suffer the effects of urban sprawl in the city of Rio de Janeiro. With the inauguration of Rio de Janeiro North Railway, on 23 April 1886, the region was definitively linked to the former Federal District. With the inauguration of new stations in 1911 by the Leopoldina Railway, the number of passengers and the number of passengers in Gramacho, São Bento, Actura (Campos Elísios), Primavera and Saracuruna neighbourhoods were multiplied. However, despite this recovery that the railroad had brought, the lowlands continued to suffer from a lack of sanitation, a factor that stagnated their progress. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the lowlands served to alleviate the demographic pressures of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Statistical data show that in 1910, the population was eight hundred people in Meriti, moving in 1920 to 2920. The rapid population growth caused the fractionation and the subdivision of the former rural properties, at that moment, unproductive. Only in 1924, the first electricity grid was installed in the municipality. With the opening of the Rio-Petrópolis Highway in 1928, Meriti once again prospered. Numerous companies bought land and settled in the region because of the proximity to Rio de Janeiro. The process of emancipation of the city was related to the formation of a group that organized the Popular Caxiense Union (UPC): journalists, doctors and local politicians. In 1940, the pro-emancipation commission was created: Sylvio Goulart, Rufino Gomes, Amadeu Lanzeloti, Joaquim Linhares, José Basílio, Carlos Fraga and Antônio Moreira. The reaction of the government was immediate and the demonstrators were arrested. In the 1940s, the federal government promoted the cleaning of more than 6,000 kilometers of rivers and built more than two hundred bridges in the Baixada Fluminense. The great growth through which Meriti passed, led Federal Representative Manuel Reis to propose the creation of the District of Caxias. On 14 March 1931, through the act of the interventor Plínio de Castro Casado, the District of Caxias was created by State Decree No. 2,559, with headquarters in the former Meriti Station, belonging to the then municipality of Nova Iguaçu. On December 31, 1943, through Decree-Law 1055, it was renamed the Municipality, receiving the name Duque de Caxias. The Duque de Caxias region was created by Decree-Law No. 0556, on the same day, month and year. With the emancipation, the municipality received great incentive in its economy. Several people, mainly from the Northeast Region