This article aims to provide a brief overview of different latitudes of the globe to understand how the growth of cities was conceived throughout the 20th century. It revisits a range of authors and concepts that shaped our understanding of how to characterize urban expansion areas, emphasizing both spatial forms and social relationships. The discussion begins with the growth of the peripheries during the European industrialization process at the beginning of the 20th century, to later reach the diffuse urban model that has proliferated in the Global North countries since the midth century.
The concept of peri-urban space is examined, including its origins and controversies, with a focus on the conflict between urban expansion and rural areas. Finally, the article explores the perspectives that emerged in Latin America regarding urban expansion, highlighting debates on how to characterize the transformations during the last third of the 20th century.
Cities are today a central phenomenon of the world we live in. The global population is increasingly residing in cities, and in recent times we have witnessed significant growth, dynamism, and concentration of urban agglomerations.
Additionally, in the early 20th century, there were only a dozen cities with populations exceeding one million, whereas today, more than cities worldwide exceed this number Harvey, Moreover, more than cities surpass 5 million inhabitants.
As Lencioni points out, it is crucial to differentiate concepts with scientific rigor. Topalov , p. Urbanization, understood in this way, is necessarily constitutive as well as constituted by the social process.
