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Moving On and Moving Back: Rethinking Inequality and Migration in the Latin American City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2010

BRYAN R. ROBERTS
BRYAN R. ROBERTS
Affiliation:
Bryan R. Roberts is a C. B. Smith Sr. Chair in US–Mexico Relations at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, and Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

This paper focuses on the similarities and differences between contemporary urban organisation and that of the 1960s in Guatemala City and other Latin American cities, mainly using data taken from a re-study of low-income neighbourhoods in Guatemala City. It looks at the impact of sharper patterns of residential segregation, changes in migration patterns, rising levels of crime and violence, and the increase in the relationships of the urban poor with external actors, such as governments and NGOs. Severe inequality persists, but is mediated by an improvement in living standards, by the range of consumer goods accessible to the poor, and by community- and family-based adaptation.

Abstract

Este artículo se centra en las similitudes y las diferencias entre la organización urbana contemporánea y la existente en los años 60 en la ciudad de Guatemala y otras ciudades latinoamericanas, mayoritariamente utilizando la información tomada de un nuevo trabajo sobre barrios de bajos ingresos en la Ciudad de Guatemala que habían sido estudiados previamente por el autor. Se examina el impacto de patrones más agudos de segregación residencial, los cambios en las formas de migración, los elevados niveles de crimen y violencia y el incremento en las relaciones entre los pobres urbanos con actores externos, como gobiernos y ONGs. La desigualdad severa persiste, aunque está mediada por un mejoramiento en los estándares de vida, por la variedad de bienes de consumo accesibles a los pobres y por la adaptación basada en la comunidad y la familia.

Abstract

Baseando-se principalmente em dados obtidos em um estudo revisado acerca dos bairros de renda baixa na Cidade da Guatemala, este artigo concentra-se nas semelhanças e diferenças entre a organização urbana contemporânea e a da década de 1960 na Cidade da Guatemala e outras cidades latino-americanas. O impacto dos padrões de segregação habitacional mais desiguais, as mudanças nos padrões de migração, os níveis crescentes de criminalidade e violência e o aumento nas relações entre pobres urbanos e agentes externos, como governos e ONGs, são analisados. A desigualdade severa persiste, mas está sendo mediada por uma melhora em padrões de habitação, pela ampla gama de bens de consumo acessíveis aos pobres e por adaptações realizadas por comunidades e famílias.

Keywords

residential segregationcrime and violencemigrationinequalitypovertycommunity organisationsegregación residencialcrimen y violenciamigracióndesigualdadorganización comunitariaSegregação habitacionalcrime e violênciamigraçãodesigualdadepobrezaorganização comunitária
Type
Commentary
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , August 2010 , pp. 587 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Bryan R. Roberts, Organizing Strangers: Poor Families in Guatemala City (Austin TX, 1973).

2 These studies explored Latin American urbanisation and urban residential segregation through collaboration with researchers in Buenos Aires, Campinas, Mexico City, Lima, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago de Chile. Alejandro Portes, Bryan R. Roberts and Alejandro Grimson (eds.), Ciudades latinoamericanas: un análisis comparativo en el umbral del nuevo siglo (Buenos Aires, 2005); Bryan R. Roberts and Robert Wilson (eds.), Urban Segregation and Governance in the Americas (New York, 2009).

3 This a collaborative research project of third-generation housing and its policy implications in ten Latin American cities, of which Guatemala City is one, coordinated by Peter Ward of the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Department of Sociology of the University of Texas at Austin (www.lahn.utexas.org).

4 Janice Perlman, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro (Berkeley CA, 1976); Perlman, Janice, ‘The Metamorphosis of Marginality in Rio De Janeiro’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 39, no. 1 (2004), pp. 189–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Caroline O. N. Moser, Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives: Assets and Poverty Reduction in Guayaquil, 1978–2004 (Washington DC, 2009).

5 The fieldwork for the re-study is mainly being carried out by the poverty research team of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Guatemala, headed by Marcel Arevalo, Vicente Quino and Federico Estrada, and by two sociology graduate students, Sergio Cabrera of the University of Texas at Austin and Julio Osorio of the University of Houston. I have drawn heavily on their insights and data for this paper. Their energy and commitment have been invaluable under field conditions that are much more difficult than I encountered in 1966 and 1968.

6 Orlandina de Oliveira and Bryan R. Roberts, ‘Urban Growth and Urban Social Structure in Latin America, 1930–1990’, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 6, part 1 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 253–324; Baer, Werner, ‘Import Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 7, no. 1 (1972), pp. 95–122Google Scholar; Alan Gilbert, The Latin American City (London, 1998), pp. 23–38.

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8 Ibid., pp. 129, 139, 232–59.

9 The Exploding Cities was the title of a conference and a book edited by Peter Wilsher and Rosemary Righter (London, 1975) which focused on cities in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

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11 Lauchlin Currie, Accelerating Development: The Necessity and the Means (New York, 1966); Turner, John F. C., ‘Housing Priorities, Settlement Patterns, and Urban Development in Modernizing Countries’, Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 34, no. 6 (1968), pp. 354–63Google Scholar.

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26 Perlman, The Myth of Marginality, pp. 75–8; Peter M. Ward, Mexico City: The Production and Reproduction of an Urban Environment (Boston MA, 1990), pp. 52–3.

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28 Amanda Morán, Condiciones de vida y tenencia de la tierra en asentamientos precarios de la ciudad de Guatemala (Guatemala City, 2000), Table 16.

29 Bryan R. Roberts, ‘The Provincial Urban System and the Process of Dependency’, in Alejandro Portes and Harley L. Browning, Current Perspectives in Latin American Urban Research (Austin TX, 1976), pp. 112–20.

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39 See Vestex Guatemala website (www.vestex.com.gt/vx/), accessed 8 Sep. 2009.

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41 Federico Estrada, ‘Migración, inserción laboral y redes: nuevas formas de inserción socio-económica en la Ciudad de Guatemala’, in Jesús García-Ruiz (ed.), Identidades fluidas, identificaciones móviles (Guatemala City, 2006).

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43 Martínez, El proceso de urbanización, Table 2.14.

44 These data are taken from the microdata of the 2002 XI Censo de Población of Guatemala (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2004).

45 Termini, ‘Socio-Economic and Demographic Characteristics’, p. 15; Martínez, El proceso de urbanización, Fig. 49.

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71 See the ministry's website, at www.segeplan.gob.gt.

72 Bossen, The Redivision of Labour, pp. 188–245.

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74 Ibid., pp. 133, 257.

75 Ibid., p. 325; Bossen, The Redivision of Labour, p. 220.

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