Author(s)

R Jordan & G C Magnoli

Abstract

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), trough its Sustainable Development and Human Settlement Division is carrying out a technical cooperation project for the development of Urban Management Strategies. The development objective of the project is to strengthen the ability of local government in order to address the issues of territorial development and the problems of urban management, with particular reference to urban poverty, in the context of regional economic development and articulating changes in productive patterns with social equity. The changeover from a marginal society to a participatory one, from the form of democracy to real democracy, from a society whose citizens are apathetic and lacking in social responsibility to one where they are active and interested in their common destiny, involves a long and patient effort to recast and re-form the relationships of society and the political system from within; an effort by citizens to educate themselves, and institutional restructuring to promote and foster this participation. 1 Conceptual framework: urban settlements in the region Over recent years the process of urbanization and spatial concentration of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has revealed the increasing importance of the role played by cities in the context of social and economic

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