Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2022
One must always make a special case for presenting puerto rican along with other Latin American studies. With public planning this is even more true. Puerto Rico is, after all, legally a part of the United States, and for many decades its well-being has been intimately tied to both general conditions in the U.S. and to U.S. policies, even those not directed specifically at Puerto Rico. For these reasons, planning by the government of Puerto Rico is very constrained: it must act without any of the options available to independent governments, such as the issuance of money or the control of imports; its laws and procedures must accommodate to the constraints of the U.S. legal system; it must permit U.S. citizens who are not Puerto Ricans to participate under conditions of full equality and mobility in Puerto Rico and between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland.