Argentina
The urban expansion process began at the end of the century with the arrival of immigrants to Argentina and then from the 1950s onwards accompanied by a period of industrial growth and emigration to large cities from the interior of the country. This type of expansion occurred mainly through continuations of the checkerboard urban layout, promoting the appearance of new neighborhoods around the railway stations in the first case and along the access roads to the cities in the second case. The resulting neighborhoods, a product of real estate speculation under the modality of low-price popular subdivision with little or no levels of infrastructure coverage, were initially only residential, but the consolidation and diversification of functions that occurred in them in later decades means that they cannot currently be considered urban dispersion in the sense described above.
Starting in the 1970s with the military government, a series of policies and regulations occurred in the country that encouraged urban dispersion (such as law 8912/77 in the province of Buenos Aires, still in force), establishing zoning by function, requirement of minimum surfaces in lots and the regulation of closed urbanizations that tended to occupy the territory of a suburban type.
But it is from the 90s onwards that this process of suburbanization becomes particularly noticeable, a product of growing urban insecurity and the preference for life models in greater contact with nature, leading to the appearance of gated communities in its different modalities and large shopping centers and office complexes along the highways. Urbanizations of this type (known locally as countries) grew in size until reaching cases such as Nordelta, a mega urbanization for 150,000 people and specializing and hosting more and more functions such as private schools and colleges, commercial areas, golf courses, marinas, spas and equestrian areas, but always through zoning by function.[24]
This type of urbanization with restricted access, developed by private investors, has become an alternative to traditional urbanization models, and the determining factor in the growth of the surface area of the urban area of large Argentine cities.[25] The phenomenon first occurred around cities such as Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario or Mendoza, but in more recent years it has spread to medium-sized and small cities, resulting in growing urban and social fragmentation, a product of the reforms. neoliberals.[26].
Mexico
Being the closest country to the United States, it was predictable that it would imitate some aspects of the American idiosyncrasy, especially sprawling urbanization. Since the 1930s and 1940s, dispersions began to gain strength primarily among people of greater ancestry in areas that at the time had been considered far from the main urbanization. Mainly in the 1940s, some of these urbanizations in Mexico City were nuclei that imitated some characteristics of American suburban neighborhoods, although in a more ostentatious way since some wealthy families were the ones who partially initiated these movements.
The San Miguel Chapultepec, Lomas de Chapultepec and other nearby colonies were proof of this. Also, to a lesser extent, some properties in the Center and South imitated this model. Since there was not a significant population mass, these areas turned out to be more than anything enclaves of population with a high socioeconomic level at the time.
In the 1950s, with the booming demographic explosion in large cities and in other corners of the country, a boom began to imitate other models. A particularly recognizable case was seen in the Municipality of Naucalpan, State of Mexico, with the Fraccionamiento better known as Ciudad Satélite, which mainly partially imitated the suburban model of the American lifestyle but with a reorganization of the urban layout similar to the anatomy of a tree, which gave it an efficient road distribution, in addition to being a city. suburban more in line with what was seen in the United States. Despite everything, other surrounding subdivisions began to develop simultaneously with Satélite, which accelerated the entry of population, especially of the middle class. However, with the passage of time, the subdivisions became immersed in the urban sprawl, which ended up absorbing them and leaving more problems for the expressway that was contemplated to connect this subdivision with the city, finally becoming part of the Peripheral Ring.
In the interior of the country, mainly in Guadalajara and Monterrey, these models were also imitated, however the urban traces were absorbed by the idem stains.
Other urbanizations, in the end, although they were dispersed, reached a high level of population but in a negative way, a specific case with the so-called Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, which for many represents a kind of massive overpopulated urbanization on land that previously occupied the Ex-Vaso del Lago de Texcoco.