CONSIDER THIS: Despite the economic slowdown of the late 1990s, Latin America has experienced the highest per capita gross income levels of any developing region in the world.

POPULATION AGING AND GROWTH: Two countries alone--Brazil and Mexico for about 50% of the region's population. Latin America is one of the fastest aging regions in the world. Its population of 60 year olds and older will triple, while those under 15 years will drop from 30% to 20%.

URBANIZATION: Over 80% of the population in Brazil lives in urban centers. By 2015, Sao Paulo's population exceeds 20 million and Rio's population will approach the 12 million mark. Mexico City will also face major infrastructure challenges in the coming years.

INEQUALITY: Intra-country economic disparity will continue to grow in Latin America. For example, in Mexico, which has the world's tenth largest economy and the highest per capita income in Latin America, 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. Brazil, which has the fifth largest population and the eighth largest GNP in the world, is still one of the most unequal nations in the world.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE: Brazil is currently the leading member of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), the fourth-largest economic bloc in the world with a GNP of more than $1 trillion and over 250 million inhabitants.

ENVIRONMENT: One-fourth of the world's plant species live in Brazilian rainforests, making it promising for the development of new drugs; however, governmental plans to develop the Amazon rainforest will leave only 5 percent of the rainforest intact by 2020.

AND DID YOU KNOW?

• Latin America -- especially Venezuela, Mexico, and Brazil -- will become an increasingly important oil producer by 2015 and an important component of the emerging Atlantic Basin energy system. Its proven oil reserves are second only to those located in the Middle East.
• The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a proposed agreement that will set up a free trading zone similar to NAFTA but which includes all 34 democracies in the Western Hemisphere. The process began in 1994 at the first Summit of the Americas in Miami. Scheduled to be completed by 2005, its purpose is to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between partners in the region.
• Almost 80% of the cocaine and 90% of the marijuana entering the United States come from Latin America. Produced in the Andes region (Bolivia, Peru and Colombia), the drugs transit via the West Indies, Central America and Mexico, which are the trafficking centers of the international mafia allied with the Colombian drug cartels in the region.

FURTHER READING:

Books

Greenfield, Gerald ed. Latin American Urbanization: Historical Profiles of Major Cities. Greenwood Press, 1994.

Joseph, Gilbert and Mark Szuchman, eds. I Saw a City Invincible: Urban Portraits of Latin America (1996).

Thomas E. Skidmore, Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America. Oxford University Press; 5th edition (October 2000)

Eliana Cardoso and Ann Helwege, Latin America's Economy: Diversity, Trends, and Conflicts, MIT Press; Reprint edition (February 9, 1995)

Jeffry A. Frieden, Manuel Pastor, Michael Tomz, Modern Political Economy and Latin America: Theory and Policy, Westview Press; (March 2000)

Websites:

library.thinkquest.org/26026/World_Outlook/latin_america_and_the_caribbea11.html

www.aarp.org/international/map/facts/Articles/a2004-03-22-globalaging-map-latinamerica.html

www.latinnews.com/ http://www.georgetown.edu/pdba/ http://www.latin-focus.com/