**Abstract**

The aim of this article is to analyze African urbanization, looking specifically at the transformations of Mozambican urban peripheries. To do so, conduct a qualitative research of an exploratory nature, using bibliographic, documentary and photographic survey. The most interesting discoveries of this study started in the 1990s, a period marked by the end of "socialism", civil war, centrally planned economy, which verified the opening of parents in the current Western capitalist world in the growth of foreign investments and financial transactions. Under the effect of market liberalization. At this moment, everything that is traded and the exchange value overlaps the use value and appropriation of space in exchange for money. In this context, as the peripheral urban cities are transformed into multiplying duplexes, elegant houses those call houses, true "Mozambican palaces" and closed condoms. The establishment of these houses will transform these spaces and gradually expel the low-income population that has existed for a long time, to places very far from the central area, this phenomenon is called gentrification. He concluded that the transformation of Mozambican urban peripheries is influenced by the increase in real estate capital, increase in individual income, ease of acquisition of space and construction material (provided by the expansion of the installation for the exhibition that makes it possible or cheaper). This research is important because it makes an important contribution to the empirical studies on the new neoliberal urbanism that is taking place in Mozambican cities. The limits of this research are due to the lack of funding to carry out a systematic survey of new ventures that will emerge in cities and places far from the center of large cities, such as: *Maputo*, *Beira, Nampula* and *Matola*. It is intended in the future study to demonstrate how to change the socioeconomic structure of the residents of the Mozambican peripheries, characterizing gentrification.

**Keywords:** extensive urbanization, transformation, urban spaces, periphery, gentrification

### **1. Introduction**

Three geographic objects, among many others, can illustrate the transformations of the built environment of the Mozambican urban peripheries: the duplexes - highend properties composed of two floors interconnected by stairs [1]; elegant houses, which we call houses, real "Mozambican palaces" and closed condominiums [2]. These urban transformations are influenced by the increase in individual income, ease of acquisition of space and construction material (provided by the expansion

of the establishment for acquisition that makes it cheaper), which change the existing residential landscape and restructure the peripheries, valuing, making it more attractive and promoting its insertion in the urban market, causing negative impacts related to processes of gentrification and socio-spatial segregation [3].

To use the words of Diniz and Silva [3], the ennoblement of the urban periphery occurs through two social substitution processes, linked to urban rehabilitation actions through private investments and culminating in the expulsion of the former residents. The first that goes from 1990 to 2000, when the low-income population left the central areas of the main cities, to the peripheries. These low-income residents sold the keys (a typical Mozambican expression meaning the sale of an apartment or flat), while others rented their houses, with or without contracts, and went to live on the outskirts. In a second moment, since the beginning of the 2000s, the formation and consolidation of the modern real estate market and the civil construction industry accelerate the pace of construction of new housing and commercial areas in the peripheries [4].

It is in this context that a new gentrification arrives in Mozambican cities, first in urban centers, later in urban peripheries, connecting distant points that are points of infrastructures such as highways, which value an appropriation of space.

From this perspective, it is based on the principle that the poor population is the greatest vulnerability in these spaces, in each moment when new ventures are implemented, they are motivated to leave the neighborhood spaces because they verify that a new life does not correspond to their financial capacity, considering as profound social inequalities in urban peripheries, it is possible to anticipate the geographic assessment of changes in the socioeconomic structure of residents of the Mozambican peripheries, characterizing gentrification. In this way, this work starts from some important issues in relation to the transformations of the peripheries of Mozambican cities, but it can also be replicated in other African cities. The first specific objective is to map the types of housing and commercial developments that are emerging in the urban peripheries. The second is to present a spatial distribution of the suburbs in urban cities.

In this way, therefore, this article is divided into three parts: in addition to this introduction, a methodology, with a description of the procedures used for writing that article and analyzing the results.
