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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
The functions of the city are legion; and to a certain extent every city in Latin America performs nearly all of them. Trade and commerce, manufacturing and processing, communication and transportation, government and public administration, educational and cultural activities, religious and ceremonial observances, financial and personal services, servicing and repair, and recreation and welfare work, are a few of the better known categories. This list does not include, however, residence per se which is one of the principal raisons d’etre of cities in general. Moreover, even these better known urban functions can be subdivided into many varieties and classes, without in any way being exhaustive. Familiar examples are wholesale and retail trade; motor, rail, water, and air transportation; light and heavy manufacturing; and national, provincial, and local government and administration. In addition some of them tend to overlap, as in the cases of educational and cultural activities, or government and protection. Finally, the absolute and relative importance of any one of the functions, or of any particular combination of them, varies greatly from one city to another and in the same city from one time to another.
Prepared for presentation at the International Congress of Americanists, Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata, Argentina, September 3–11, 1966.
1 For a summary of the results of my studies of the functions of Brazilian cities see Lynn Smith, T., Brazil: People and Institutions (3rd ed.; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963), Chapter XXIIGoogle Scholar; and for a few of the more significant features of the functions of cities of the United States see Lynn Smith, T. and McMahan, C.A., The Sociology of Urban Life (New York: The Dryden Press, 1951), pp. 97–103 Google Scholar, and Vandiver, Joseph S., “Urbanization and Urbanism in the United States,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, IV, No. 2 (Sept., 1963), 272–273 Google Scholar.
2 Cf. Lynn Smith, T., “Some Neglected Spanish Social Thinkers,” The Americas, XVII, No. 1 (July, 1960), 37–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Samper, José M., Ensayo sobre las Revoluciones Políticas y la Condición Social de la Repúblicas Colombianas (Hispano-Americanas), (Paris: Imprenta de Thunot, E. y Cie, , 1864), pp. 114–115 Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., p. 119.
5 Ibid., p. 121.
