This paper focuses on a specific kind of urban growth that happens in Latin American cities, called 'Peripherisation'. This is characterised by the formation of low-income residential areas in the peripheral ring of the city and a perpetuation of a dynamic core-periphery spatial pattern. The dynamics of growth and change in Latin American cities are explored using agent-based simulation. The objective is to increase the understanding of urban spatial phenomena in Latin American cities, which is essential to providing a basis for future planning actions and policies. Simulation exercises were used to revisit assumptions about urbanisation issues in Latin American cities and investigate important aspects of growth and change in these cities. These exercises allowed the problem of urban growth in Latin American cities to be unfolded through their dynamics, relating these dynamics to urban morphology, and thus presenting a new and important perspective on the phenomenon.
Segregation has been one of the most persistent features of cities and therefore one of the main research topics in social studies. From a tradition that can be traced back to the Chicago School in the early 20th century, social segregation has been seen as the natural consequence of the social division of space, reducing segregation territorial segregation and taking the space as a substitute for social distance. We propose a change in the focus of static segregation of places to as social segregation is played by embodied urban trajectories. We analysed trajectories of groups of social actors differentiated by income levels in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Firstly, we used metadata from Twitter users moving around the city to derive geographic coordinates and timestamp of tweets, and identified users’ origins and destinations. Then we crossed information on trajectories with socioeconomic data in order to see potential social networks according to income, assess their spatial behaviour and potential spaces of social convergence – a geography of the segregative / integrative potential of encounters. This approach is intended to recast the spatiality of segregation potentially active in the circumstances of social contact in the city rather than in static territories and patterns of residential location.
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"Higher densities can facilitate more sustainable public transport, walking and cycling, making it more efficient to provide services and promote urban vitality. These advantages depend, however, on high-quality urban design and the effective city management to minimise overcrowding, stress and pollution."
