What % of Middle America is urbanized?
73%
- These tend to have lower national poverty rates. Despite cities in this region there are high rates of inequalities
Are poverty rates proportional to urbanization rates?
• National poverty rates are inversely proportional to urbanization rates
When did the growth of the middle class stopped in middle America?
• Growht of middle class stopped in the 80s
What is the one world city in middle America?
Mexico City
What are characteristics of cities in middle America?
- Highly urbanized region (83%)
- 4 megacities, 8 world cities
- Extreme disparities in wealth
- Large environmental problems (amazon)
- Sustainability measures
- Osuthern cone, chili argentina and uraguay have urbanization rate of 90+%
What is the historical view of middle America?
Mezoamerican growth of cities, independent from the other cities of the world all started by the mayan people
What are the historical periods of middle America?
- Ancient or medieval precolonial period (pre-1500)
- Period of formal colonial rule (1500-independence)
- Postcolonial period (~1811+)
What is the mesoamerican urbanization?
- Started by mayans and started to flurish in 750BC-1200CE
- They lived in Yucatan peneinsula
- -powerful city-state (60,000-70,000 inhabitants)
- -large city with thousands of structures including 6 large pyramids (one over 230 ft high)
- -sophisticated and highly productive agriculture
- Tikal most famous city (600BC-900CE) in the region
- Old structures hidden under jungle of the mayans, around 10 million people may have lived within the mayan lowlands
What did aztec urbanization take over?
• They took over after mayan until 1591 when the spaniards came and destroyed it
What is tenoctitlan?
- Center of aztec empire
- Watch video
- Almost quarter of million people
- Europeans also destroyed this too
When did the Inca urbanization start?
• Grew at the same time as aztec emprie was in its hay day in Chili
When did European colonization start?
• 1492 Columbus finds Hispaniola
• F. Pizzaro takes Inca empire with 500 soldiers (1533)
○ Of Cuzco: “This city is the greatest and the finest ever seen in this country or anywhere in the Indies… We can assure your Majesty that it is so beautiful and has such fine buildings that it would be remarkable even in Spain”.
• Most dramatic landscape modification because of the europeans
• Cities were filled with gold and people and all furnishings of a city (markets, admin, royalty, religious buildings)
What is the European conquest and what did it focus on?
Unleashed tragic chapter of intercontinental slavery and annihilation of millions of Native Americans
Focus on • mining • agriculture (plantation system) • converting locals to Christianity § Slaves all worked here
Did indigenous cities survive the europeans?
- Spanish conquistadores built Mediterranean-style structures atop Inca stone walls in pre-Columbian cities such as Cuzco in present-day Peru.
- Walls with huge stones were so symmetrical
- All euro cities built on top of the indigenous, destroyed old to make way for new
What were the lay of the Indies?
Plans were set forth in detail on every facet of creating a community, including city planning.
Regulations for all aspects of urban living (econ, structure, political, social). Every facet of urban design was laid out in strict way. City was organized around the central plaza which ahd cathedral, palace and markets, and housing of well to do
What happened in the middle americas post colonialism?
- Napoleon invades Spain and …
- … many colonies break away from Spanish rule.
- Independence in Venezuela: 1811, Argentina: 1816, Mexico: 1821 and so on
- Came sooner to this part of the world than others
In middle America, what did the urban planning follow?
- The elite western corridor connecting Chapultepec Park and the Zócalo is the preeminent place to memorialize Mexican heritage and identity. Here in the Alameda is a monument honoring Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian, in neo-classical style.
- When euro rule ended, the influence did not
When do modern cities grow in middle America?
Modern cities grow after WW2
• Modern cities try to make their won way in the world, not used just for their raw materials
What are the large-scale urbanization trends?
- Urban primacy rules in most countries
- Urbanization rates have slowed across the region
- Does Brazil have a more even distribution?
Does Brazil have primacy?
- Technically no based on numbers
- Well formed hierarchy of cities without the top 3
- They have dual primacy = 2 leading cities and the rest of the cities are a lot smaller
- All focus on the 2 primate cities and not on others
Where is the megalopolis in Brazil?
- Of the 2 largest citites, which have been in competition for quite sometime
- The regions between them is growing and will have a larger portion of brazils population and money going there
Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
What are sister cities?
- Single conurbation (flow of capital and people across the border)
- Of similar size , share info between, documaents of sharing, happens accrooss international boundaries with countries that have contrasting economic status.
- Important for cross-border labour and trade flow
What are planned cities?
Planned by government/monarch/ruler and built a more centrally located capital witin Brazil `
What is the griffin ford model of Latin American city structure?
As cities grew, the plaza/market/cathedral and governors at the center and the rich people lived right around the plaza. Then as it grew the rich left the central location and started to live along the grand boulevards. Now they are moving to gated communities outside of the city. Gentrificaiton of neighbourhoods that have fallen. Poor people live in the periphery (where no-one wants to live). Modern industrial prks on the outskirts and light industrial activity along the transportation corridors. Transiiotnal zone outside of the plaza is the zone of insitu which shares middle class features and lower class neighbourhoods
