the measure of accessibility. Visual and regression analysis were then performed on the data to examine the relationship between the development parameters and the effects of distance.</p> <p>During the course of the analysis, it was found that not only distance affected the level of development but town size also had and important role. The town size determined the degree of development that was going to occur, regardless of distance from Sao Paulo.</p>