ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the patterns of urban working-class lives and politics in the years that stood between the old and the new: between the old of traditional elite paternalism and exclusionary politics and the new of mass-based, multiclass, inclusionary populist politics and an active state. It provides a strong empirical account of basic conditions in the city: housing, transportation, potable water, sewage disposal, sanitation, vaccination, health care, and other aspects of urban life. The book also provides long-needed basic information on urban demography: population size, growth rates, ethnicity, gender ratio, age, marriage, and births. It discusses the basis for understanding the relationship between the impact of urbanization on the working class in Latin American cities and the variety of responses by that group in the critical years between 1870 and 1930.
