TRANSFORMACIONES EN LA CONFIGURACIÓN Y FUNCIONALIDADES DE LA PERIFERIA URBANA NOROESTE DE LA GRAN ÁREA METROPOLITANA DE COSTA RICA (GAM)

The peripheries are generally conceived as scenarios for expanding various economic activities in central cities, and their land uses usually explain both their functionality and territorial organization. However, the literature shows that the logic that configures these places also goes through a framework of territorialized human relations and that their forms of organization are also linked to social valuations. Given the above, the research emphasizes the importance of taking a comprehensive look, based on spatial structures, to understand the changes and contemporary functionalities of the periphery under study. For this, a qualitative methodology of an ethnographic type was considered, based on observing land uses and the practices of the different users. As a result, the spatial structures approach made evident other activities and relationships between society and the environment, such as forms of recreation on agricultural land, the agriculturization process, agro-productive diversification, and changes in residential models, which must be taken into account for current and future planning of the periphery. Keywords: Land Use, Transformations in Urban Peripheries, Functionalities, Geographic Space, Social Valuation, Gran Área Metropolitana.