Abstract

"In the outskirts of São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile new towns with more than 50 000 inhabitants are under construction. These urban units, separated by their surroundings by fences, walls and protected entrances, are designed for the needs and demands of the upper classes, equipped with artificial lakes, golf and country clubs, high schools and universities and shopping centres. Thus, a new level of socio-spatial segregation has been reached in the respective cities. In Santiago not only to the rich and wealthy those new cities are offered, but also to the middle strata. It may be asked of the new ""Ciudades Valladas"" are to be seen as just a result of ongoing segregation tendencies, or mark a new phase of spatial development in Latin America, in which the strong cultural tradition of vivid cities mutates to the lifestyle of former feudalistic agrarians, looking for green environment and social exclusion."