Compare colonial and post-colonial Latin American cities

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: When Europeans gained control of Latin America, they expanded existing cities to provide colonial services, such as administration, military command, and international trade, as well as housing for Europeans who settled in the colony. Existing native towns were either left to one side or demolished because they were totally at variance with European ideas. Colonial cities followed standardized plans. All Spanish cities in Latin America, for example, were built according to the Laws of the Indies, drafted in 1573. The laws explicitly outlined how colonial cities were to be constructed—a gridiron street plan centered on a church and central plaza, walls around individual houses, and neighborhoods built around central, smaller plazas with parish churches or monasteries. Compared to precolonial cities, these European districts typically contained wider streets and public squares, larger houses surrounded by gardens, and much lower density.

Following independence, Latin American cities have grown in accordance with the sector and concentric zone models. An elite sector forms along a narrow "spine" that contains offices, shops, and amenities attractive to wealthy people, such as restaurants, theaters, and parks. In Mexico City, the ispinei is a 14-lane, tree-lined boulevard called the Paseo de la Reforma, designed by Emperor Maximilian in the 1860s. The wealthy built imposing palacios (palaces) along it.

Cities in Latin America have expanded rapidly as millions of people come in search of work. In Mexico City, most of Lake Texcoco was drained in 1903 to permit expansion of the city, including the airport. A large percentage of poor immigrants to urban areas in developing countries live in squatter settlements on the periphery, especially on hillsides. Squatter settlements lack such services as paved roads and sewers, because neither the city nor the residents can afford them. Electricity service may be stolen by running a wire from the nearest power line. The United Nations estimated that 1 billion people worldwide lived in squatter settlements in 2005.