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.
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comparison. But the most convincing argument had to do with the territorial consequences of three<br />
lengthy processes that began in the 1990s: the change in the <strong>development</strong> model (open markets <strong>and</strong><br />
liberalization); the expansion of the “postfordist” production model; <strong>and</strong> political <strong>and</strong> administrative<br />
decentralization. The assumption was that liberalization would benefit regions that produced a large<br />
volume of globally traded commodities <strong>and</strong> would rejuvenate rural life <strong>and</strong> economies (Daher, 1994, p.<br />
64) inasmuch as productive restructuring would promote a spatial restructuring. Looking to the process of<br />
metropolitan deconcentration in the developed countries, the conjecture was that decentralization would<br />
strengthen local <strong>development</strong> <strong>and</strong> lead to a redistribution of resources <strong>and</strong> population.<br />
However, the effects of these territorial processes have not been as clear or dramatic as expected.<br />
Moreover, since the 1990s, there has been a certain resurgence in the appeal of metropolises, as supported<br />
by new theoretical approaches, notably the “global cities” approach (De Mattos, 2001). The revitalization<br />
of these cities is reflected in objective indicators, such as declining poverty, less pollution <strong>and</strong> exp<strong>and</strong>ed<br />
coverage of basic services. This resurgence does not, however, mean a return to the era of large waves of<br />
urban migration, although the attractiveness of these cities is observed to be on the rise among certain<br />
groups (international immigrants, professionals, higher education students) <strong>and</strong> a complex configuration<br />
of migrant <strong>and</strong> commuter links is growing denser, characterized by a network of adjacent cities<br />
functionally integrated into a large city. These phenomena are addressed later in relation to “postindustrial<br />
metropolitan mutations” (Rodríguez, 2011; De Mattos, 2010).<br />
Given this situation, although most urban evolution models (Sobrino, 2011) <strong>and</strong> the data on<br />
developed countries (Arroyo, 2001) indicate that deconcentration should be the prevailing trend, the<br />
future of the pattern of concentration in the region’s large cities remains uncertain.<br />
The causes of this pattern of concentrated urbanization in large cities are complex <strong>and</strong> have been<br />
the subject of lengthy <strong>and</strong> inconclusive debate. While some authors focus on the historical roots of this<br />
phenomenon, tracing the causal chain back to the colonial era <strong>and</strong> subsequently to the formation of<br />
nation-states, others zero in on the <strong>development</strong> strategies implemented in the last century—particularly<br />
the import-substitution industrialization <strong>and</strong> State-driven industrialization strategies—as the main cause.<br />
Naturally, the latter tend to conclude that the adoption of a new <strong>development</strong> model, especially one in<br />
which greater investment drives the growth of productive sectors located outside the large cities, can only<br />
alter the relevance of large cities.<br />
However, as seen in the primacy index, the available data point to considerable diversity in terms<br />
of the evolution of the demographic <strong>and</strong> socioeconomic concentration of large cities. In some countries,<br />
an intense process of deconcentration is under way in the capital city, with people moving to other cities,<br />
many of which are becoming large cities, as noted in chapter IX (Rodríguez, 2011). In others, not only<br />
has the level of concentration in the capital city not abated, it is rising. A special type of deconcentration,<br />
which has been described in the specialized literature, occurs within a relatively small radius <strong>and</strong> consists<br />
of the loss of the demographic <strong>and</strong> productive importance of a metropolis due to an increase in the<br />
population <strong>and</strong> economic activities of a cluster of nearby cities. Rather than a deconcentration process,<br />
what may be happening in these cases is an expansion in the scale <strong>and</strong> scope of the metropolis, or a<br />
“concentrated deconcentration.” This type of phenomenon has been observed primarily in Brazil (Pinto da<br />
Cunha <strong>and</strong> Rodríguez, 2009). In contrast, since 1980 Mexico’s capital city has been experiencing an<br />
undeniable process of deconcentration, both in demographic <strong>and</strong> economic terms, owing to the<br />
demographic <strong>and</strong> productive expansion of distant cities (Sobrino, 2011).