ABSTRACT
Rapid urban growth is hardly a new phenomenon in Latin America. In Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and southern Brazil, several major cities had emerged by the end of the nineteenth century. Successful export production in these areas had led to the concentration of transport and commercial facilities in cities such as Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The pace of expansion was fuelled in each case by major flows of immigrants from Europe especially from Spain, Portugal and Italy (see Ch. 3). By 1920, Buenos Aires had 1.6 million inhabitants and Rio de Janeiro 1.2 million.
