Urban Sprawl In Guatemala

Sprawl in Guatemala
Introduction
Before beginning speaking on urban sprawl in guatemala, we will define the word sprawl. Sprawl is spread out irregularly over a large area.
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, highsegregation of uses (e.g. stores and residential), and various design features that encourage car dependency.
Guatemala City tours a great way to learn about Latin America's largest urban sprawl. Because Guatemala constitutes the largest urban sprawl in all of Central America.

Urban sprawl in Guatemala
Guatemala City has about 2.5 million people and estimates show that at least 60% of them arepoor. Those with the lowest incomes live in very precarious situations.
The city's metro area has recently grown very rapidly and has absorbed most of the neighboring municipalities of Villa Nueva, San Miguel Petapa, Mixco, San Juan Sacatepequez, San José Pinula, Santa Catarina Pinula, Fraijanes, San Pedro Ayampuc, Amatitlán, Villa Canales, Palencia and Chinautla forming what is now known as theGuatemala City Metropolitan Area.
As of the 2002 census, the metropolitan area had a population of 2.3 million. However, it has grown in excessive amounts throughout recent years. Guatemalans have a diversity of origins, with Spanish and Mestizo descent being the most common. Guatemala City also has a sizeable Indigenous population and minority groups such as Germans and other Europeans, Jewish,Asians primarily Chinese and Korean, and many groups of other Latin American origins such as Peruvian, and Colombian amongst others.
Some examples of urban sprawl in Guatemala are:
Asentamientos: Those are shanty towns inside and around Guatemala City. Most of them were established in the last 20 years, and are a result of economic inequalities between rural and metropolitan areas in Guatemala.People living there usually came from small towns in remote rural areas, and came to the city looking for a better opportunity. They usually are located in what used to be government land, usually places which would not normally be habitable areas (steep canyons, unstable side of hills, etc).
Traditionally, these places have been "red zones" inside Guatemala City, because of their high crimerate. In some of them, local police will not even go inside, because the local gangs control the areas, and are usually better armed than the police.
The most famous asentamientos in Guatemala are:
* La Limonada: A slum community called La Limonada, which had its beginnings in 1959. When the government put an end to the agrarian reform program in the '50s, that, plus socio-economic problemsaccelerated the migratory process from rural to urban. About 600 families invaded the sides of the gullies in front of the Olympic Stadium and thus was born La Limondada, one of the largest slums in Central America today.
* El mezquital: El Nuevo Mezquital (commonly known as El Mezquital).The settlement is the result of the single successful land invasion in Guatemala during the 1980s and is oneof the largest in Central America (c. 3,500 families). In 1984, A group of some 1,500 families invaded land surrounding the colony of El Mezquital, in the south of Guatemala City (zone 12). The colony had been built during the 1970s by the National Housing Bank as a residential area for people of low- to middle-income. The land covers an area of 35 hectares. At that time, the only access to thesettlement was by foot, since it was not reached by any of the city bus routes. Part of the land that was occupied belonged to the colony of El Mezquital and had been set aside for recreational or environmental protection purposes. The rest belonged to a private landowner. The area was considered uninhabitable because it was so close to the ravines and because of the seismic instability in the...