Introduction Urban Latin America Violence, Enclaves, and Struggles for Land

Land, including communal holdings, was then valued for its capacity to produce commodities in the global marketplace, leading to the dispossession and displacement of the majority of the population. It was this gigantic land grab and not any 'free choice' that produced urban Latin America. At the same time, urban land became a new battleground for class warfare. Wealthy elites controlled the land in cities, but since they had little interest in accommodating so many new immigrants there were land invasions, overcrowding, and vast areas that lacked basic urban services such as safe water and sewers. Much of what is written about cities in Latin America, particularly from the global North, evades the fundamental economic, social, and political questions. Violence is the most critical urban question today. The fallacy is that this is strictly a matter of violent cities; the truth is that the entire continent has been engulfed in violence supported and financed by the US and its client states.