Latin American Urban Studies

Latin American urban studies examines how cities across the region have grown, stratified, and reorganized themselves as rapid urbanization intersects with entrenched social inequality and shifting global economic pressures. Researchers trace how housing markets, municipal policies, and private development together produce sharp residential separations—walled enclaves for the affluent alongside informal settlements with limited infrastructure—reshaping the everyday geography of metropolitan areas like São Paulo, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. Central open questions include how globalization selectively integrates certain urban zones into transnational circuits while deepening the marginalization of others, and whether recent policy experiments in social housing and urban upgrading can meaningfully reduce socio-spatial fragmentation or simply relocate it.

Works

115,870

Total citations

98,041

Keywords

SegregationResidentialUrbanizationLatin AmericaSocial InequalityMetropolitan Areas