En este libro presenta una revisión de la situación de inseguridad y violencia que se desarrolla en las ciudades de América Latina, así como una revisión de las políticas públicas de seguridad y las acciones institucionales emprendidas por los gobiernos locales para superar los problemas de inseguridad en las dieciocho ciudades del continente que se han tomado como referentes en la investigación. No es el interés de la obra cuestionar la eficacia o no de las políticas y de su implementación, sino, más bien, revisar las posibilidades que estas ofrecen como prácticas de aprendizaje y enseñanza útiles para la disminución de la violencia y el tratamiento de la delincuencia común y organizada, en la ruta de la formulación de políticas públicas de seguridad ciudadana cada vez más eficientes.

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.

About half of the region's poor live in cities, and policy makers across Latin America are increasingly interested in policy advice on how to design programmes and policies to tackle poverty. This publication argues that the causes of poverty, the nature of deprivation, and the policy levers to fight poverty are, to a large extent, site specific. It therefore focuses on strategies to assist the urban poor in making the most of the opportunities offered by cities, such as larger labour markets and better services, while helping them cope with the negative aspects, such as higher housing costs, pollution, risk of crime and less social capital.

The Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South offers an edited collection on planning in parts of the world which, more often than not, are unrecognised or unmarked in mainstream planning texts. In doing so, its intention is not to fill a ‘gap’ that leaves this ‘mainstream’ unquestioned but to re-theorise planning from a deep understanding of ‘place’ as well as a commitment to recognise the diverse modes of practice that come within it. The chapters thus take the form not of generalised, ‘universal’ analyses and prescriptions, but instead are critical and located reflections in thinking about how to plan, act and intervene in highly complex city, regional and national contexts. Chapter authors in this Companion are not all planners, or are planners of very different kinds, and this diversity ensures a rich variety of insights, primarily based on cases, to emphasise the complexity of the world in which planning is expected to happen. The book is divided into a framing Introduction followed by five sections: planning and the state; economy and economic actors; new drivers of urban change; landscapes of citizenship; and planning pedagogy. This volume will be of interest to all those wanting to explore the complexities of planning practice and the need for new theories of knowledge from which to draw insight to face the challenges of the 21st century.

Written in a comprehensive yet accessible style, Urban Violence, Resilience and Security investigates the diverse nature of urban violence within Latin America, Asia and Africa. It further analyzes how regular and irregular governing mechanisms can provide human security, despite the presence of chronic violence.

2011 Winner of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize of the International Political Science Association Latin America’s crime rates are astonishing by any standard—the region’s homicide rate is the world’s highest. This crisis continually traps governments between the need for comprehensive reform and the public demand for immediate action, usually meaning iron-fisted police tactics harking back to the repressive pre-1980s dictatorships. In Policing Democracy, Mark Ungar situates Latin America at a crossroads between its longstanding form of reactive policing and a problem-oriented approach based on prevention and citizen participation. Drawing on extensive case studies from Argentina, Bolivia, and Honduras, he reviews the full spectrum of areas needing reform: criminal law, policing, investigation, trial practices, and incarceration. Finally, Policing Democracy probes democratic politics, power relations, and regional disparities of security and reform to establish a framework for understanding the crisis and moving beyond it.

This new Handbook is a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge essays on all aspects of Latin American Security by a mix of established and emerging scholars. The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Security identifies the key contemporary topics of research and debate, taking into account that the study of Latin America’s comparative and international politics has undergone dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War, the return of democracy and the re-legitimization and re-armament of the military against the background of low-level uses of force short of war. Latin America’s security issues have become an important topic in international relations and Latin American studies. This Handbook sets a rigorous agenda for future research and is organised into five key parts: • The Evolution of Security in Latin America • Theoretical Approaches to Security in Latin America • Different 'Securities' • Contemporary Regional Security Challenges • Latin America and Contemporary International Security Challenges With a focus on contemporary challenges and the failures of regional institutions to eliminate the threat of the use of force among Latin Americans, this Handbook will be of great interest to students of Latin American politics, security studies, war and conflict studies and International Relations in general.