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.

Much of the scholarly and professional literature on development focuses either on the ‘macro’ level of national policies and politics or on the ‘micro’ level of devel- ment projects and household or community socio-economic dynamics. By contrast, this collection pitches itself at the ‘meso’ level with a comparative exploration of the ways in which local institutions – municipalities, local governments, city authorities, civil society networks and others – have demanded, and taken on, a greater role in planning and managing development in the Latin American region. The book’s rich empirical studies reveal that local institutions have engaged upwards, with central authorities, to shape their policy and resource environments and in turn, been pressured from ‘below’ by local actors contesting the ways in which the structures and processes of local governance are framed. The examples covered in this volume range from global cities, such as Mexico and Santiago, to remote rural areas of the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. As a result the book provides a deep understanding of the diversity and complexity of local governance and local development in Latin America, while avoiding the stereotyped claims about the impact of globalisation or the potential benefits of decentralisation, as frequently stated in less empirically grounded analysis.

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.

Much research on the city in developing societies has focused mainly on one of three areas—planning, demography, or economics—and has emphasized either power elites or the masses, but not both. The published literature on Latin America has reflected these interests and has so far failed to provide a comprehensive view of Latin American urbanization. Urban Latin America is an attempt to integrate research on Latin American social organization within a single theoretical framework: development as fundamentally a political problem. Alejandro Portes and John Walton have included material on both elites and marginal populations and on the three major areas of research in order to formulate and address some of the key questions about the structure of urban politics in Latin America. Following an introduction that delineates the scope of Latin American urban studies, Portes discusses the Latin American city as a creation of European colonialism. He goes on to examine political behavior among the poor, with central reference to system support and countersystem potential. Walton provides material for a comparative study of four cities: Monterrey and Guadalajara in Mexico and Medellín and Cali in Colombia. He also summarizes a large number of urban elite studies and develops a theoretical interpretation of their collective results, based on class structure and vertical integration. Material in each chapter is cross-referenced to other chapters, and the authors have used a common methodological approach in synthesizing and interpreting the research literature. In the final chapter they generalize current findings, elaborating on the interface between elite and mass politics in the urban situation. They make some observations on approaching changes and pinpoint possible research strategies for the future.

El proyecto se enmarca dentro de una de las áreas temáticas de la CEPAL y la División de Desarrollo sostenible y Asentamientos Humanos, que se refiere al diseño de políticas e instrumentos institucionales, metodológicos y financieros que puedan mejorar la gestión del hábitat en el ámbito regional, nacional y subnacional.

Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Katherine D. McCann is acting editor for this volume. The subject categories for Volume 57 are as follows: Electronic Resources for the Social Sciences Anthropology Economics Geography Government and Politics International Relations Sociology

This volume explores several notable themes related to social, political, and religious movements in Latin America and offers insightful historical perspectives to understand national, regional, and global issues from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. This volume’s collected chapters focus on the Latin American society and are divided into three sections. The first section, Social, presents some cultural, demographic, and urban changes that have occurred with increasing frequency in Latin America from the early twentieth century onward. The second section, Political, shows migratory, political, and identity movements that in recent decades have re-emerged with force. Finally, the third section, Religious, analyzes various Latin American religious visions with their particular characteristics. From the religious hegemony of Catholicism, a change in the religious panorama in the last decades can be seen intermingled with politics, history, and society.