Fractured Cities

Social Exclusion, Urban Violence and Contested Spaces in Latin America

Kees Koonings, Dirk Kruijt, Kees Koonings, Dirk Kruijt

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9781842777312
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781848131354
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Urban Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

As cities sprawl across Latin America, absorbing more and more of its people, crime and violence have become inescapable.

From the paramilitary invasion of Medell¡n in Colombia, the booming wealth of crack dealers in Managua, Nicaragua and police corruption in Mexico City, to the glimmers of hope in Lima, this book provides a dynamic analysis of urban insecurity. Based on new empirical evidence, interviews with local people and historical contextualization, the authors attempts to shed light on the fault-lines which have appeared in Latin American society.

Neoliberal economic policy, it is argued, has intensified the gulf between elites, insulated in gated estates monitored by private security firms, and the poor, who are increasingly mistrustful of state-sponsored attempts to impose order on their slums. Rather than the current trend towards government withdrawal, the situation can only be improved by co-operation between communities and police to build new networks of trust. In the end, violence and insecurity are inseparable from social justice and democracy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Tables and figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: the duality of Latin American cityscapes
• 1 | Fractured cities, second-class citizenship and urban violence
• 2 | Rio de Janeiro
• 3 | Mexico City
• 4 | Medellín
• 5 | Managua
• 6 | Caracas
• 7 | Lima Metropolitana
• 8 | Living in fear: how the urban poor perceive violence, fear and insecurity
• Epilogue: Latin America’s urban duality revisited
• About the authors
• Bibliography
• Index