Abstract
Peripheral areas of poverty take shape through multifaceted phenomena that present the influence of numerous agents. Families and individuals act based on strategic reasoning, linked to socio-spatial segregation and differentiation. Growth and land-valuing cycles engage urban form in these processes, increasing segregation and exerting influence over its configuration over time, leading to dynamic phenomena. The theory available to describe such phenomena presents diverse approaches which ignore convergences that this paper seeks to highlight. Therefore, this paper articulates contemporary urbanization theory with empirical reports on Latin-American urbanization and tries to bridge informal and self-help city production with better known market-based processes and urban growth models. To achieve this articulation, this work seeks to link Pedro Abramo's heterodox economical approach to complexity theories on city production and recent peripherization research to accentuate dynamic social processes of peripheral poverty formation in Latin-American cities. The paper then indicates guidelines for the research on the subject, considering the observed convergences and new possibilities of articulation.
Keywords:
Poverty; Urban periphery; Urban growth; Contemporary urbanization