Globalization, dependency and urbanization: the recent transformation of the Latin American urban system

The Latin American countries have suffered a fast and intense process of economic globalization in the 90's decade. This report examines the urban consequences of the economic liberalization and the changes in the urban primacy; the demographic data are used to establish the variations in the urban primacy and the cartography of air transportation served to illustrate the exchanges between cities. The paper ends with a discussion on the relevance of the Dependence Theory and its variation to the System-world Theory. Both are considered like central instruments for analysis of changes in the urban networks of a globalised economy.