ABSTRACT
What do the Aztec ruler Montezuma I, the slave leader Toussaint L'Ouverture and US Air Force warplanes have in common? The answer (perhaps not surprisingly) is that they have all played key roles in shaping urbanisation in Middle America. Urban development in the region is characterised by contradiction and extremes, with dramatic and rapid shifts in urban character and the role played by urbanisation in national economic and political life. The region contains both the largest urban area (Mexico City covers 9,560 km2) and the smallest capital city (Road Town in the British Virgin Islands has a population of 6,000) in the Western Hemisphere. Using the United Nations Human Development Index (UNDP 1999), the region also contains both the most highly and most lowly ranked countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean (Barbados ranked 24 and Haiti ranked 159) (see Willis and Mcllwaine, this volume). Amidst such variety we need to ask what form should 'sustainable urbanisation' take and how are its principles being applied in Middle America?
