ABSTRACT
Reconcentration implies the movement back to city centres after dispersal. It is primarily driven by the failure of the enterprise and social conditions of the dispersed settlement systems, through economic change, environmental change, political change or civil conflict or war. Rural infrastructure, particularly the railways, has been neglected and farm and rural industry employment has declined. Poverty rose rapidly in the 2001–2002 crisis, when 7.5 million people crossed the poverty line, but subsequently declined by 6.5 million by 2005, although not to the levels before 1998. The rapid expansion of urban areas as a consequence of disadvantaged economic and social conditions of rural areas of Latin America has been augmented by flows linked to civil conflict and violence, as in Colombia and Guatemala. Natural and economic disasters can also precipitate more migration to cities. The net result is a complex pattern of land-use in and around the mega-cities and provincial centres of Argentina.
