The “Latin American City”? The Rise and Fall of a Figment of the Social Imagination

This essay reviews the following works: Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms. Edited by Tom Angotti. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017. Pp. 306. $37.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781442274488. Urbanización y revolución en América Latina: Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires y Ciudad de México (1950-1980). By Óscar Calvo Isaza. Mexico City: El Colegio de México and Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2023. Pp. 398. $13.00 paperback. ISBN: 9786075644189. Monstrous Politics: Geography, Rights, and the Urban Revolution in Mexico City. By Ben A. Gerlofs. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2023. Pp. xiv + 262. $39.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826504777. La ciudad latinoamericana: Una figura de la imaginación social del siglo XX . By Adrián Gorelik. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2022. Pp. 424. $55.82 hardcover, $7.99 ebook. ISBN: 9789878011370. Representing the Barrios: Culture, Politics, and Urban Poverty in Twentieth-Century Caracas. By Rebecca Jarman. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023. Pp. xvii + 352. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822947653. Reclaiming the Discarded: Life and Labor on Rio’s Garbage Dump. By Kathleen M. Millar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Pp ix + 248. $24.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822370505. Historia de las villas en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. By Valeria Snitcofsky. Buenos Aires: Tejido Urbano, 2021. Pp. 326. Open-access ebook. ISBN: 9789873779541.