The Future of Latin American and Caribbean Cities: Urban Bias and Political Fragments in Place

• Alberto Diaz-Cayeros ^[1]
  1. [1] Stanford University

     Stanford University

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: The Routledge handbook of urban studies in Latin America and the Caribbean: cities, urban processes, and policies / Jesús M. González Pérez (ed. lit.), Clara Irazábal (ed. lit.), Rubén Camilo Lois González (ed. lit.), 2023, ISBN 9780367677404, págs. 605-616
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this chapter, I provide some reflections on the fragmentation of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) urban landscapes and some speculations about the future of urban bias and inequalities in the decades to come. Latin American and Caribbean societies will no longer be divided according to the classic urban/rural, industrial/agricultural, worker/peasant, capital city/periphery set of cross-cutting cleavages but through their fragmentation within and between cities and a hierarchy of place within urban spaces. Middle-sized cities inherited from the colonial era, rather than the large capitals, will be the dynamic locations where most urbanization will continue to occur. Non-urban areas will be critical due to the interaction of their original peoples with the remaining “wild” spaces in the hemisphere. Rainforests, deserts, and mountains—that up to now had remained relatively untouched by human activity—will need to be preserved as global public goods, reservoirs of biodiversity, carbon sequestration, climate, and hydrologic regulation. The safekeepers of those natural resources will most likely have to be Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities that live in the fringes that surround those wild areas. Indigenous communities will hence remain the custodians, safekeepers, and buffers that may prevent cities from overtaking these precious remaining natural environments.