This paper scrutinizes current processes of urban fragmentation, segregation, and exclusion that result from the increasing flows of capital in gated communities, walled-off condominiums, and similar exclusivist investment hubs in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Gated community-like developments are growing and spreading into new areas. Although not all of the walled projects offer all-inclusiveness, they are unanimously based on the pre-selection of specific categories of residents. Moreover, all-inclusive urban developments are taking on new and more encompassing forms, such as ‘gated cities’. Hence, socio-spatial inclusion and exclusion in the urban built environment are continuously transforming under the influence of investment capital (i.e., new urban investment flows and speculation), urbanistic concepts (e.g., different interpretations of safety and crime), and human mobilities. This paper builds on a comparison of empirical cases from Latin America and Africa to develop a qualitative framework of segregation indicators. In Latin America, gated communities have a long history, but exclusionary developments are changing in form, as well as in implications. In Africa, research on gated communities has particularly focused on South Africa (where they have a longer history), but exclusionary developments are spreading rapidly across the continent, and will influence future real estate development and land markets. Based on such complementary experiences, this paper grapples with the question of how these new all-inclusive developments influence the possibilities of achieving inclusive and sustainable urban transitions, as advocated in Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) and the New Urban Agenda.

The largest share of Latin American population lives in cities with less than half a million inhabitants. Since the publication of the Brundtland Report in the 1980s, small and intermediate cities have been regarded as places that hold out a promise for sustainable urban development. This paper explores current urbanization trends in intermediate cities in Central America. It describes the construction boom of gated communities for the middle class, in majority people with access to migrant remittances. It is argued that sustainable urbanization is challenged by the privatization of urban planning. The lack of strong governmental coordination of the housing market along with urban growth puts pressure on natural resources and on the livability of cities that used to be characterized by their human scale and rich natural environment. It is suggested that the market of existing housing should be made more attractive in order to control urban growth and prevent an oversupply of new expensive middle-class homes in the periphery, paralleled by a large number of abandoned existing houses in the urban core.

Colombian metropolises face a rapid transformation of public and private death spaces because of land scarcity, a demographic transition and a changing market for dead-disposal services. Based on case studies conducted in Bogotá and Medellín, within a Latin American context, this paper analyses the interplay between local governments and enterprises in the deathscape transformation process. The aim is to assess the effects on cemetery users, particularly the bereaved. Analytically, the paper differentiates between publicly and privately governed cemeteries and between older, inner-city graveyards and newer, suburban park cemeteries. The paper sustains that the old dichotomy of elite versus pauper cemeteries is replaced by a contrast between monumental cemeteries that are used for cultural events and suburban cemeteries that function as efficient repositories. In both cases, efficient management of the physical structures, whether as heritage or as recyclable repositories, seems to prevail over the demand for sensory connections between the dead and the living. ‘Time’ might still distinguish those illustrious dead – who are not allowed to be removed – from those who are removed or recycled. Even their relatives are gradually relegated to ephemeral space as tourist events take over. Hence, regardless of the differences between public and private cemeteries and between inner-city and suburban typologies, the rationalisation process affects the bereaved. They become bystanders in the new temporal-spatial patterns that govern Colombian metropolitan deathscapes.

Between 2007 and 2017, Lima experienced an unprecedented growth of the construction sector and an increase in high-rise condominiums. Urban land as a strategic resource has altered the spatial configuration of Lima’s central districts. This paper presents the results of a case study of Barranco, a central and emblematic district of Lima that underwent an intense real estate boom. In our assessment, we connect the recent touristification and gentrification debates to develop a new pattern of Latin American gentrification. We argue that Barranco’s consolidation as a tourist destination, along with the relaxation of local construction policies, has led to the development of one-bedroom apartments in high-rise condominiums destined mainly to be rented out to tourists and other types of floating population. This urban restructuring model has created new business opportunities for what we call a rent-seeking middle class, keen to invest in real estate as an alternative means to increase their income. By way of discussion, we argue that the case of Barranco exemplifies a new trend in Latin American gentrification which is not characterised by an influx of the urban middle class into central areas, nor by a massive physical displacement of lower-income residents, but by the growing purchasing power of a wealthier middle-class group investing in the short-term rental business in combination with other enabling factors.