ABSTRACT
The forces that have given rise to the current physical and social divisions of the Latin American city must be sought, beyond recent developments, in the early history of urban growth in the region. An impressive continuity exists between the organization and class divisions of the early colonial city and the present situation. General orientations toward use of the urban land, position and goals of the elite, role of government, and treatment accorded to the disenfranchised were crystallized early in the colonial period and, with amazing resilience, managed to persist despite the pressure of major external events in ensuing years. Imported capitalism and the institutions of Northern European bourgeois democracy never replaced the basic corporatist orientation—the framework of empire— built by Spain and Portugal in the New World cities. For this reason, the study of determinants of the current forms of urban poverty in Latin America must start with the colonial beginnings of present cities. No attempt will be made to cover in detail the history of Spanish and Portuguese urban settlements on the continent,... but rather we shall try to isolate the basic structural forms and cultural themes that provided the framework for present patterns of development of these cities. In the attempt to highlight such dominant trends, some violence will be done to inevitable historical exceptions....
