Latin American Urban Development into the 21st Century: Towards a Renewed Perspective on the City

By the dawn of the 21st century, more than half of the world's population was living in urban areas. This volume explores the implications of this unprecedented expansion in the world's most urbanized region, Latin America, exploring the new urban reality, and the consequences for both Latin America and the rest of the developing world. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Re-thinking the Latin American City....Pages 3-33 Front Matter....Pages 35-35 Urban Violence, Quality of Life, and the Future of Latin American Cities: The Dismal Record So Far and the Search for New Analytical Frameworks to Sustain the Bias towards Hope....Pages 37-59 Cocaine Cities: Exploring the Relationship between Urban Dynamics and the Drug Trade in South America....Pages 60-79 Mobility Challenges in Santiago de Chile: Improving Diagnosis and the Need to Shift the Understanding of Urban Inequality from Fixed Enclaves to Mobile Gradients....Pages 80-102 The Vecino as Citizen: Neighbourhood Organizations in El Alto and the Transformation of Bolivian Citizenship....Pages 103-122 Separate but Equal Democratization? Participation, Politics, and Urban Segregation in Latin America....Pages 123-142 Front Matter....Pages 143-143 Irregular Urbanization as a Catalyst for Radical Social Mobilization: The Case of the Housing Movements of São Paulo....Pages 145-164 On-Street Upgrading? Assessing the Consequences of Allocation and Regulation Policy in Santiago de Chile’s Ferias Libres....Pages 165-185 Of Guns, Ideas, and Taxes: Understanding the Political Logic of Violence-Reducing Policy Innovation in Three Colombian Cities....Pages 186-204 Public-Private Co-operation for Gas Provision in Poor Neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires: Assessing the Impact on Housing Improvements and Health....Pages 205-226 A New Way of Monitoring the Quality of Urban Life in Latin America....Pages 227-256 Front Matter....Pages 257-257 Towards a New Research Agenda for 21st Century Latin American Urban Development....Pages 259-264 Back Matter....Pages 265-270 "The 20th century witnessed global processes of urbanization on an unprecedented scale, to the extent that for the first time in human history more than half of the world's population now lives in urban areas. Latin America is the developing world's most urbanized region, with over 75 per cent of its population currently residing in towns and cities. As such, it in many ways arguably constitutes something of an 'urban laboratory'. Although many of its urbanization trends are regionally specific, there also exist clear commonalities with other regions of the world, and much can be learned from the Latin American experience and the future direction it is taking. This volume presents an original collection of studies drawn from a range of disciplines that highlight some of the key issues regarding the changing nature of contemporary urban life in Latin America, and the consequences of its transformation for development more generally."--Descripción del editor