A combination of unequal capitalist development, time and territory produces Latin American cities with particular, specific characteristics that cannot be analyzed by concepts that are used to explain cities of the developed world. The historical capital globalization does not homogenize urban formations; rather, it differentiates them. Explaining the Latin American city in the current neoliberal pattern involves analyzing, in the capitalist generality and in its Latin American particularity, its combination of new and old, its specific historical features: indigenous subsistence; rapid urbanization; late industrialization; early deindustrialization; informal outsourcing; massive self-help housing; informal land and housing market; structural unemployment; poverty; informality; emergency regimes; low urbanization; various governmental positions concerning neoliberalism; widespread urban violence, etc.
capitalism; uneven development; neoliberal pattern; Latin American city; specific features