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The chapter focus on urban space and the (re)production of social inequalities in Latin American cities. Following the evolution of income distribution and the development of patterns of urbanization in the last three decades in the region, the chapter shows that the relation between both dimensions is not linear or mechanic. In this direction, the chapter holds the existence of a paradoxical movement in the relations between the city and inequality in Latin America. While many countries in the region have implemented policies that have achieved a reduction in income inequality in the last decade, the expansion of fragmented metropolitan areas initiated in the 1970s continues and this expansion impacts not only in the access to the city and its goods, but also consolidates socially segregated networks that reduce possibilities of upward social mobility. There is, then, a complex articulation between a process of falling income inequality and the continuity of a pattern of exclusive urbanization. The chapter hypothesizes that we are dealing with a decoupling that impinges precisely on distributive policies implemented in the region, and limits them. Fil: Segura, Ramiro. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Trabajo Social. Laboratorio de Estudios en Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

The present article analyzes the relationship between urban borders and political imagination among popular sectors in contemporary Buenos Aires. On the basis of 100 qualitative interviews with leaders of social organizations from the 4 major regions of the city, different ways of comprehending and acting in particular spaces will be compared, and the role of urban borders and their relation to political processes examined. For this, the article focuses on the intersection between class, race, and ethnicity in the historical construction of urban borders in Buenos Aires. By identifying the tendency to naturalize and reproduce objectified social oppositions in a physical space as categories for perceiving and evaluating the social space, the article points up the relevance of local political matrices and neighborhood boundaries in the structuring of social bonds, local organizations, and political imagination. Fil: Grimson, Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales; Argentina Fil: Segura, Ramiro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales; Argentina