sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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D. TERRITORY, MOBILITY AND URBAN AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
In spatial terms, the population, economic activity and wealth are all highly concentrated in Latin
America and the Caribbean. There is a very significant differential between per capita GDP in the richest
and poorest regions of each country, and there has been very little change in this respect in the past two
decades (ECLAC, <strong>20</strong>10a). The concentration of economic activity is a natural consequence of
<strong>development</strong>, but this means that countries must invest in capacities and infrastructure that will allow
them to make use of the comparative and location advantages of different geographical areas so that
living conditions in the economically less developed areas can be improved.
In the past few <strong>years</strong>, territorial issues —<strong>development</strong>, identity, land use and land management,
resource distribution, decentralization or administration— have figured prominently in the debates
surrounding voting on a new Constitution in the Plurinational State of Bolivia and in Ecuador and in the
framing of numerous laws in various countries. In some, <strong>development</strong> plans have also included major
territorial components, which have involved, for example, proposals for promoting different production
clusters. Others have implemented regional <strong>development</strong> plans or land use plans that include different
sorts of incentives, land-use regulations and special measures for assigning resources to given areas
(ECLAC/UNFPA, <strong>20</strong>09). There is clearly an awareness of the importance of revisiting the geographical
or territorial dimension of national policies (ECLAC, <strong>20</strong>10a). As the unit of policy analysis and
intervention, the territory, a dynamic system made up of ecosystems and human communities, is useful
for understanding how urban and rural universes interrelate. Indeed, these universes are very often
considered in a fragmentary manner (UNCRD, <strong>20</strong>10b).
This section will cover a number of geographical or territorial factors that are of importance for
<strong>development</strong>, namely, migration flows, urban <strong>development</strong>, transport infrastructure and planning
instruments that take the geographical dimension of <strong>development</strong> into account.
1. Migration flows
In Latin America and the Caribbean, cities continue to exert a strong pull on rural populations. . Another
factor behind the shift away from rural areas has been the emergence of various types of conflicts over
resource use (Graziano, Gómez and Castañeda, <strong>20</strong>09). Now, however, the largest migration flows are
between one urban area and another, and these flows are, in some cases, more complex and more diverse
than rural-to-urban migration has been.
The growth of the region’s metropolitan areas has outpaced overall population growth. These
areas’ expansion may be attributable to urban sprawl or to the functional convergence of one city with
others (over distances of 100 kilometres or more) whereby they form “urban regions” or “dispersed or
reticular metropolitan areas”. This poses a major challenge for <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong> efforts and raises
new types of problems in terms of urban management and governance. The driving forces behind this
change in growth patterns are primarily speculation and the demand for inexpensive real estate. This kind
of urban growth quite often damages surrounding rural areas, their ecosystems and their inhabitants, who
find themselves faced with increased hazards and sources of vulnerability. Metropolitan areas are
themselves highly vulnerable to natural threats, including extreme weather events, which are increasingly
frequent and intense. This type of urban growth creates a need for new regional approaches to integrated
land management that take into account such factors as mass transit, urban services and the formation of a
suitable civic culture and institutions for these new types of settings (UNCRD/INTA, <strong>20</strong>10). Disaster risk