IDEAS Insights Urban Development in Latin America | Page 3

At the outset of the twentieth century, Latin American cities found themselves in the
same situation many rapidly developing urban areas now share in the twenty-first
century. To take a dramatic example, Buenos Aries’ population grew more than tenfold
in 50 years, from 187,000 in 1870 to 2,178,000 in 1930 [1]. Understanding the
response of Latin American elites to the challenge of urban design can help us
understand international development today.
Consider a poor suburb of Juárez City in Mexico, divided by unpaved roads, and filled
with simple brick and adobe houses (Fig. 1). This photograph, taken in 1960, peers
down the avenue of Latin America’s lethargic colonial past [2].
Figure 1: Juarez City as photographed in the Mexican Revolution, 10 May 1911
Picture: G. Casasola | Historia Gráfica de la Revolución Mexicana
In contrast, the photograph overleaf (Fig. 2) gazes upwards at Latin America’s dynamic
future: Buenos Aires’ new, civilised Avenida de Mayo, lined with tall buildings slicing
through the capital and highlighting Argentina’s progress to the world [3].
Unfortunately, the photograph of slums in Juárez was taken two decades after the one
in Buenos Aires. While these examples are drawn from two different countries and
cities, the development problem faced by Latin American cities remained universal.
Each city struggled with managing their rapid urbanization in this period: keeping up
with the growing slums, providing the basics of paving, sanitation, and water, all the
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