The Development of Urban Systems in the Americas in the Nineteenth Century

In: Journal of Interamerican studies and world affairs, Volume 17, Issue 1, p. 4-26

Abstract

Developing a line of thought from an earlier essay (Morse, 1973: II, 11-55), this paper examines some points of departure for a comparative analysis of urbanization in Latin America and the United States during the nineteenth century. Two assumptions guide the inquiry: first, that the "external dependency" thesis so frequently invoked to explain Latin American urban development easily leads to dogmatism; second, that geoeconomic factors must be perceived as interacting with those of the sociopolitical order.To set broad guidelines for our effort we might construe the economic and institutional development of the United States and Latin America along the lines of two tensions or counterpoints.United States.Here the North and West with their commercial agriculture, trading energies, and industrialization faced the commercially and financially dependent South, its socioeconomic organization conditioned by the plantation system, slavery, and export agriculture.