Population, territory and sustainable development
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of current trends, contexts and issues in the spheres of population, territory and sustainable development and examine their public policy implications. Three themes run through the report. The first two are laid out in the empirical chapters (III through X); the third is taken up in the closing chapter. Using the most recent data available (including censuses conducted in the 2010s), the first theme describes and tracks location and spatial mobility patterns for the population of Latin America, focusing on certain kinds of territory. The second explores the linkages between these patterns and sustainable development in different kinds of territory in Latin America and the Caribbean. The third offers considerations and policy proposals for fostering a consistent, synergistic relationship between population location and spatial mobility, on the one hand, and sustainable development, on the other, in the kinds of territory studied.
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of current trends, contexts and issues in the spheres of population, territory and sustainable development and examine their public policy implications. Three themes run through the report. The first two are laid out in the empirical chapters (III through X); the third is taken up in the closing chapter. Using the most recent data available (including censuses conducted in the 2010s), the first theme describes and tracks location and spatial mobility patterns for the population of Latin America, focusing on certain kinds of territory. The second explores the linkages between these patterns and sustainable development in different kinds of territory in Latin America and the Caribbean. The third offers considerations and policy proposals for fostering a consistent, synergistic relationship between population location and spatial mobility, on the one hand, and sustainable development, on the other, in the kinds of territory studied.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
172<br />
taken, have had little effect, <strong>and</strong> those that reached a peak level of concentration during the period, but<br />
whose relative importance has now started to decline. This means that only some countries are showing<br />
signs of a gradual process of demographic deconcentration coupled with sharper growth in<br />
nonmetropolitan MADs. The results of the 2010 censuses bear out the unevenness of trends between<br />
countries. Panama is the country with the greatest degree of concentration, <strong>and</strong> the trend is persistent,<br />
with the province of Panamá now home, for the first time, to 50% of the country’s population.<br />
Meanwhile, Mexico has resumed the process of deconcentration initiated in the 1980s, <strong>and</strong> for the first<br />
time the pattern of concentration in Ecuador has reversed, both in Pichincha <strong>and</strong> Guayas.<br />
Of course, this picture of increasing concentration, no longer uniform according to the figures in<br />
table X.2, changes drastically when the relative weight of population of the MADs in the total urban<br />
population is analysed inasmuch as there are few metropolitan MADs in which this indicator increased in<br />
comparison with 1950 <strong>and</strong> none in which there was a sustained increase across the entire period. This<br />
reflects how geographically indiscriminate the urbanization process has been, extending to every MAD in<br />
the region’s countries.<br />
Table X.3<br />
LATIN AMERICA: EVOLUTION OF THE RELATIVE WEIGHT OF THE POPULATION OF THE<br />
METROPOLITAN MADs OR CAPITAL CITIES IN THE TOTAL URBAN POPULATION<br />
OF THE COUNTRY, 1950-2000<br />
Country Major administrative division (MAD) 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010<br />
Argentina Buenos Aires 73.0 65.9 63.7 59.5 54.7 50.6<br />
Bolivia<br />
(Plurinational State of) La Paz 92.7 76.1 51.4 45.5<br />
Río de Janeiro 24.9 21.1 17.3 14.0 11.5 10.4 9.9<br />
Brazil<br />
São Paulo 48.6 40.9 34.1 31.1 28.5 26.8 25.6<br />
Chile Metropolitan Region (Santiago) 47.3 47.1 47.3 46.4 47.2 46.3<br />
Colombia Cundinamarca (Bogota) 45.5 31.0 29.8 28.7 28.1 28.6<br />
Costa Rica a San José 105.1 105.9 91.5 82.8 59.8<br />
Cuba Havana 50.5 44.4 37.5 34.4<br />
Pichincha (Quito) 42.3 36.5 36.6 34.6 32.9 32.3 28.3<br />
Ecuador<br />
Guayas 63.7 60.7 56.0 51.0 47.0 44.7 40.1<br />
El Salvador San Salvador 43.8 47.9 52.2 58.6 43.5<br />
Guatemala Guatemala City 63.0 56.2 59.0 66.2 62.2 49.0<br />
Haiti a Department of L’Ouest (Port-au-Prince) 172.7 138.0 125.2 90.6<br />
Honduras Francisco Morazán (Tegucigalpa) 44.7 49.6 45.8 47.5 39.7<br />
Mexico Federal District <strong>and</strong> State of Mexico 40.5 38.2 37.8 37.0 31.1 29.8 27.8<br />
Nicaragua Managua 43.7 50.8 54.2 46.1 43.9<br />
Panama Panama City 85.7 83.5 84.9 88.9 85.7 78.5 77.3<br />
Paraguay Asunción 78.3 79.5 79.0 73.5 65.5 64.0<br />
Peru Lima 41.4 47.8 47.1 46.8 45.5 44.8<br />
Dominican Republic National District (Santo Domingo) 46.9 50.0 51.1 53.2 53.6 50.1<br />
Uruguay Montevideo 69.5 67.2 64.9 62.3 60.9<br />
Venezuela<br />
(Bolivarian Republic of)<br />
Capital District, Mir<strong>and</strong>a, Vargas<br />
(Caracas) 40.9 37.2 34.7 30.1 26.0 21.4<br />
Source: Economic Commission for Latin America <strong>and</strong> the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the basis of Spatial distribution <strong>and</strong><br />
urbanization in Latin America <strong>and</strong> the Caribbean (DEPUALC) database.<br />
a<br />
Percentages over 100% indicate that the total population of the metropolitan MAD is greater than the total urban population<br />
of the country.
Change language