The Growth of Latin American Cities, 1870-1930

7 THE GROWTH OF LATIN AMERICAN CITIES, 1870-1930 INTRODUCTION The European or North American who visited Latin America in the years before 1870 invariably came away struck by the diversity of the area - in geography, in people, in environment. Cities there were. Indeed cities had played a dominant role in the development of Spanish America at least, even when they contained only a small percentage of the area's total population. But generally they appeared small, poor and broken down. Far more impressive was the countryside of Latin America - the imposing Andean mountains, the vast Amazonian jungle, the endless grasslands of the llanos or the pampas, the picturesque Indian hamlets, the enormous landed estates. Consequently it was rural Latin America that most vividly emerged from the travel accounts, letters and dispatches of the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, a bird's eye view of the Latin American city in 1870 will set the stage for the dramatic changes that the ensuing decades brought to the area's urban landscape. Even the largest Latin American cities appeared small, in large measure because of their plaza-orientation. Both the residences of the wealthy and the powerful and the principal urban activities of adminis- tration, services and trade were concentrated around the central plaza. Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Mexico City and Buenos Aires all had central districts of only a few hundred blocks. These areas, often extending no more than five or ten blocks from the main plaza, had the appearance of an urbanized zone: substantial housing, paving, sidewalks and street lights. Located in this central district were markets, offices, stores, clubs, theatres, churches and schools to serve the elite. Beyond this core extended the shacks of the poor, the rutted dusty lanes of outlying districts, and an environment that appeared more rural than urban to the casual observer. Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Michigan State University Libraries, on 09 Dec 2016 at 01:23:26, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/termsCambridge Histories Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521232258.008 © Cambridge University Press, 2008 234 Latin American cities, iS/o-ipjo In these small urban centres, the homes of families, especially of the upper class, were protected from the city. Hispanic patio architecture prevailed. Behind thick walls, solid wooden doors and grilled windows a self-contained social existence, depending little on the outside world, had developed. Set on elongated urban lots, running back from the street as much as three to four times their twenty- or thirty-yard width, these comfortable residences sheltered patios, wells, gardens, fruit trees, woodsheds, latrines, chickens, ducks, occasionally even some goats, pigs, or horses, along with servants, distant cousins, maiden aunts, or some employees and their families. There was little temptation to display wealth since only family members entered this sanctuary. The bulk of the urban population - labourers, servants, artisans - lived much more modestly. Their houses, made of the cheapest local materials, such as canes, branches, straw, or stones, were erected on the urban fringes, often as much as a couple of miles from the main plaza. Although their daily diet consisted of no more than one or two items — corn, beans, potatoes or manioc, depending on the zone — and did not include seasonal fruits and vegetables or meat, these lower classes, by living in or moving to the city, had nevertheless escaped much of the exploitation and controls associated with Latin America's rural scene. The demand for their skills and services within the urban money economy even enabled some to improve their economic and social standing. In this apparently primitive and static urban environment, Europe's industrial revolution had sown the seeds of change. The rising demand from Europe's markets and factories for the wide range of foodstuffs and raw materials which could be produced in Latin America, combined with the new-found capacity of local inhabitants to buy manufactures from abroad, was beginning to stimulate levels of trade unthinkable in the colonial period. And new technology further increased commercial activity. Steam navigation doubled the capacity of ships in the two decades before 1870 and halved the time needed to cross the Atlantic. Not only could far greater quantities be transported for much less, but also, with the added refinements of refrigeration and improved handling in the 1870s, even perishable products would enter world commerce. By mid-century the results were notable. The import of French wines into Buenos Aires rose from 500 barrels a year prior to 1850 to more than 300,000 barrels by the 1870s, while wool exports increased from 7,000 tons to 100,000 tons a year. In Brazil, coffee exports rose from an annual Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Michigan State University Libraries, on 09 Dec 2016 at 01:23:26, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/termsCambridge Histories Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521232258.008 © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Introduction 235 19,000 tons in the 1820s to 15 8,000 tons in the 1850s. The foreign trade of Chile trebled in the period between 1845 an<J l8<>o. Several coastal cities expanded from fishing or coastal hamlets into major harbours: Tampico in Mexico, Colon in Panama, Barranquilla in Colombia, Bahia Blanca in Argentina. Railways worked even more important changes. Freight costs dropped to one-twelfth of those charged by oxcarts and mule-trains, while the speed of transportation increased thirty times. Although railways tended to follow the well-worn paths of earlier trade routes, they brought unusual vitality to any centre cast in the role of a hub or terminus. Thus, Valparaiso's surprising doubling of population between 1850 and 1870 probably owed as much to the completion in 1863 of the railway from the Chilean capital as to its privileged location on the Pacific Ocean. Rosario, likewise, nearly doubled in size in the decade following completion in 1870 of the first major railway from this river port into the interior of Argentina. Panama emerged from serious economic prostra- tion once the trans-isthmus railway to Colon had been completed in 1855. The railway link to Rio de Janeiro and to the coast at Santos sparked the beginnings of Sao Paulo's vertiginous growth after 1870. The railway and the steamship, by their very nature as greatly improved freight vehicles, thus encouraged concentration of commerce. Rather than disseminating the effects of increased trade, the new transportation technology stimulated growth of the already existing centres. The larger volume of goods transported by individual trains meant that cargoes had to be handled at central locations in order to utilize carrying capacity to the maximum. Shipping companies, because of the still greater volume of freighters and the cost of repeated stops, sought to load and unload at a single emporium in each country. The Pacific Steam Navigation Company made regular calls at Valparaiso, Callao and Guayaquil, while, by the 1860s, British and French lines regularly stopped at the Caribbean ports of Veracruz, Colon, Cartagena, La Guaira and Havana, and at the South Atlantic ports of Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Capital cities, possessing facilities for handling the flow of finished imports and raw material exports and containing substantial upper- and middle-class elements to consume European goods, benefited the most. The greatest growth occurred at the coastal capitals: Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Lima with its adjacent port of Callao, and Caracas with its nearby outlet at La Guaira. But the building of a railway Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Michigan State University Libraries, on 09 Dec 2016 at 01:23:26, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/termsCambridge Histories Online. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521232258.008 © Cambridge University Press, 2008 236 Latin American cities, I8J'0-1930 link to the nearest seaport also tended to stimulate the growth of inland capitals as well as their outlets, as in the case of Santiago and Valparaiso, Mexico City and Veracruz, or in Brazil's developing coffee area with the capital of the state of Sao Paulo and its port at Santos. By 1870, however, the new technology and increased trade had brought few changes to the quality of urban life, even in the ports and major cities. Ports still gave few signs of frantic activity. The bales of hides or wool, the bags of coffee beans or wheat or coarse sugar, the crates of European finery, foodstuffs and hardware had not yet acquired sufficient volume to produce more than a lethargic movement of stevedores and peons. The arrival of a ship or train might stir a temporary bustle, but tranquillity soon returned. Except for commerce and business, little drew either the well-to-do out of their homes or the poor from their remote suburbs. Thus, movement on the streets was slight - servants out on errands, an occasional group of women headed for Mass, or a passing carriage or horseman. Streets, rarely wider than the thirty-foot standard established at the time of the Conquest, seemed even narrower and darker, closed in as they were by the solid masonry walls of buildings that rose from the very edge of the sidewalks and overhung by balconies at the second- and third-floor levels. Paving stones had somewhat improved the condition of the streets, but potholes, dust or mud, and refuse abounded. As in the medieval city, many a household, even of the well-to-do, discarded table scraps and rubbish along with the contents of chamber pots into the street.

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