Neoliberal Reforms,Public Policy,and Citizenship in a Region of Metropolises

In Urban Latin America. Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms, edited by Tom Angotti, the contributors undertake a rich, complex, and multidimensional study that provides a variety of perspectives on the region’s cities. The hypothesis that the form of development of this region is dependent capitalism (Angotti, 2017) is nodal in the collection. The articles focus on the period of neoliberal reforms, considered as a particular stage of the capitalist mode of production that has effects on all the dimensions of life and on urban space.

One of the merits of the collection is the complexity of its analysis of urban phenomena. In addition to adopting a multidisicplinary approach (including history, anthropology, sociology, and urban studies, among others), the contributors identify a set of social actors—state, private (domestic and international), “civil society,” and nongovernmental—that have the potential to help elucidate the logics (Pírez, 1995) that are shaping and transforming Latin American cities. At the same time, the various articles reveal the nonlinear, porous and permeable relationships among these actors, making the analysis even more complex. Public policy and urban planning can be considered as representing interests in urban space that go beyond state bureaucracies and as consisting of complex and nonlinear processes that vary with the correlations of forces in these societies.

Furthermore, it is worth highlighting the articles’ theoretical reflection on the use of the term “informal settlements” and the characteristics these neighborhoods assume in the various countries. This discussion attempts to trace their origins and eliminate misconceptions and pejorative views of them. Thus, the contributors talk about “self-help housing” (Gilbert) and the social production of habitat (Zárate), approaching these processes as social relationships and thus avoiding formality-informality dualism and allowing an exploration of the positive nature and the symbolic, social, material, and cultural productivity of these urban spaces. These studies address the variety of experiences of organization and resistance in these neighborhoods—the various collective action repertoires centered on demands for the right to housing, to the city, to transport and urban services, and to a healthy environment.

Another issue that is emphasized throughout the volume is different scales of analysis and their articulation. Although the cases studied refer to processes developed in particular cities, there is an effort to place them in constant dialogue with processes on a smaller scale (in a settlement, a transport route, or an area of  the city) and on a larger scale (national and international).

In particular, the studies’ treatment of outside actors contributes to reflection on dependent capitalism. The policies of the central countries—the United States in particular— with regard to this region (such as the creation in the 1960s of the Alliance for Progress) and the guidelines defined for these countries by international financial agencies (such as the so-called Washington Consensus of the 1980s) and their urban agendas (such as those of UN-Habitat) must be taken into account in any analysis of the situation in Latin America.

As has been mentioned, one of the axes of the book is the effects of the imposition of neoliberalism on the various dimensions of the social reality of Latin American cities. The articles elucidate the transformations that have taken place in urban policy and in the logic of the private actors linked to the city—mainly real estate developers and the financial sector. The gentrification of urban spaces and the displacement of populations generate “territorial disqualification” (Angelcos and Méndez in this volume; Castel, 2009). Public-private investment projects in certain areas of cities and the development of infrastructure and services around them that favor private real estate projects for the upper classes can be seen in a number of Latin American cities (Medellín is one of the most studied examples), revealing a new urban order.

In this context, the case studies that do not respond to these logics, such as those on Cuban housing policy since the Revolution and the Uruguayan housing cooperatives, are particularly valuable, showing that other forms of urbanization are possible. This anthology allows us to investigate the processes that have produced the increasing inequality and poverty of urban Latin America and their relationship with the neoliberal model of production in contexts of dependent capitalism. The resulting increase in urban conflict (Theodore, Peck, and Brenner, 2009) is increasingly expressed in demands for rights (Harvey, 2013; Lefebvre, 2013), These Latin American cities can certainly be considered “insurgent” (Holston, 1995), resisting the efforts of real estate and financial capital and international organizations to impose their interests.