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Slum Neighborhoods in Latin America*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Extract
In the life of Latin American cities the rapid expansion of slum neighborhoods has emerged as a compelling problem. The inability of city authorities to provide adequate and inexpensive housing for rural-to-urban migrants, as well as for those economically poor persons born and raised in the city, has clashed with the tremendous growth of the population and its drive toward urbanization. The impoverished families must settle wherever they can. Scattered throughout Mexico City, for instance, on vacant lots adjoining factories or on the periphery of the metropolitan area are shack homes built of miscellaneous materials, known as jacales, or the rows of single-story concrete, brick, or adobe dwellings called vecindades. Beyond Mexico City, there are the villas miserias of Buenos Aires, the favelas on the rocky promontories of Rio de Janeiro, the barrios clandestinos of Bogotá, the barriadasmarginales of Lima, the ranchos of Caracas, and the callampas (mushrooms) of Santiago.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © University of Miami 1967
Footnotes
I am grateful to Janet Turk for her editorial assistance on this paper. Some of the primary data reported in this paper were collected on a trip through Latin America. I wish to thank Yale's Concilium on International Studies for making this trip possible.
References
1 For a description of two vecindades in Mexico City, see Lewis, Oscar, “The Culture of Poverty,” The Economic Weekly, Special Number, June 1960, pp. 965–972 Google ScholarPubMed. To understand the linkages between the family and life in a vecindad, see: Lewis, Oscar, Five Families (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Science Editions, 1962)Google Scholar; and Lewis, Oscar, The Children of Sanchez (New York: Random House, 1961).Google Scholar
2 The problems of urbanization and housing in Latin American cities are discussed in “Urbanization in Latin America,” Chapter 9 of Report on the World Social Situation, United Nations Publication, 1957, pp. 170-192.
3 The dearth of studies of cities in Latin America has been recognized by social scientists and is well stated by A. H. Whiteford in Two Cities of Latin America, Logan Museum Publications in Anthropology, Bulletin No. 9, The Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit, Wisconsin, 1960.
4 W. W. Pendleton, “Ecological Participation and Value: A Study of the Middle Class in Cali, Colombia,” Chapter 3, p. 4, a draft of Pendleton's Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 1965.
5 Pendleton, “Ecological Participation …”
6 Ibid.
7 I am grateful to Professor Rogowski of the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, for providing me with the data for this description of barrios populares.
8 Pendleton, “Ecological Participation …”
9 An article by Powelson, J. P., “The Land-Grabbers of Cali,” The Reporter, Jan. 16, 1964, pp. 30–31 Google Scholar, describes the invasion of one barrio in Cali, Colombia.
10 Matos Mar, J., “Migration and Urbanization,” in Hauser, P. M. (editor), Urbanization in Latin America, International Documents Service (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).Google Scholar For an informative account of migrants in Lima, see William P. Mangin's articles, “The Role of Regional Associations in the Adaptation of Rural Migrants to Cities in Peru” and “Mental Health and Migration to Cities: A Peruvian Case” in Heath and Adams (editors), Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America (New York: Random House, 1965).
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13 Rotondo, op. cit., p. 250.
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18 In Turner, John C., Turner, Catherine S., and Crooke, Patrick, “Conclusions,” Architectural Design, 8: 389–393, 1963 Google Scholar, the authors present information on the inability of Latin American governments to provide low-cost housing.
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