Our World

Summary of Class 10/10/2006

Today in class we continued our note taking on Chapter 4. First of all we discussed the Latin American city. Urbanization began in the 1950's and today 75% of Latin America is urbanized. Latin American cities are noted for their high levels of urban primacy, which is a condition in which a country has a primate city three to four times larger than any other city in the country. We looked at the Latin American City Model. The central business district is in the old colonial core. Coming out from the CBD is the older middle and lower class housing for in the zones of maturity and in situ accretion (area of mixed levels of housing and services.) Squatter settlements are makeshift housing on land not legally owned or rented by urban migrants, usually in unoccupied open spaces in or near a rapidly growing city.

Besides talking about the Latin American city, we talked about rural to urban migration and different patterns of rural settlement. Rural to urban migration is a process where peasants began to pour into the cities of Latin America. Many people went from the rural areas to the urban because they believed that there were greater opportunities in the cities. Also the living conditions seemed to be a lot better. There was enhanced access to education, health care, electricity and clean water. The majority of people live in cities. But life in the rural areas has definitely changed. The link between the urban area and rural area has improved greatly.

Lastly we talked about the patterns of Ethnicity and culture. About 2/3 of the people in Latin America speak Spanish and the other 1/3 speak Portuguese. In Latin America, about 90% of the religions are Roman Catholic. Syncritic religion is the blending of different beliefs. This allows animist practices to be included in Christian worship.

In the last part of class, we watched a video on the Mexican economic problems. We didn't finish it, but I found it very interesting. Many different issues were brought to my attention. I didn't realize that life was so hectic. At one point in time, the interest rates shot up and that put many people in debt. I couldn't imagine having most of your paychecks going towards your debt and not being able to have a lot of money to buy food and necessary needs. Hopefully they can figure out their problems and make life a lot easier.

posted by Anonymous @ 10/10/2006 09:24:00 PM