Intermediate cities in Latin America risk and opportunities of coherent urban development

Abstract

Urban agglomerations continue to be defined primarily by spatial and demographic criteria which signal their position within the domestic and international urban networks. We consider that these criteria are overly static, and lack indicators of both the potential inherent in medium-sized cities, and the risks they are prone to. On the occasion of a research action project conducted jointly with the Urban Management Program for Latin America and the Caribbean (PGU–ALC/HABITAT), we attempted to gain a deeper understanding of medium-sized cities in order to see more clearly what varied relations they entertain with their immediate or more distant environment. There are different aspects to the integration of an urban community in a specific context. Territorial occupation and demographic expansion, as well as urban planning and development, socio-economic, political, institutional, environmental, and cultural aspects, infrastructures and services. All these interact at different levels—local, regional, national and international. The interplay between these various aspects and their relative importance also determine intermediate cities, which act as an interface to the outside world. In doing so, they face constraints arising from ill-controlled urbanisation processes, but are also rich in possible strategies for new opportunities, exchange, and trade. Results from the local observatories set up by the PGU in four Latin American cities led us to conclude that urban players still lack an understanding of intermediate cities, and are thus incapable of effectively integrating the concept in their political development strategies. Most public, scientific or associative participants in such projects view the process of “intermediation” as a local marketing phenomenon that aims to “sell the city” in the globalised market. Economic deregulation and political decentralisation have eroded the importance of the central state and of the national territory it is meant to administer. These increasingly lose their reference value for urban players, who view their future in international terms. In contrast to the brilliant future promised to intermediate cities in the global free market, the real problems of the outside world that confront both authorities and inhabitants are completely obscured. They include such major issues as migratory movements and their impact on territorial planning and urban infrastructure, or the degradation of the urban environment, of natural resources and of the surrounding rural regions. To this day, the concept of intermediate cities is misused. In fact, it seems to cause more confusion than anything else when defining urban systems and understanding their dynamics. If it were better understood, its typological characteristics and appropriate indicators could turn it into a formidable instrument for analysing urban reality and managing the interaction between cities and their environment.