Separate but Equal Democratization? Participation, Politics, and Urban Segregation in Latin America

Abstract

Many commentators have noted the existence of a historical correlation between cities and democratization (Dyson 2001: 83; Mumford 1995: 21). Whether implicitly or explicitly, this image of the city as an inherently civic space is fundamentally linked to the notion that the spatial concentration intrinsic to urban contexts promotes ‘a democracy of proximity, of participation by all in the management of public affairs’ (Borja and Castells 1997: 246). As Amin and Thrift (2004: 231) succinctly summarize: the city has very often been seen as a forcing ground for a politics of emancipation. Thus, the classical Graeco-Roman city is where the rule of democracy is supposed to have arisen, a democracy based upon the public deliberations of a supposedly ‘free’ citizenship … The medieval city, and later, the Renaissance city are held responsible for such seminal events as the rise of guild politics, the forging of institutions of civic republicanism and the principle of sanctuary based around the rise of independent city states. The Enlightenment city — through its institutions of learning, intellectual exchange, and secular science — is associated with the rise of universalism and a cosmopolitan ethos. And so on.