The Latin American Inner City: Differences of Degree or of Kind?

It is often assumed that the globalization of the world economy will drive societies and societal change in a broadly similar direction, leading to convergence in the process of urbanization. The observed diversity between places is the result of the engagement of the macroeconomic process with local social and political structures. Inner-city decline in many older metropolitan centers of the USA and the United Kingdom has occurred through economic restructuring and job loss, with smaller urban centers and amenity-rich areas benefiting concomitantly. Demographic processes have accentuated this decline: most notably suburbanization, counterurbanization, inner-city renewal programs, and urban resettlement to new towns. Since the early 1980s, however, selected inner cities have been the focus of reinvestment, and a return of population through so-called ‘gentrification’. In the United Kingdom, in particular, public policy has played an important role in the reinvigoration of inner cities. The substantial literature on UK and US cities is reviewed insofar as it might shed light on convergent processes in Latin American inner cities. In fact, the evidence suggests little convergence. The demography is different, with relatively low levels of visible population decline; and the economy of the inner city remains vibrant, focusing upon services and small-scale artisan activities, with no corresponding decline in heavy industry. Although large-scale redevelopment projects in and around the downtown were common during the 1940s to the 1960s, the demise of authoritarian and dirigiste-type leaders, 1980s austerity, and a growing democratic base, have imposed severe limitations on the extent of large-scale urban redevelopment and reinvestment. Cultural and aesthetic influences also militate against a demand from the middle-income and upper-income groups to gentrify the inner city; nor is the ‘rent-gap’ sufficient to stimulate private-sector supply of new or refurbished homes a likely option in the city center. Policy prescriptions in Latin America should take account of this divergence and fundamental differences in kind, and should aim to develop existing opportunities and land uses for an incumbent working-class population, rather than seeking to attract new uses and better-off populations into the core.