Defining what constitutes urban history has always proved challenging; however, employing this review's usual wide definition has resulted in the identification of theses from a range of disciplines. This review covers theses produced in 2003 and drawn from the Index of Theses located at http://www.theses.com/ and Dissertations International located at http://wwwlib.umi.com/ dissertations. This year for the first time it has become necessary to limit coverage in the face of what can only be described as a boom in theses addressing aspects of urban life. This blossoming of interest should not be unexpected given the increasing urbanization of the world's population, leading to a curiosity about the origins and nature of urban life. Consequently this year's review again includes shorter summaries in an attempt to allow coverage of 53 theses.

As it happened in other parts of the world, the ‘Garden City’ was used more as an image than as a model in early twentieth-century Latin America. While attempting to set the regional diffusion of the model in international perspective, the review intends to explore the analogous use of the concept by Latin American historiography, following the two senses according to which it has been simplified: namely for its bucolic resonance, and to denote the suburban layouts that were different from traditional models.