DISCONTINUIDAD Y AJUSTES EN ACTIVOS SUBYACENTES CONSTITUIDOS POR INDICES BURSÁTILES

In this context of fast economic and demographic growth combined with socio-economic inequality, the built environment was increasingly produced by a mixture of formal and informal processes. This situation occurred because land (and housing) access in Latin American cities differ for the wealthy and the poor (ECLAC, 2000). While the wealthy can afford legal and secure lands with the appropriate infrastructure to build their dwellings and neighbourhoods, the poor have to resort to survival and informal strategies to get a place in the city.

The stages of the process of occupation of urban land by the poor, which have produced the informal side of the Latin American cities, are well documented in the urban literature. From an initial central location in generally dangerous and residual areas in industrial zones or riverbanks, the migration streams to the cities reached momentum and peripheral land take-overs or silent ‘pirate’ developments began from the mid- 1950s, sometimes in massive dimensions. In some cases, the poor bought cheap land from illegal land developers. Spontaneous neighbourhoods soon emerged in these locations. Since the complete occupation of the closest peripheral areas at the 1970s, the urban poor have resorted to two main strategies: to occupy the deep slopes or land reserved for urban facilities inside the older spontaneous neighbourhoods, or to continue extending the urban boundaries in different informal ways.

Obviously, this process did not have a homogeneous character, due to the different factors involved at local level. The dimension of the migration streams, the availability of land, the capacity of industries to provide jobs for the newcomers, the ‘rules of the game’ among socio-

economic sectors and the attitude of the states in face of the land take-overs, the national economic circumstances and even local climatic conditions have been the factors to shape the size, location and development of the spontaneous neighbourhoods. In general terms, the cities of advanced urbanisation and industrialisation (Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago), developed fewer informal neighbourhoods than the cities that developed later such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lima, Bogotá and Caracas, which have higher percentages. It is precisely in these cities were the informal areas have become important elements of the urban structure of the city. Table 3.5 shows the approximate situation in some large cities in 2000. 12

City Percentage of informal neighbourhoods

Bogotá 59% Buenos Aires 10% Caracas 50% Lima 40% Mexico City 40% Quito 50%

Rio de Janeiro 20% (only in favelas)

São Paulo 22% (only in favelas)13

Table 3.5. Percentage of population living in informal neighbourhoods in selected cities of Latin America (Source: Clichevsky, 2000).

During the same period, the formal side of the city continued developing along the most important avenues connecting the city centre to the most favoured areas, the ones with the better environmental conditions, consolidating the initial developments of the previous period. Higher-income neighbourhoods in Latin America have traditionally located close to commercial areas, providing their residents with accessibility to high-level urban facilities and centrality, two important requirements for Latin Americans (van Lindert and Verkoren, 1994).

While the rich neighbourhoods were provided with all the standard facilities and urban services, their dwellings gradually mirrored the North American one-family houses, with front and back gardens, garages, several bathrooms and modern home appliances. This trend was not only visible in the more affluent, but also in the middle class neighbourhoods, albeit in a more modest manner. The American way-of-life had become the ideal of high and middle-classes. 14

The location of these privileged spaces differed from city to city. In Buenos Aires and Bogotá, these were the districts of the north; in Lima and São Paulo the south-west areas; in Santiago the north-east. However, Caracas and Rio de Janeiro developed less segregated residential developments than flat cities. This was because the land considered unsuitable for formal- sector construction because it was too steep, was later occupied by informal settlers, producing a mixture of barrios and favelas with the formal neighbourhoods (Gilbert, 1996b).

New industries generally located in peripheral zones, near port areas, in discontinued zones, or along the railway or major route networks. The central business districts (CBDs) also expanded themselves greatly, generally along the main avenues connecting to the centre, the so-called commercial axes, although some of them remained in or close to the city centre. In contrast with the North American cities, the Latin American CBDs resisted in more or less extent to the specialisation and maintained their multi-functional character (van Lindert and Verkoren, 1994).

The cities which most flourished during this period were Caracas, Mexico City and São Paulo, due to oil revenues in the first two cities, and the presence of a large industrial sector in the last (Gilbert, 1990). Given the spectacular population growth, all Latin American major cities developed reasonably well during the import-substitution period (approximately 1945-1975), taking into account housing quality indicators (as overcrowding and space per person) and, especially servicing conditions, which clearly improved until 1980 (Gilbert, 1996b). The extension of the cities brought serious common problems too, as transport, which in turn increased traffic congestion and pollution. At the end of this period, the large cities had become more extended and surrounded by vast informal settlements. The informal way had become a major way of production of urban space.

3.4. Metropolitan transformations since the 1980s

Since the 1980s radical transformations have characterised the Latin American urban scene. The most important was the implementation of a new model of organisation of the economy. This process has produced major shifts at the economic, political and social scenes, which in turn produced radical transformations in the cities’ structure and functioning. To understand the nature and scope of the socio-spatial changes I describe first the main transformations in the economic, political, social and demographic scenes.