urbanization in latin america kemper en word 2003.pdf

8/13/2019 Urbanization in Latin America Kemper en word 2003.pdf

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Urbanization in Latin America

[Note: this article appeared in 2002: Urbanization in Latin America; pp. 88-100 in

Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember (editors), Encyclopedia of Urban Cultures, Volume 1.Danbury, CT: Grolier Publishing Co.]

Robert V. Kemper

Southern Methodist University

Latin America covers an immense territory, from the dry deserts of Mexico in the northern

hemisphere to the cold, windy landscapes of Tierra del Fuego in the far southern

hemisphere. The natural diversity of Latin America is visible in the tropical islands of theCaribbean basin, in the vastness of the Amazon rain forest, and in the volcanic peaks and

valleys stretching from central Mexico through Central America and then continuing along

the western edge of South America. These distinctive physical environments provide a

wide range of challenges for human settlement in Latin America. As we enter the twenty-first century, more than half a billion people in Latin America increasingly use urban

strategies to cope with these challenges.

In the year 2000, 74% of Latin Americas 513,000,000 inhabitants were living in urban

areas. The seven largest urban agglomerations have a total of 82 million residents. These

mega-cities, each with more than five million inhabitants, range from fourth to forty-fifthamong the worlds most populous cities: Mexico City (fourth with 19.8 million); So Paulo

(fifth with 17.9 million); Buenos Aires (eleventh with 13.3 million); Rio de Janeiro

(twentieth with 10.7 million); Lima (twenty-eighth with 7.5 million); Bogot (thirtieth with7.4 million); and Santiago (forty-fifth with 5.4 million).

Urban Development before the Arrival of Europeans

Urbanization is one of the great themes in the transformation of the native cultures of the

Americas into the contemporary nation-states of Latin America. Although urban life wasnot widespread in the region before the arrival of the Europeans, the archaeological

evidence uncovered so far suggests that some Amerindian peoples had established urban-

based cultures as early as 1300 B.C.E. in Mesoamerica and as early as 500 B.C.E. in the

coastal valleys along the Andes. These urban places came to so dominate their hinterlandsthat urbanization was linked to political and religious power from the earliest period of

Latin American development (Hardoy 1973). Long before the emergence of the Aztec and

Inca civilizations, urban centers played significant roles in centralizing authority. By the1500s, when the Spaniards finally encountered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitln and the

Inca capital of Cuzco, urbanization was well established in the Americas.

The most magnificent example of pre-Columbian urbanization may have been the island

city of Tenochtitln, founded in 1325 and by the late 1400s the dominant force in

Mesoamerica. Although it was virtually destroyed by the Spanish Conquest, recentexcavations of the Great Temple give some idea of what the conquistadores saw when they


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entered the Valley of Mexico for the first time in 1519. As Bernal Daz del Castillo(1956:218-19), a soldier in the company of Hernn Corts, described the event:

We were amazed. . . . It was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, onaccount of the great towers and temples and buildings rising from the water, and all built of

masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a

dream. . . . I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never beenheard of or seen before, not even dreamed about. Some . . . among us who had been inmany parts of the world, in Constantinople, all over Italy, and in Rome, said that so large a

market and so full of people and so well-regulated and arranged, they had never beheldbefore.

The Colonial Urban System

The fall of Tenochtitln in 1521 and Cuzco in 1536 ushered in a new era in Latin Americaurbanization (Kemper and Royce 1983; Greenfield 1994). Between 1521 and 1820 the

Spaniards and the Portuguese created hundreds of cities and towns, both on and near

established indigenous sites and in newly conquered lands beyond the limits of the formerAztec and Inca empires. This considerable urban expansion was not carried out just toassure military and political control of the vast reaches of Latin America, but to create a

system for exploiting its human, mineral, and agricultural resources for the benefit of the

home countries. The colonial urban system was designed to expedite the flow of goodsbetween the hinterlands and the major ports of trade and then onward to the Iberian

peninsulaas well as to improve the counterflow of goods and immigrants from Spain and

Portugal to the New World.

The consequences of the Spanish and Portuguese urban policies may be summarized as

follows: (1) the colonies were economically dependent on Europe and suffered from

restrictive trade practices that hampered their economic development; (2) the cities andtheir hinterlands were dominated by a bureaucratic-political system tied to the needs of

Spain and Portugal rather than to local conditions; (3) the establishment of cities and towns

essentially ignored the boundaries recognized by the indigenous populations; and (4) thecities and towns were the focus of a fairly rigid caste system.

Urbanization in the Nineteenth Century

Just as the conquest had profoundly transformed the pre-Columbian urban systems, so the

fierce fighting between loyalists and independentistas (those seeking independence fromEurope) had significant consequences for the colonial urban system. Mining and

agricultural productivity declined sharply, throwing the entire economy into disarray. Manypeople abandoned their villages and towns as unsafe; their cityward migrations temporarilyswelled the populations of the larger urban centers. Although the period of violence and

revolution lasted from about 1810 to the late 1820s, it did not result in a population decline

comparable to that following the conquest. Ultimately, independence simply took earlier

administrative and economic reforms one step further: the restrictive chain laid on thecolonies by Spain and Portugal was broken, and the colonial urban system and the

hierarchy of power it represented could be reorganized.


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Nevertheless, Latin America's newly "independent" urban system changed relatively littlein the first half of the nineteenth century. Few new cities were established; those of the

colonial period continued their desultory growth. The continent was dominated by large

rural landholders whose estates assumed a central place in the economic and politicalstruggles between liberal and conservative forces. In mid-century, when Latin America as a

whole had 30 million inhabitants, only four citiesRio de Janeiro, Salvador (Bahia),Mexico City, and Havanahad more than a hundred thousand residents, and only six othercitiesLima, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Recife, Caracas, and Montevideohad more than

fifty thousand. This relatively slow urban growth was in marked contrast to the rapid

growth experienced by cities in Europe and in the United States during the same period. Ineffect, these emerging Latin American nations were saddled with highly regionalized,

weakly articulated urban systems in which the cities were consumers rather than producers.

Between the 1850s and the 1890s a new stage in Latin America urban development began.The national capitals and port cities grew rapidly as a result of domestic migration and

immigration from European countries, especially to Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Cuba.

The millions of immigrants included Jews, Russians, Poles, Italians, Swiss, Germans, andSpaniards. Because of their generally better education and greater business experience,

many immigrants began to control the petty and medium-scale commerce of the expanding

cities. Moreover, the immigrants played an important role in bringing European experiencewith labor unions and political movements to bear on the Latin American urban scene.

Thus, the newcomers made a major contribution to urban and industrial growth at a time

when their contribution was vitally needed to supplement the relatively unskilled

indigenous work force.

Urban Growth in the Twentieth Century

By 1900, Buenos Aires had a population of 867,000 inhabitants; Rio de Janeiro had

691,000; Mexico City, 541,000; Montevideo, 309,000; Santiago, 287,000; So Paulo,

239,000; Havana, 236,000; Salvador (Bahia), 208,000; Lima, 130,000; and Recife,113,000. With the exception of Mexico City, these ten most populous cities of Latin

America were critical cogs in the city-port complex that linked their nations to European

and United States markets.

The policies followed by governments from Mexico to Argentina promoted strong ties

between local agricultural interests and foreign capitalists; the growing interchange of rawmaterials (exported from Latin America) and finished goods (imported into Latin America)

was concentrated in one or two ports in each country. A vital component of this interchange

network was the establishment and expansion of railroads. This development greatlyaffected existing cities. Those that were thereby connected with the capital and the major

ports greatly benefited, those that were bypassed were fated to decline. In addition, the

railroad networks tended to reinforce the primacy of one or two urban centers in each

country.

As in the United States, the railroads opened vast territories for agricultural and mining

development and created new urban frontiers. Thousands of new towns and cities werebuilt. The majority were simple service centers and transportation hubs, but somesuch as


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La Plata and Belo Horizontewere shining examples of European-influenced urbandesign.

Not since the sixteenth century had so many new urban settlements been founded in Latin

America. However, very few of the new cities achieved the population and importance of

urban centers forming the old network inherited from the colonial period. Indeed, thepattern of dependent urban development of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

merely preserved the old colonial pattern of external domination in another guise.

Primate Cities and "Dependent" Urbanization

Latin American economic and demographic growth was increasingly characterized toward

the end of the nineteenth century by growing primacy in the urban systemthe situation inwhich the largest (the "primate") city is many times larger than the second biggest city. The

major city acts as a nodal point in the nation's economic and political affairs and serves as

the link to the foreign metropolis that dominates the international export-importrelationship. As a place of government, the major city attracts elite groups and becomes the

place of residence for the landowning and merchant class. Consequently the purchasing

power of the nation becomes concentrated in the primate city, stimulating furthercommercial and service activity, construction, and local industrial production. This growth

attracts migration from less prosperous agricultural regions and also draws the bulk of

foreign immigrants. Once the primate city emerges, the process of urban agglomerationtends to become cumulative because other places are starved of the resources needed to

compete. For example, by the end of the nineteenth century, as a result of the centralization

produced by the development of a railroad network based on the capital, Mexico City had

become three times as large as the next biggest city in the country, whereas in mid-centuryit had been only twice as large.

The extreme degree of urban primacy in Latin America seems to be related to the region'sdependent role in the world economy (Castells 1973). By 1920, most Latin American

countries had primate urban systems, with the highest primacy rates found in Argentina,

Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. Brazil was a special case in which the two largestcities, Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo, emerged as a bi-primate urban node. Foreign

investments, dominated by Britain and the United States, were focused on these same

countries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, the absence of

pronounced urban primacy in Venezuela and Colombia may be due to their relatively weakincorporation into the world economy during this period.

By the period of the global economic crises of the 1930s, the pattern of urban primacy wasfirmly entrenched throughout most of Latin America (Greenfield 1994). The annual growth

rates of the principal metropolitan areas were higher than the annual growth rates of

national population. The urban population by 1930 included some twenty-eight cities withmore than a hundred thousand inhabitants, although these were not evenly distributed

throughout the region. Seven of the hundred-thousand-plus cities were in Brazil, six in

Argentina, four in Mexico, three in Colombia, two each in Chile and Ecuador, and only one

each in Bolivia, Cuba, Peru, and Venezuela. There were none in Haiti, the DominicanRepublic, or the majority of Central American countries. In sum, urbanization during this


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period reinforced the politico-administrative structure formed during the nineteenth centuryand reflected the growing economic dependence of the relatively underdeveloped Latin

American countries upon industrialized countries such as the United States, Britain,

Germany, and France.

Import-Substitution and Urbanization

The dangers of relying on the export of primary products became increasingly obvious to

many in government and in the private sector during the period after World War I.European demand declined sharply, and supplies of manufactured products from abroad

were similarly reduced. Other world regions, with even lower labor and production costs,

also began to compete with Latin American countries for the world markets of many

primary commodities, including rubber, sugar, coffee, cacao, and copper. The Depressionstruck another serious blow to the relationship between urban centers in Latin American

and foreign markets. Not only international exchange but also internal economic growth

suffered.

Not surprisingly, nationalist sentiment advocated diminished local dependence on foreign

economic forces. As a result, by the 1940s, most Latin American countries were producingbasic consumer goods, construction materials, and tools needed to further economic

development in the post-war era. Some, such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, were even

able to establish national industries in rubber, steel, cement, and petroleum refining as partof the broader effort to substitute domestic products for foreign imports.

Expansion of industry provided a great impetus for urban growth and began to transformthe economic linkage between countryside and city. As a result, the metropolitan areas

where local industrial development was centered witnessed dramatic population growth by

the 1940s, which continued unabated through the 1970s. Thus, the path of economic

development taken by Latin American governments in recent decades has had a directimpact on population distribution, migration rates, and levels of urbanization. In a few

cases governmental policies dictated the creation of new towns, especially in previously

marginal regions. Ciudad Sahagun and Ciudad Lzaro Crdenas in Mexico, Brasilia inBrazil, Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela, Belmopan in Belize, and Chimbote in Peru are well-

known instances of urban centers created since the 1950s to expand the urban-industrial

network (or to serve as administrative capitals) and stimulate regional economic

development.

In sum, Latin American reactions to dependence on external capital have speeded

urbanization even where economic development has remained uneven. As the flow offoreign immigrants has declined, the stream of rural-urban migrants has assumed enormous

proportions, so that overall rates of urban population growth remained high in most

countries through the 1970s. The fundamental economic and political dominance of themajor cities has not been challenged by the growth of numerous secondary and tertiary

urban centers. This historical-structural background is essential for understanding the

urbanization of Latin America during the contemporary period.

Population Growth and Urbanization: 1950-2000


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The remarkable growth of the Latin American population since World War II has noparallel in the history of the world. In 1950 the region's total population was about 156

million; in 1960, 206 million; in 1970, 274 million; in 1980, 365 million, in 1990, 448

million, and over 517 million in 2000. In other words, since 1950, Latin America hasincreased in population by more than the equivalent of the entire population of the present-

day United States. Moreover, some demographers project that Latin Americas populationwill exceed 702 million in the year 2025 and may reach 822 million in 2050.

Table 1(at end of document) provides basic data on the percent of urban population for

1950 and 1990, and gives projections for 2000 and 2010. In 1950, 42 percent of the totalpopulation in Latin America lived in places defined as "urban," with a range from 12

percent (Haiti) to 78 percent (Uruguay). The overall proportion jumped to 72 percent by

1990, with a low of 28 percent (Haiti) and a high of 91 percent (Venezuela). For the year

2000, the overall Latin American urban population is at 74 percent, with a range from 34percent (Haiti) to 92 percent (Uruguay). By 2010, the Latin American urban population

may reach 80 percent, with a low of 42 percent (Haiti) and a high of 95 percent

(Venezuela).

As the data inTable 2(at end of document) show, in the forty years between 1950-1990,

Latin America as a whole had an annual percentage rate of urban growth of 3.9 percent,with a range from 1.0 percent (Uruguay) to 5.7 percent (Honduras). For the 1990-2000

decade, the United Nations projected that the overall Latin American urban growth rate will

decline to 2.5 percent, with a low of 0.8 percent (Uruguay) and a high of 4.7 percent(Honduras). Their projection for the period 2000-2010 is 2.0 percent for all of Latin

America, and a range from 0.8 percent (Uruguay) to 4.2 percent (Haiti).

This urban population expansion is staggering, yet its implications for economic and social

development take on special significance in the context of the urbanization process. The

very high rates of overall population growth (due especially to declines in infant mortality

and increased longevity) have been combined with substantial flows of rural-urbanmigration from the 1940s through the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, (with projections for

the first decade of the 21st century following the same trend), urban growth has resulted

more from natural growth (i.e., the excess of births over deaths) than from citywardmigration.

Cityward Migration and the Urbanization Process

The integration of people and places tied to the urban system has increased from the largest

metropolitan areas to the smallest hamlets (Butterworth and Chance 1981, Gilbert 1994).The flow of population to and from the cities is not just a demographic phenomenon; it is a

significant feature of the social, cultural, and economic matrix of Latin America's

development crisis. Urbanization is not restricted to cities; the extension of urbaninstitutions and the imposition of urban standards in the countryside confirms the truism

that the highways carrying migrants to cities are not one-way streets (Roberts 1978). Thus

cities, towns, and villages become part of a national (even international) network in which

urban processes affect people today.
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Millions continue to migrate from the countryside to the major cities and secondary townsof Latin America. Their movements may be temporary or permanent, entail short or long

distances, involve individuals or groups, and be characterized by certain sociodemographic

features related to the migrants' age, sex, education, employment, social class, ethnicity,and even personality. Given the volume and diversity of the migration stream, it is not

surprising that social scientists have had difficulty generalizing about the qualities ofindividual migrants (Bilsborrow 1998). Furthermore, it has proven a considerable challengeto link individual aspects of migration to the broader historical-structural factors beyond

individual control, though such factors influence or even force people into decisions about

why, where, when, and how to migrate. Finally, as socio-economic circumstances changein both rural and urban areas, the causes and effects of migration change too, and migrant

characteristics are transformed.

At the risk of overgeneralization, the following statements regarding cityward migrationseem valid:

1. Migrants are overwhelmingly young adults.

2. Females tend to migrate more often than men do.

3. Ethnicity can facilitate the migration process since ethnic enclaves may assist new

arrivals to adjust to their cities.

4. The presence of relatives or friends in specific cities often influences the migrant's choice

of destination.

5. Migrants to large cities tend to come from smaller urban centers and from higher-status

families in towns and villages.

6. Migrants tend to have higher levels of education and more appropriate job skills than dothose who remain behind.

7. Migrants from rural areas may travel directly to large cities or they may travel by stages(i.e., from village to town to city).

8. Some cityward migration is an intergenerational process in which parents leave thevillage, but their children eventually settle in the large cities.

9. Migration is highly selective of those individuals who are risk takers, adventuresome,dynamic, and responsive to perceived opportunities beyond their place of origin.

The substantial volume of emigration from the rural areas of Latin America influencesconditions in villages of origin as well as in cities of destination. The tendency for young

women and men to leave their villages sometimes depletes the local community of its

potential future parents. Although most rural areas have been able at least to maintain their

size in recent decades (through high birthrates and lower death rates), some of them are


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suffering a net loss of population because of the high rates of emigration. For example,Douglas Butterworth and John Chance (1981:82-83) describe the situation for the Mexican

community of Tilantongo: "Marital infidelity, temporary sexual liaisons, and marriage

dissolution are becoming more frequent largely as a result of the breakup of the immediateand extended family through out-migration and the exodus of potential marriage partners."

Another consequence of substantial emigration is the loss of the local community's young

and middle-class inhabitants -- those most likely to become innovators and leaders. This

"rural brain drain" mirrors the international movement of well-educated and talented people

from underdeveloped regions to Europe and the United States. When and if the villageoffers its emigrants the chance to practice their newly acquired skills (e.g., as doctors,

dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians) some may move back to the community.

Villagers who return to their communities of origin, either permanently or temporarily,

bring back new ideas, new aspirations, and new consumer goods (Kemper 1977). They

know that their village is not isolated from the outside world, and others witness this. Somemigrants visit relatives and friends for the holidays or for vacations. Others return to attend

to local responsibilities, whether familial, economic, or religious. Still others abandon the

city because they have lost their jobs or homes, as occurred in the aftermath of the 1985

Mexico City earthquake.

Even those migrants who seldom or never return to their home communities may haveprofound effects on the lives of those who remained there. They often send money to their

relatives to help with the economic problems that caused (at least in part) the emigrants to

leave in the first place. Migrants also provide their fellow villagers with assistance in

looking for jobs and housing in the city. As a result, complex social networks bridge thegeographic and cultural gap between village and metropolis, transforming what were once

individual migration itineraries into a continuing and expanding social process. Finally,

migrants provide valuable information about city life and about the economic and political

events that are shaping village affairs. For example, the migrants often serve asintermediaries when villagers need assistance in dealing with businesses, government

agencies, or with admissions to higher educational institutions in the city.

In many rural or semirural communities, village-oriented migrant associations play an

important role in local religious and educational activities (Hirabayashi 1993). Migrants

join with those who stayed behind to improve circumstances in the community (e.g., bybuilding a new wing for the school) or by affirming the historical solidarity of the

community (e.g., by sponsoring dances and fireworks displays at the annual patron-saint

festival). Such migrant associations may also provoke social conflict in the community oforigin by highlighting the success of some families (to the chagrin of other families) or by

attempting to gain control of the local political system for private gain.

Urbanization of the Countryside

Aside from the obvious impact on rural areas of returning migrants and remittances frommigrants, other aspects of the urbanization process are played out in the countryside,

including the diffusion of government programs, business activity, and individual


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decisions. Along the same lines, in many rural zones of Latin America, federal and stategovernments are building systems of transportation and mass communication to integrate

the population with urban priorities. Building schools is also a high priority in the national

development schemes of most countries. Health care can be improved through theestablishment of rural clinics, the dissemination of health-related information, campaigns

for immunization, and programs for population control and family planning. In manycountries government and private-sector corporations are trying to attract tourists toeconomically depressed rural areas that offer some combination of archaeological,

environmental, and cultural or ethnic attractions. These tourist development projects often

have mixed results for the village economy and culture, precisely because they are morefocused on meeting the "needs" of urban-based tourists than they are on ensuring that the

local residents maintain control of their lives and their lands. Similar problems arise with

other development projects, such as hydroelectric schemes whose purpose is to bring

electric power or water to the growing cities- often at the expense of rural areas.

These examples of urban bias could be multiplied endlessly, but the central point remains:

the rural sector contains most of the poverty, whereas the urban sector contains most of thepower. In general, it appears that national development policies have slighted the

countryside in their attempt to deal with the enormous problems visible in the cities. This is

not just a matter of where one lives, but also a function of one's involvement in agricultureor industry and of one's position in the class hierarchy. For example, government policies

promoting large-scale irrigation-based agriculture may do little to improve the situation of

small farmers who have little or no access to irrigation or mechanization. Indeed, there is

some evidence to show that the Green Revolution and other efforts to raise agriculturalproductivity through the use of improved seeds and fertilizers may have accentuated

landlessness and has probably stimulated, rather than reduced, the flow of cityward

migrants. Even the vaunted schemes of the Brazilian government in recent decades todevelop the Amazon Basin have created problems for indigenous populations, for the rain

forest environment, and for the thousands of poor people expected to join in this population

movement. As Alan Gilbert and Josef Gugler (1982:184) have argued: "Spectacular the

Amazon program may well be, but it demonstrates most of the faults of uncontrolledcapitalist development; it generates economic growth, without improving the extreme

maldistribution of wealth and income. [I]t clearly demonstrates the paramount importance

of the style of national development on the formulation of subsidiary policies." And, it

might be added, the style of Brazilian "national" development is formulated by elitemembers of the urban-industrial society dominated by Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo, and

Brasilia.

Spatial Patterns of Urban Development

In most Latin American countries, urban growth has been chaotic and uncontrolled. Despite

governmental efforts to restrict the location of urban development, individual and collective

enterprises have continued to be significant in constructing the urban landscape. All toooften, uncontrolled urban expansion has resulted in the use of land unsuited to urban

purposes, whether industrial or residential. Valuable agricultural lands have been invaded

as city residents seek space for housing and corporations seek locations for industrial parks.

As cities expand, the need for improved transportation systems has grown beyond the


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abilities of municipalities and the private sector to build infrastructure and supply buses,ride-share shuttles, taxis, and private cars and trucks.

Even where governments have encouraged industrial companies to move to the urban

hinterlands, workforce relocation, residential subdivision construction, and development of

commercial zones are only the beginning of what must be done. In addition, schools,clinics, hospitals, water/sewer systems, roads and highways, and a wide array of social

agencies must be installed. The costs can be staggering. As a result, many governments

have opted for a "sites and services" approach to urban development. This leaves the bulk

of investment to the private sector, with the municipalities involved only with basicinfrastructure.

Another major problem of the expansion of cities into metropolitan systems is the failure ofmunicipal governments to grow in the same fashion. The city governments developed in the

colonial era are unable to cope with regional urban issues. The creation of regional

planning authorities may alleviate some problems, but these agencies are often hamperedby lack of sufficient budgets to carry out their mandates. Radical solutions rarely alter the

underlying national trends, as the case of Brasilia demonstrates. Developed as a new

national capital in the 1960s, Brasilia (with a population of about 2 million) has hardly

slowed the growth of Rio de Janeiro (more than 10 million in its metropolitan area) and SoPaulo (around 18 million in its metropolitan area).

Urban Problems

The problems of cityward migration and the urbanization of the countryside are only twosides of the multi-faceted urban problem facing urban planners and government agencies as

they enter the twentieth-first century (Peattie 1970, 1987). The cities themselves, especially

those with a hundred thousand or more inhabitants, face a wide range of serious difficulties

related to the fundamentally unequal distribution of income, resources, and goods andservices among the urban population. Housing shortages, transportation problems,

environmental pollution, unemployment and underemployment, and the unavailability or

inadequacy of government services such as health care delivery are evident throughoutLatin America. The issue of equitable income distribution however, is most apparent in the

cities, where enormous wealth and abject poverty confront each other every day.

Housing

Perhaps the most obvious and serious set of urban problems is related to housing and landuse (Gilbert 1993). Because conventional housing and land are increasingly beyond the

means of most city residents, and because the only affordable housing involves renting

apartments, rooms, or shacks in the overcrowded, deteriorating central-city slums, millions

of urban residents (including migrants and the city-born) have established urban peripheralsettlements. They may join "invasions" to occupy unoccupied land, or they may purchase

lots in unplanned, unauthorized subdivisions. In most metropolitan areas about half of the

people now live in such irregular or uncontrolled settlements.


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Squatter settlements have been the object of numerous studies by social scientists andgovernment planners. The earliest studies suggested that such aggregations were "festering

sores" or "cancers" on the urban system; most of the recent investigations conclude that the

residents of squatter settlements have taken the only realistic approach to the housing andland use problems of most Latin American cities. One of the prevailing myths about the

squatter settlements claims that they are "marginal" to the larger city. On the basis of herextensive fieldwork among squatters in Rio de Janeiro, Janice Perlman (1976) concluded:

Socially, they are well organized and cohesive and make wide use of the urban milieu and

its institutions. Culturally, they are highly optimistic and aspire to better education for theirchildren and to improving the condition of their houses . Economically, they work hard,

they consume their share of the products of others (often paying more since they have to

buy where they can get credit), and they build--not only their own houses but also much of

the overall community and urban infrastructure. They also place a high value on hard work,and take great pride in a job well done. Politically, they are neither apathetic nor radical .

[They] are generally system-supportive and see the government not as evil but as doing its

best to understand and help people like themselves.

In short, they have the aspirations of the bourgeoisie, the perseverance of pioneers, and the

values of patriots.

Unfortunately, few people in the squatter settlements have a chance to realize their dreams.They get the worst jobs with the lowest pay; their children seldom enjoy the benefit of

public schooling or adequate health services; they are often politically manipulated by

government agencies or by strong-armed police officials; and they usually suffer from the

worst environmental problems of urban dwellers, including inadequate water and sewagesystems, high levels of air pollution, and dangerous exposure to pests and vermin. Despite

arduous conditions, the resiliency of their social support systems, involving families,

friends, and compadres (fictive kin), makes possible the "survival of the unfittest" -- as

Larissa Lomnitz (1975) has referred to the residents of a squatter settlement in MexicoCity.

Governmental responses to the phenomenon have ranged from brutal evictions to benign

acceptance of a social reality. In Lima the proliferation of squatter settlements has been

followed by government programs to help residents install basic urban services and to help

them legalize land titles. Government attempts to repress squatter settlements by relocatingtheir residents to housing projects have failed to meet their objectives. As a result,

government housing programs are now usually designed for the middle classes rather than

for the poor. One problem underlying the proliferation of squatter settlements and thefailure of urban and national governments to offer viable alternatives to them is rampant

land speculation by individuals and companies of the middle and upper classes. Cuba

stands out as a significant exception to the general miasma in which the housing problems

of the urban poor generate huge profits for the urban elite. In general, the followingcomment by the well-known urban historian and planner Jorge Hardoy (1992:xiv) seems

appropriate: "Governments must address several interlinked aspects: housing conditions

and basic services must be improved; real incomes for lower-income groups must be


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increased; and the infrastructure and services that support economic expansion must bemade more efficient."

The Urban Economy: Formal and Informal

Unequal distribution of resources such as land and housing among urban residents is acontinuing problem for Latin American countries. The region's wide range of wealth and

poverty is responsible. For instance, more than 70 percent of Port-au-Prince (Haiti)

households have incomes of less than forty dollars per month. In many nations, extremelyhigh rates of inflation, coupled with ongoing economic crises often accompanied by

currency devaluations, have made poverty more desperate in the 1990s than it was a decade

ago. Migrants from the countryside may see cities as places of opportunity, but far fewer

jobs are created there than necessary to accommodate the economically active population.In this sense Latin America is been seen as overurbanized and underindustrialized. And

many of the new jobs belong to the tertiary (or services) sector rather than to the secondary

(or manufacturing) sector.

Most new entrants into the urban job market find an opportunity in the so-called informal

economy rather than in the standard categories defined by government economists andprotected by government social security programs. The informal sector of the economy

includes a wide range of low-paying, labor-intensive activities that often involve families

(including women and children) in small-scale enterprises (Thomas 1995). A young boyselling chewing gum to motorists at a stop sign, a women with a few pears for sale on the

street corner, a family gathering trash and garbage for resale -- all are participating in the

untaxed, uncensused, unmeasurable informal economy. The informal economy involves a

great deal of entrepreneurship and individual initiative, especially in central-city slums andperipheral squatter settlements. The informal sector meets the subsistence needs of perhaps

one-third of Latin Americas urban population. Even successful middle- and upper-class

businessmen are often engaged in informal activities (including bribery and contract

"incentives") that they hope will escape taxation or official notice.

Many analysts suggest that the inability of government or private enterprise to createenough jobs in the formal sector of the economy will mean continued expansion of its

informal sector. Moreover, because informal-sector activities tend to be small-scale,

family-oriented, labor-intensive, and highly competitive, they are an appropriate indigenous

response to the dependency that marks formal-sector activities dominated by multinationalcorporations or elite national firms. Thus, for diverse reasons, the informal sector of the

urban economy is likely to prosper--both in terms of the number of households that

participate in it and in terms of economic activities outside of large-scale, high-technology,capital-intensive enterprises. Such a pattern of urban economic development promises to

fragment the already highly diversified labor market still further. As a result, the economic

strategies of urban residents begin to resemble the traditional practices of villagers in the

countryside at the same time that villagers increasingly emulate urban consumptionpatterns. Thus the urban system continues to be transformed.

Social Science Research on Latin American Urbanization


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Most of our knowledge about Latin American urbanization has been pieced together fromcase studies of a variety of analytical units examined in a wide range of urban (and non-

urban) contexts. Comparative research has been much more limited. Rarely have systematic

comparative data been gathered in different sites (but see Berryman [1996] on religiousbehavior in So Paulo and Caracas; Selby et al. [1990] on a study of households in ten

Mexican cities; and Whiteford [1960] on social classes in Popayn, Colombia, andQuertaro, Mexico). Most comparative research comes about from secondary analysis ofpublished ethnographic(Kemper 1982) and census sources (Fox 1975). To make matters

worse, most case studies have been one-shot enterprises, with relatively little attention

given to the longitudinal dimensions of urban processes. And where attention has beengiven to the historical aspects of urbanization, the focus often has been on the comparison

of the Latin American urban experience to that of the United States and of Europe.

During the past half-century, urban research in Latin America has shifted from themodernization paradigm popular in the 1950s and 1960s to the dependency framework

frequently used in the 1970s and 1980s to the global systems and trans-national approaches

dominant since the 1990s. Despite, or perhaps because of, these theoretical andmethodological transformations, Latin American urban research has seen a continuing

creation of new training programs, new journals, new post-graduate centers, and new

funding opportunities for scholarly collaboration across disciplinary and nationalboundaries.

In the beginning, a handful of isolated scholars carried the burden of research on a rapidlyurbanizing continent. They learned how to define the diversity of the urbanization process,

discovered the key features of cityward migration, discerned the dynamism of slums,

subdivsions, and squatter settlements, and determined that urban poverty and "marginality"

were not just individual/familial matters but also implicated the nation state and thecapitalism system in which urban processes took place. Perhaps the single most significantwork of that first phase of urban research in Latin America was carried out by Oscar Lewis,

first in his detailed studies of "urbanization without breakdown" (Lewis 1952) and the"culture of poverty" (Lewis 1959) in Mexico City, subsequently in his comparative

investigations of structural poverty in Puerto Rico and New York City (Lewis 1966), and

ultimately through the legacy of his fieldwork in Cuba (Butterworth 1980).

By the 1980s, hundreds of investigators across a wide range of disciplines were

contributing to empirical and theoretical work on urban environments, inequalities, and

social movements (especially related to aspirations of the middle classes decimated in theoff-again, on-again economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s). In this shift of focus away

from the poorest sectors of urban society, social scientists encountered the middle classes to

which most of them also belonged. Unfortunately, with few exceptions (Lomnitz andPrez-Lizaur 1987) researchers were still unable to come to grips with the historical

development and present role of the urban elite.

As we enter a new century, researchers are increasingly committed to seeing Latin

American urbanization as part of larger global processes reflected in the new international

division of labor (Goldin 1995; Kearney 1997). This awareness of the global economicsystem calls attention to the ways in which urban economic structures function and develop


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in Latin America. The global connections of Latin American power-holders also haveimplications for policy-makers in urban governments throughout the continent. Finally,

scholars are interested in learning more about how poverty and inequality are manifested in

urban social structures through gender relations, not only in terms of womens roles(Barrera Bassols and Oehmichen Bazn 2000) but also in the light of better understandings

of traditional male roles (Guttman 1996).

Toward the Future

Urbanization in Latin American shows that both past and present offer important lessons

for the future. Ever since the European conquest, the unequal relationship between Latin

America and the industrialized North (i.e., Europe and the United States) has been a

hallmark of urbanization. An archetype of this relationship is visible in the public plazasfound in every Latin American city, whether large or small (Low 2000). The exploitation

and dependency inherent in this long-term relationship is further reflected in the ties

between the city and countryside within Latin American nations. In this sense, the capitalcities and port cities of Latin America historically have served as intermediate points in the

international urban system, and will continue to do so into the twenty-first century,

especially in the context of the proposed expansion of NAFTA (North American Free

Trade Agreement) to include other nations.

The sheer magnitude of the problems facing Latin American cities offers little hope that thetwenty-first century will see real solutions to the dilemma of population growth and urban

expansion. Even if the population of Latin America grows at rates somewhat lower than

those of recent decades, and even if the metropolitan areas continue to expand more from

natural growth than from rural-urban migration, the challenge of the next few decades willstill be significant. According to many experts, Latin America can expect: "More

shantytowns and overcrowded and deteriorating tenement districts; increasing competition

among low-income people to find cheap or vacant public and private lands to occupy;

poorer services and a rise in the number and incidence of diseases related to a deterioratingenvironment; more people, especially children, sleeping on the streets; urban

agglomerations spreading endlessly outward, which will increase costs for building and

maintaining infrastructure and make commutes longer and more expensive; environmentalproblems of unprecedented nature in some metropolitan areas, resulting largely from

industrial and car emission" (Hardoy 1992:xvi).

The new century will continue to offer challenges to social scientists concerned about the

future of urbanization in Latin America. We have learned much in a half-century of

research, but so much more remains to be understood. Whatever the focus of our researchor the scale of our methods and theories, we continue to confront this question: Can nearly

half a millennium of "dependent" urban development be transformed into greater economic

equity and social well-being for more than a half a billion Latin Americans, whether they

live in the largest city or the smallest hamlet, whether they are rich or poor, whether theyare well educated or illiterate -- and whether they remain in their native land or send

remittances home from their work abroad?


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Urban Population of Latin America: 1950-2010 (Percent Urban)

Country 1950 1990 2000 2010

Argentina 65 86 90 91Barbados 34 45 38 58

Bolivia 38 51 62 65

Brazil 36 75 78 84

Chile 58 86 85 91

Colombia 37 70 71 79

Costa Rica 34 47 45 59

Cuba 49 75 80 83

Dominican Rep. 24 60 62 74

Ecuador 28 56 63 70

El Salvador 37 44 58 56

Guatemala 30 39 39 51

Guayana 28 35 36 50

Haiti 12 28 34 42

Honduras 18 44 45 59

Mexico 43 73 74 81

Nicaragua 35 60 63 71

Panama 36 53 56 65

Paraguay 35 48 52 61

Peru 36 70 72 79

Uruguay 78 86 92 89

Venezuela 53 91 86 95

LATIN

AMERICA42 72 74 80

Source: for 1950, 1990, and 2010, United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects 1990; for

2000, Population Reference Bureau 2000 World Population Data Sheet.


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Urban Population of Latin America: 1950-2010 (Percent Urban)

Country 1950 1990 2000 2010

Argentina 65 86 90 91Barbados 34 45 38 58

Bolivia 38 51 62 65

Brazil 36 75 78 84

Chile 58 86 85 91

Colombia 37 70 71 79

Costa Rica 34 47 45 59

Cuba 49 75 80 83

Dominican Rep. 24 60 62 74

Ecuador 28 56 63 70

El Salvador 37 44 58 56

Guatemala 30 39 39 51

Guayana 28 35 36 50

Haiti 12 28 34 42

Honduras 18 44 45 59

Mexico 43 73 74 81

Nicaragua 35 60 63 71

Panama 36 53 56 65

Paraguay 35 48 52 61

Peru 36 70 72 79

Uruguay 78 86 92 89

Venezuela 53 91 86 95

LATIN

AMERICA42 72 74 80

Source: for 1950, 1990, and 2010, United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects 1990; for

2000, Population Reference Bureau 2000 World Population Data Sheet.

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