Population, territory and sustainable development

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in recent years, which are described and analysed later, there is still no question that they have real
deficits. These are more apparent in large cities, in some cases because they are actually more serious and
in others simply because they receive more attention from the public and the media. The urban deficits
that tend to be exacerbated in large cities are sectoral —specifically, housing, transportation and
infrastructure —environmental and related to citizen security. The large populations, extensive geography
and intensity of productive activity characteristic of large cities conspire to make the situation worse, both
directly through factors such as diseconomies of scale, concentration of networks and systems, generation
of increasingly larger volumes of waste and the rising cost of territorial management, etc., and indirectly
through factors such as rising prices for buildable land, higher unit costs and declining social capital.
There are other factors of equal or greater importance, such as scarcity of resources, lack of
planning and failures in institutional coordination and strategic metropolitan governance (IDB, 2011; UN-
Habitat, 2009).
Lastly, another aspect of the disadvantages of urban concentration that is universally recognized
is the phenomenon of informality in labour, social security, housing and urban planning contexts.
Traditionally, informality has been associated with low productivity, social vulnerability, disorder and
insecurity, depending on the context. Given their size and area, Latin American metropolises have a
“history of informality,” and any expectation that this will disappear in the short or medium term would
be wishful thinking (Jordán, Rehner and Samaniego, 2010).
Yet, the notion that these disadvantages are insurmountable should be reexamined in light of the
processes described in previous chapters and sections, in relation to the resurgent appeal of urban and
metropolitan areas and the improvements and forward momentum seen in large cities, even taking into
account the growth and vigour of the informal job sector, which will not likely disappear anytime soon.
Moreover, the new demographic and migration patterns in these cities are less taxing than in the past, as
growth and immigration have eased. Lastly, as explained later, “postindustrial metropolitan mutations”
can modify the role and functioning of large cities.
3. Informality and peri-urban growth
Growth at the periphery of metropolises, characterized by the influx of poor people from the countryside
and other cities, has been a distinctive trait of Latin American urban areas for the past 50 years (World
Bank, 2008). This informal expansion on the outskirts of cities has continued in recent years, but in
several countries, especially the most urbanized, it has essentially been the result of massive numbers of
poor people moving from central and peri-central areas of cities to the periphery (Angel and others, 2011;
Aguilar and Escanilla, 2011; Rodríguez and Busso, 2009; Polese, 1998; Ingram, 1998). Census data from
the 2000s confirm that peri-urban expansion and depopulation of city centres are ongoing trends (see
map X.1), although there are signs of demographic recovery in some city centres (see map X.2) (Abba
and others, 2011; Sobrino, 2011).
This contrast between peri-urban growth and depopulation of city centres is critically important in
analyses of the urban situation and interventions in the large cities of Latin America. In fact, it is among
the most intensely debated topics in the region and beyond (UN-Habitat, 2009; UNFPA, 2007). Many
experts have concluded that this type of growth is a net negative, taking into consideration its varied and
high costs, both for the city as a whole and for its inhabitants (IDB, 2011). However, there are also
specialists who look favourably upon this peri-urban expansion, on the basis of different arguments that