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.

This book evaluates the impact of 20 years of urban policies in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. It argues that evaluating the fulfillment of past commitments is essential for framing and meeting the new commitments that were taken in Habitat III over the next 20 years. Taken as a whole, the book provides a critical assessment of the economic, social and environmental consequences of urban interventions during Habitat II. The country-level chapters have been written by recognized experts in urban issues, with first-hand knowledge of the Habitat process, and deep familiarity with the problems, statistics, actors and political contexts of their nations. The latter part of the volume considers wider topics such as the Habitat Commitment Index, the New Urban Agenda and the regional and global-scale lessons that can be extracted from this group of countries. Urban Policy in Latin America will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and policymakers across development economics, urban studies and Latin American studies.

After the 1960s, rapid urbanization in developing regions in Latin America, Africa, and Asia was marked by the expansion of low-income "irregular" settlements that developed informally and which, by the 2000s, often constituted between 20-60 percent of the built-up area of metropolitan areas and other large cities. There has been a variety of research directed at the housing policies involved with these informal settlements, yet apart from the activities of Latin American Housing Network (LAHN), there has been minimal attention directed at the earliest portion of settlements that formed some 25-40 years ago that now form a large part of the intermediate ring of the cities. This volume breaks new ground by opening up a new generation of housing policy in Latin America cities with broader application for other developing countries. Its editors bring unique perspectives: Peter Ward coordinates the LAHN, and Edith Jiménez and María Di Virgilio are founding members of the network who have led project teams in Guadalajara and Buenos Aires respectively. Developed as a coordinated collaborative research project, the volume encompasses nine Latin American countries and eleven cities. The editors and contributors offer original perspectives on the policy challenges facing much of the low income housing of Latin American cities; document the changing nature of the "first suburbs"; present comparative survey findings in order to better understand the types of consolidated settlements that exist today; describe the physical nature of the dwellings themselves; identify the reasons behind market dysfunction that impede the operation of consolidated housing informal markets in Latin American cities; and outline a new generation of housing policies that will support the processes of densification, rehabilitation, and regeneration of these settlements. This book is the first and only composite overview of the research findings and advocacy of the generic policy lines that the LAHN identifies as central to a new generation of housing strategies and approaches. Researchers and practitioners working on housing theory, housing policy, comparative spatial and sociological research, and urban development issues will find the book highly significant.

This book highlights current concepts of Social Urbanism, the contemporary set of multiple and interdisciplinary urban studies that have emerged mainly from the complex realities of Latin American cities. The discussion that follows places special emphasis on public land policy and the innovative urban instruments developed in that region to promote social and territorial inclusion. Critical reflections throughout the pages of this book shed light into the local context of each case-study in order to understand their specific set of challenges and opportunities. Relevant lessons are extracted from the three cities here analyzed, the medium-scale city of Medellin, the large-scale city of Bogota, and the megacity of Sao Paulo, as well as from local innovative experiences in Argentina and Uruguay. These cities underwent promising transformation processes over two decades, applying planning and financing instruments of land policy which have produced significant shifts in the urban development paradigm in the region. The quest for social inclusion has emerged as the common denominator in these cities, awakening growing interest across several fields of urban studies, from public policies and city management to urban law, city financing, urban development, and innovative community participation processes. The book brings implications on urban land policy for transition cities in the Global South. The question of social inclusion in Global South cities is however far from being solved; the analysis presented in this book shows advances and hope, besides a long path still ahead, which can only be faced through a continuous and challenging incremental process. May this book be an incremental step.

October 2005

This volume reflects on urban development strategies that have been implemented recently in Latin America. Over the past twenty years, there has been great improvement in governmental efficiency, with local and national governments executing important projects that increase the quality of life in cities. However, the causes of collective disadvantage – which created the problems governments attempt to resolve – continue to affect many people throughout the continent. Thus, the essays here examine a wide range of socioeconomic, political, ethnic and historical issues that have influenced the emergence of marginal urbanisms in Latin American cities. The argument most strongly presented in this book is that infrastructural insertions need to be considered as the baseline for urban development, not as its main goal. Urban infrastructure cannot be taken as the only target for urban development programmes, but rather as an instrument for achieving more significant, and inclusive, urban transformations that respond more adequately to the realities of the people who inhabit Latin American cities.

This volume of Transport and Sustainability focuses on how spatial and social mobilities are intertwined in the reproduction of spatial and social inequities in Latin American cities.

This handbook presents the great contemporary challenges facing cities and urban spaces in Latin America and the Caribbean. The content of this multidisciplinary book is organized into four large sections focusing on the histories and trajectories of urban spatial development, inequality and displacement of urban populations, contemporary debates on urban policies, and the future of the city in this region. Scholars of diverse origins and specializations analyze Latin American and Caribbean cities showing that, despite their diversity, they share many characteristics and challenges and that there is value in systematizing this knowledge to both understand and explain them better and to promote increasing equity and sustainability. The contributions in this handbook enhance the theoretical, empirical and methodological study of urbanization processes and urban policies of Latin America and the Caribbean in a global context, making it an important reference for scholars across the world. The book is designed to meet the interdisciplinary study and consultation needs of undergraduate and graduate students of architecture, urban design, urban planning, sociology, anthropology, political science, public administration, and more.

Latin American countries have for a long time been importers of public policies and institutions from the Global North. The colonial legacy and resulting patterns of international relations during the 20th century favoured a course of adoption and hybridization of political institutions. In recent decades, a new conjuncture has emerged in which Latin American policies have started to diffuse South-South and even South-North. Led by Brazil with Participatory Budgeting and the Bolsa Familia program, other countries in the region soon followed. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and bicycle policies in Curitiba and Bogotá have also reached wide international recognition and circulation. And yet, despite Latin America’s new role as a policy "exporter", little is known about its dynamics, causes, and effects. Why have Latin American policies been diffused inside and outside the region? Which actors are involved? What driving forces affect these processes? This innovative collection offers a new perspective on the policy diffusion phenomena. Drawing on different examples from Latin American experiences in urban local policies and national social policies, experts present a new framework to study this phenomenon centered on the mobilization of ideas, interests and discourses for policy diffusion. Latin America and Policy Diffusion will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public policy, international relations and Latin American Studies.