Unravelling urban typologies in Latin American cities: Integrating socioeconomic factors and urban configurations across scales

The complex and multifaceted characteristics of urban expansion contribute to increasing challenges for policy-makers in planning and managing metropolitan areas worldwide. Typologies have been helpful in better describing and understanding the differentiated paths of urban development. This research introduces a novel classification that integrates multidimensional growth and development components by employing hierarchical clustering analysis. We present urban typologies at the city and municipal levels for 18 Latin American metropolitan areas, with a total of 253 municipalities. Metrics include built-up area, urban density, fragmentation, compactness and types of new built-up land (infilling, edge extension and leapfrog) and several demographic and economic information. The investigated cities and municipalities revealed varying degrees of compactness or sprawl, with several implications for socioeconomic conditions. Three main types emerged: 1) compact, dense areas associated with wealthier socioeconomic conditions and a trend of sprawl (at the municipal and city levels), 2) dense, infilling areas with vulnerable socioeconomic conditions (at the city level), and 3) fragmented areas with vulnerable socioeconomic conditions (at the municipal and city levels). These types represent a unique combination of urban characteristics, allowing the understanding of the interlinkage of built-up changes with socioeconomic indicators, which can help to identify challenges and opportunities for managing Latin American cities.