ABSTRACT
Urbanization has long been viewed in two contradictory ways: as modern, exciting, and filled with the promise of tomorrow and as unsettling, troubling, and filled with danger. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book offers some final reflections on urban conditions, reaching beyond the case studies to include available comparative information on other cities of this era. It describes some of the problems that occurred in that city as the government attempted to modernize the capital. With a municipal Institute of Hygiene and a national Public Health Department, officials began to inspect and fumigate worker housing and even to evict tenants from buildings that did not meet code. No single reason can explain why some Latin American cities of this era accomplished more in urban reform than others. Without active pressure from the working class the reform impulse lacked energy.
