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The paper argues that the global economy has produced changes in the hierarchical configuration of urban systems. The emerging organization tends to be more open and set up more horizontal relations among cities. There are some evidences that indicate the relative insertion of the main Latin-American cities in global networks. The paper shows the empirical evidence available to Latin-American cities and, specially, related to the Argentine case. It evaluates the tension between the historically forged trend toward geographic concentration of population and economic activities in the metropolis of Buenos Aires and other somewhat more recent trends towards dispersion, emphasizing the role of intermediate cities. The paper concludes reflecting on the importance of flows between cities, the patterns of spatial dependency between them and the role of public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most decisive ways in which the global economy and power relations were transformed at dawn of the twenty-first century was the rise of China as a major power, as well as the consequent influence the country has been able to exercise over peripheral nations. Although the majority of administrations in Latin America have rejected the policies once hailed by the Washington Consensus, it is striking that they have largely accepted a new system of asymmetrical relations with another major world power, which is fostering the reprimarization of the productive structure in Latin American economies. Thus, beginning with the case of Argentina, this paper explores the path to what is now known as the Beijing Consensus, with an emphasis on a characterization based on the analysis provided below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]