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Slum Neighborhoods in Latin America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Lloyd H. Rogler
Lloyd H. Rogler*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Yale University
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Extract

In the life of Latin American cities the rapid expansion of slum neighborhoods has emerged as a compelling problem. The inability of city authorities to provide adequate and inexpensive housing for rural-to-urban migrants, as well as for those economically poor persons born and raised in the city, has clashed with the tremendous growth of the population and its drive toward urbanization. The impoverished families must settle wherever they can. Scattered throughout Mexico City, for instance, on vacant lots adjoining factories or on the periphery of the metropolitan area are shack homes built of miscellaneous materials, known as jacales, or the rows of single-story concrete, brick, or adobe dwellings called vecindades. Beyond Mexico City, there are the villas miserias of Buenos Aires, the favelas on the rocky promontories of Rio de Janeiro, the barrios clandestinos of Bogotá, the barriadasmarginales of Lima, the ranchos of Caracas, and the callampas (mushrooms) of Santiago.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1967 , pp. 507 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1967

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Janet Turk for her editorial assistance on this paper. Some of the primary data reported in this paper were collected on a trip through Latin America. I wish to thank Yale's Concilium on International Studies for making this trip possible.

References

1 For a description of two vecindades in Mexico City, see Lewis, Oscar, “The Culture of Poverty,” The Economic Weekly, Special Number, June 1960, pp. 965–972 Google ScholarPubMed. To understand the linkages between the family and life in a vecindad, see: Lewis, Oscar, Five Families (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Science Editions, 1962)Google Scholar; and Lewis, Oscar, The Children of Sanchez (New York: Random House, 1961).Google Scholar

2 The problems of urbanization and housing in Latin American cities are discussed in “Urbanization in Latin America,” Chapter 9 of Report on the World Social Situation, United Nations Publication, 1957, pp. 170-192.

3 The dearth of studies of cities in Latin America has been recognized by social scientists and is well stated by A. H. Whiteford in Two Cities of Latin America, Logan Museum Publications in Anthropology, Bulletin No. 9, The Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit, Wisconsin, 1960.

4 W. W. Pendleton, “Ecological Participation and Value: A Study of the Middle Class in Cali, Colombia,” Chapter 3, p. 4, a draft of Pendleton's Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Tulane University, 1965.

5 Pendleton, “Ecological Participation …”

6 Ibid.

7 I am grateful to Professor Rogowski of the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, for providing me with the data for this description of barrios populares.

8 Pendleton, “Ecological Participation …”

9 An article by Powelson, J. P., “The Land-Grabbers of Cali,” The Reporter, Jan. 16, 1964, pp. 30–31 Google Scholar, describes the invasion of one barrio in Cali, Colombia.

10 Matos Mar, J., “Migration and Urbanization,” in Hauser, P. M. (editor), Urbanization in Latin America, International Documents Service (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).Google Scholar For an informative account of migrants in Lima, see William P. Mangin's articles, “The Role of Regional Associations in the Adaptation of Rural Migrants to Cities in Peru” and “Mental Health and Migration to Cities: A Peruvian Case” in Heath and Adams (editors), Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America (New York: Random House, 1965).

11 Rotondo, H., “Psychological and Mental Health Problems of Urbanization Based on Case Studies in Peru,” in Hauser, (ed.), Urbanization in Latin America, pp. 249–257.Google Scholar

12 A chi-square analysis indicates that the difference between urban and rural respondents in replies to this item is statistically significant beyond the .01 level. Random variation, therefore, does not account for the observed difference.

13 Rotondo, op. cit., p. 250.

14 Turner, John, “Dwelling Resources in South America,” Architectural Design, 8:375, 1963.Google Scholar

15 Echavarria, J. M., and Hauser, Philip M., “Rapporteurs’ Report,” in Hauser (ed.) Urbanization in Latin America, p. 31.Google Scholar

16 Bazzanella, Waldemiro, “Priority Areas for Social Research in Latin America,” in De Vries, E. and Echavarria, J. M. (editors), Social Aspects of Economic Development in Latin America, Vol. I, United Nations Publication, 1963, p. 373.Google Scholar

17 “Urbanization in Latin America,” Chapter 10 of Report on the World Social Situation, p. 170.

18 In Turner, John C., Turner, Catherine S., and Crooke, Patrick, “Conclusions,” Architectural Design, 8: 389–393, 1963 Google Scholar, the authors present information on the inability of Latin American governments to provide low-cost housing.

19 Rogler, Charles, Comería (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1940), p. 61.Google Scholar

20 Wolf, Eric R., “San José: Subcultures of a ‘Traditional’ Coffee Municipality,” in Steward, Julian H. (editor), The People of Puerto Rico (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), p. 208.Google Scholar

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22 Caplow, T., Stryker, S., and Wallace, S. E., The Urban Ambience (Totowa, N.J.: The Bedminster Press, 1964).Google Scholar For another study of neighborhood integration and its relationship to social stratification, see: Calderón, Luis, “Poder retentivo del area local urbana en las relaciones sociales,” Problemas de urbanización en América Latina, estudios sociológicos latinoamericanos, 13: 14–185, 1963.Google Scholar

23 Caplow, et ah, The Urban Ambience, pp. 162-163.

24 The findings of this study are reported in Rogler, Lloyd H. and Hollingshead, A. B., Trapped: Families and Schizophrenia (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1965).Google Scholar

25 Portions of the remainder of this paper were presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City, May 3-7, 1965.

26 Rogler, Lloyd H. and Hollingshead, A. B., “The Puerto Rican Spiritualist as a Psychiatrist,” The American Journal of Sociology, LXVII (1961), 17–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Hollingshead, A. B. and Rogler, L. H., “Attitudes Toward Slums and Public Housing in Puerto Rico,” in Duhl, Leonard J. (editor), The Urban Condition (New York: Basic Books, 1963).Google Scholar

28 Caplow, et a!., The Urban Ambience, p. 41.

29 The April 1, 1965 edition of the San Juan Star (p. 36) reports that the Urban Renewal and Housing Corporation has filed suits against squatters who have occupied land set aside for public housing projects. Previously, the URHC had been reluctant to bring court proceedings against the occupants of clandestine construction in areas cleared for public housing.

30 For some of the dynamics of relocation from slum to caserío, see: Back, Kurt W., Slums, Projects, and People (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

31 Rogler and Hollingshead, Trapped: Families and Schizophrenia, pp. 347-359.

32 Pearse, A., “Some Characteristics of Urbanization in the City of Rio de Janeiro,” in Hauser (ed.), Urbanization in Latin America, pp. 199–200.Google Scholar

33 Child of the Dark (The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus), translated from the Portuguese by Clair, David St. (New York: Signet Paperback, E. P. Dutton, 1963).Google Scholar