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Costa will present his research using historical GIS data to investigate the relationship between transportation policy decisions and the formation of São Paulo's peripheral area. The paper uses Granger causality models and data on transportation and urban development to measure the co-development of these factors in the city between 1881 and 2013. Findings confirm the hypothesis that the peripheral urban sprawl of São Paulo is related to road transportation deployment. Evidence shows that mass transit investments have historically been followed by significant building densification in surroundings. Costa's research explores how critical juncture decisions made during the 1930s prioritized road development while mass transit plans remained on the drawing board. Trolleys and railways stimulated land development in the early twentieth century, but over time the city moved forward, and the mass transit network was no longer capable of following São Paulo's urban sprawl.

Adriano Borges Costa is a visiting Brazilian scholar at Brown, working with colleagues at S4, Watson Institute, and the Department of Computer Science. His research is focused on applying GIS and remote sensing analysis to explore urban phenomena and assess public policies. He recently obtained his PhD in public policy from Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil) and was a visiting researcher in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and a fellow of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy.

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