Take-off without maturity. Urbanization, industralization and development in twentieth-century Latin America

Abstract

On the basis of some phases of Rostow's theory that explore the relationship between industrialization, urbanization anddevelopment, this article aims at illustrating how the imbalance between urbanization and theproductive system helps to explain the issue ofLatin America's take-out throughout the twentieth century, lacking the ensuing drive to maturity. For that purpose, other political and social aspects are incorporated into a periodization that has to be initiated at the phase when Latin America started to evince a signijicant urbanization. Such a panoramic attempt is made from the historiographic and methodological premise that urbanization and development studies have often lost the historicalperspective. It is therefore necessary to resume a panoramic and, to some extent, comparative review, both in historical and territorial terms, in which a long-term periodization will be a possible contribution of this research.

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