Cándida Gago García

Latin American Cities and Globalisation: Change and Permanency in the Context of Development Expectations

Some interesting changes have been taking place in the urbanisation processes of Latin American countries in the past few decades, some of which are definitely related to global processes. The empirical evidence of this relation is hard to pin down due to the lack of data sources, but in this paper it is suggested that the growth in volume and diversity of mobility relations between cities can be indicators of an overlapping of urban phenomena and global processes. A diachronic analysis (1970—2008) of Latin American air transport connectivity is used to evaluate the growth and the degree of cohesion of the internal relational systems and changes and continuities in the external relational systems. Even though air transport is an indicator to be complemented with other indicators when analysing global relations, the results indicate a continuation of existing Latin American structures (centralism and polarisation) and the emergence of new forms of dependence (tourism and migration), which should not be overlooked in the study of global relational systems.Some interesting changes have been taking place in the urbanisation processes of Latin American countries in the past few decades, some of which are definitely related to global processes. The empirical evidence of this relation is hard to pin down due to the lack of data sources, but in this paper it is suggested that the growth in volume and diversity of mobility relations between cities can be indicators of an overlapping of urban phenomena and global processes. A diachronic analysis (1970—2008) of Latin American air transport connectivity is used to evaluate the growth and the degree of cohesion of the internal relational systems and changes and continuities in the external relational systems. Even though air transport is an indicator to be complemented with other indicators when analysing global relations, the results indicate a continuation of existing Latin American structures (centralism and polarisation) and the emergence of new forms of dependence (tourism and migration), which should not be overlooked in the study of global relational systems.

Madrid en el escenario de un sistema mundial de ciudades

Debido, entre otros factores, a sus efectos locacionales, la globalizacion esta generando a diferentes escalas una reorganizacion regional planetaria. En relacion con estos procesos se han definido fenomenos complementarios de concentracion y difusion espacial que se amparan en una extraordinaria movilidad de bienes, servicios, capitales, personas e ideas que han favorecido la aparicion de conceptos arriesgados como la denominada «deslocalizacion». En otro orden de cosas, las condiciones de desregulacion y libre-competencia que triunfan actualmente en la mayor parte de las sociedades capitalistas apuntan hacia la perspectiva de una nueva organizacion mundial basada en jerarquias de relaciones (politicas, sociales y economicas) en las que el espacio aun tiene un protagonismo relevante frente a las ideas de quienes sostienen que el nuevo escenario global esta libre de determinismos fisicos.