ABSTRACT
In the majority of Latin American cities, the population growth that occurred at the end of the 20th century began a process of rapid suburbanization as the urban population relocated beyond the jurisdictions of the municipality that contained the city core. While this process resembles that of cities of the global north, a characteristic of suburban sprawl in developing countries—as opposed to in developed ones—is the inability of the state to provide basic urban services to all residents. In this context, historical spatial inequalities are forces behind the process of urbanization and key determinants of current form. The urban peripheries of Latin American main cities have become places where two groups who did not receive services from the state reside side by side: a low-income group, who got services in the informal economy, and an urban middle group, who opted to acquire them from the private sector in gated developments. Beyond a discontent with public services, from police to urban maintenance to parks, these gated communities are a distinctive from of interaction between the private and the public production of the city in a context of high income inequality.
