Identifying the inner city in Latin America

The inner city is a well-recognized concept in the First-World urban context. In seeking to identify the inner city in Latin America, the historic centre is examined, because the comparable central location and the common legacies of obsolescence and substandard amenities in the morphology suggest similarities, despite differing processes of evolution. Evidence from Quite in Ecuador shows that population losses in the historic centre during the 1970s and 1980s have occurred on a scale equivalent to that in North American and European cities during the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, the historic centre of Quite has a relatively older population, a higher proportion of retired, and a smaller household size than the outer city. Occupational status is generally lower and people are poorer. Housing tenure shows the characteristic predominance of renting, whilst housing conditions reveal a greater density of persons per room and poorer access to amenities. Similarities of pattern, if not process, therefore, support the identification of the inner city.