Political Origins of Urban Growth in Latin America

• In Event: Urban Institutional Geographies: Spatial Structure & Politics

Abstract

Latin American nations are highly urbanized around a small number of megacities. These megacities account for the majority of these nations’ productivity and population. Scholars of urban planning and urban economics argue these cities are overly large, leading to environmental, transportation, and housing issues that ultimately depress growth and increase economic inequality. Instead, these scholars recommend a diffusion of development amongst secondary cities and investments in smart growth to improve life outcomes for citizens, and likely, improve economic growth. In this study, we use highly fine-grained satellite data of urbanization from 1972-2013 to see where and whether nations are investing in their “secondary” cities. We document different patterns of city growth, spread, and decentralization across nations that are not easily explained by topographical or economic factors. We focus on political factors as crucial determinants of spatial patterns of urbanization. In particular, we attribute differences in growth patterns to incentives generated by political institutions, particularly federalism and electoral rules and related party coalitions, for the government to invest in secondary cities. We link these findings to a broader literature on economic geography, political institutions, and urbanization, with broader implications for the politics of economic growth.

Authors

• Melissa Ziegler Rogers, Claremont Graduate University

• Soha Hammam, Claremont Graduate University