Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Urban poverty in Latin America

  • Published:
Studies in Comparative International Development Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Phillip M. Hauser,La Urbanización en América Latina, Paris, UNESCO, SS. 61/V.9/S, 1962; United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA),The Social Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period, E/CN.12/ 660, May 11,1963; United Nations ECLA,Urbanization inLatin America, E/CN.12/662 March 13, 1963; Guillermo Rosenbluth L.,Problemas socioeconómicos de la marginalidad e integración urbana (El caso de “Las Poblaciones Callampas” en el Gran Santiago, Santiago, Universidad de Chile, 1963; Asociación Venezolana de Sociología,VI Congreso Latino-americano de Sociología, Caracas, Imprenta Nacional, 1961, vol. II.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Philip M. Hauser, (ed.),La Urbanización en América Latina, op, cit., chpt. III.

  3. Thus the recent ECLA study,The Economic Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period, E/CN.12/659, April 7, 1963 makes no reference to the urban economy; and its companion document, ECLAThe Social Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period, op. cit., though concerned with the city as a socio-economic unit, is unable to describe andanalyze the situation as well as it would have been if economists had prepared the necessary studies of the contemporary urban economic structure.

  4. Peter T. Bauer and Basil Yamey, “Further Notes on Economic Progress and Occupational Distribution,”Economic Journal, March 1954. Also see Solomon Rottenberg, “Reflexiones sobre la industrialización y el desarrollo económico,” Santiago, Universidad Católica, 1957.

  5. ECLA,The Economic Development of Latin America ...,op. cit. andThe Social Development of Latin America ...,op. cit.

  6. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit. For further discussion, see below.

  7. Bertram Hutchinson, “The Migrant Population of Urban Brazil”,América Latina, Año 6, No. 2, abril-junio de 1963, especially pp. 45–50.

    Google Scholar 

  8. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op.cit., pp. 15, 16 and 33.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ibid., p. 15.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Guillermo Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 99.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Cf. ECLA,The Economic Development of Latin America in The Post-War Period, op. cit., p. 99, Chapter VII and ECLA,The Social Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period, op cit., Chapters II and III.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bertram Hutchinson,op. cit., p. 69 notes that 20%–40% of this population in the metropolis comes from other cities.

    Google Scholar 

  13. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  14. ECLA,The Social Development ... op. cit., pp. 63–65, and ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 28.

    Google Scholar 

  15. ECLA,The Social Development ..., op. cit., p. 62

    Google Scholar 

  16. ibid., abril-junio de 1963, p. 63 and ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 28, where 63% of employment in Greater Santiago and 45% in a “callampa” were found to be in the tertiary sector, and 17% and 33% respectively in the “self-employed” category.

    Google Scholar 

  17. See Sol Tax,Penny Capitalism, Chicago, 1953.

  18. Urbanization in Latin America,op. cit., p. 28.

  19. ECLA,The Social Development of Latin America ...,op. cit., pp. 59–61.

  20. Ibid., pp. 59–60.

  21. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 28.

  22. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 32 (Table 14).

  23. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 28.

  24. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 79.

  25. ibid., p. 65–66.

  26. Ibid., p. 64n.

  27. A document issued by the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil, Conselho do Desenvolvimento,Questão Agraria Brasileira, (by Ignacio Rangel), Brasilia, 1961, p. III, speaks of monopoly which “methodically organizes scarcity” and thus “imposes extortionist prices on the consumer.” TheCorreo da Manha (Rio de Janeiro), june 6 de 1963, reports price mark-ups of 1,500% on food grown near Rio and sold in that city.

  28. OCEPLAN,Las Bases Técnicas del Plan de Acción del Gobierno Popular, Santiago, Chile, 1964, p. 17.

  29. ECLA,Urbanization of Latin America, op. cit., p. 10.

  30. J. Chonchol,La Reforma Agraria en América Latina, Santiago, Editorial del Pacifico, 1964, p. 63, for instance, argues that the poorest areas and inhabitants of the city pay the highest per unit prices for their food.

    Google Scholar 

  31. “Aspectos Humanos da Favela Carioca”, O Estado de São Paulo, april 15, 1960, for Rio de Janeiro; and Jose Matos Mar, “Migración y Urbanización—Las Barriadas Limeñas: Un Caso de Integración a la vida urbana”, in P. M. Hauser,La Urbanización en América Latina, op. cit., for Peru.

  32. G. Rosenbluth L.op. cit., chapter III. The self-built settlements are usually either on the outskirts of the city or on undesirable centrally located hillsides and river embankments. They carry various names:jacales (Mexico),ranchos (Caracas),barrios clandestinos (Colombia),barriadas (Lima),callampas (Santiago),villas miserias (Buenos Aires),villas malocas (Puerto Alegre),favelas (Rio de Janeiro),Mocambos (Recife), etc.

  33. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., pp.11, 33.

  34. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., p. 7.

  35. UNICEF,Boletín Trimestral del UNICEF, No. 29, 1962, n.p.

  36. Ibid., n.p.

  37. ECLA,Urbanización en América Latina, op. cit., p. 23.

  38. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, pp. 9–10; Banco Obrero,Proyecto de Evaluación de los Superbloques, Caracas, 1961.

  39. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, p. 18.

  40. Ibid., p. 19.

  41. Ibid., p. 20.

  42. Ibid.,p. 21.

  43. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 90.

  44. Ibid., p. 68.

  45. Ibid., pp. 58–69.

  46. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 70.

  47. ECLA,Urbanization in Latin America, op. cit., pp. 31–32. See also ECLA,The Social Development ..., op. cit., pp. 65–67.

  48. Ibid., pp. 30–31.

  49. Ibid., p. 32.

  50. G. Rosenbluth L.,op. cit., p. 92.

  51. Ibid., p. 96 Similar observations have been made in the other Latin American city with large scale public housing projects; that is, in Caracas. See, for instance,Report of a Community Development Evaluation Mission to Venezuela, prepared for the Government of Venezuela by Caroline F. Ware, Rubén Darfo Utria and Antoni Wojcicki, United Nations, Commissioner for Technical Assistance, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, TAO/VEN/15, December 1, 1963, particularly Annex I, E. and Annex E (Unpublished). In Santiago “José Maria Caro” housing project and in Caracas those of “23 de enero” and Simón Rodríguez” are outstanding in this respect. Each of these has upwards of 100,000 inhabitants. For a somewhat dimmer view, possibly because they compare the project reality with an ideal rather than with the reality of self-built communities, see also, Banco Obrero,Proyecto de Evaluación de Superbloques, op. cit.

  52. ECLA,The Social Development of Latin America in the Post-War Period, op. cit., p. 136.

  53. Phillip M. Hauser (ed),La urbanización en América Latina, op. cit., Chapter II, “Conclusiones del Seminario”, and Chapter XIII, “Algunas Consecuencias Políticas de la Urbanización.”

  54. Thus, theSelf Help Mousing Guide of the Inter-American Housing and Planning Center of the Pan American Union in Washington reports land costs that reach such amounts as 57%, 40%, and 35% of the total cost of even so-called self-built and aided mutual help project housing in Colombia, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, including 33% for totally undeveloped land in Nicaragua (pp. 5, 29). Marshall Wolfe attributes such costs largely to speculation in hisLas clases medias en Centroamérica: características que presentan en la actualidad y requisitos para su desarrollo, United Nations, E/CN.12/CCE/176/Rev. 2/1960, p. 1.

  55. Op. cit. The following data are all from thisGuide and were culled out and combined by the present author into a single table covering the dozen or so projects reviewed there. This procedure, which theGuide’s authors did not choose to adopt, permits the above general picture which does not emerge very clearly from the presentation, as in theGuide, of only the costs for each project taken singly and in isolation.

  56. Philip M. Hauser (ed.),La Urbanización en America Latina, op. cit., pp. 57–58.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sir George Williams University, Montreal, Canada

    Andrew G. Frank

Authors
  1. Andrew G. Frank
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This article forms part of a report and recommendations on rural and urban community development which the author prepared under contract to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America for their seminar on this topic in 1964. None-theless, this organization is not to be held responsible for anything said herein.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Frank, A.G. Urban poverty in Latin America. St Comp Int Dev 2, 75–84 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02800655

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02800655

Keywords

Search

Navigation