ABSTRACT
Large urban agglomerations in Latin America are increasingly faced with challenges similar to those of their counterparts in the richer nations of the developed world. The need to cater for a growing tertiary sector, declining manufacturing activities, the dispersal of population and industries to peripheral locations, and the inflow of international investment and cheap imports, are some of the current themes in metropolitan studies of the region. Although an ageing population and wholesale renewal of central areas are not on the immediate agenda of metropolitan governments, issues that will also be familiar to a New Yorker or a Londoner, such as air pollution and the pressing needs of the poor, are.
