4. The Origins, Development and Current State of Territorial Policies in Latin America in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

This chapter is organized as follows: The introduction identifies the purpose of the document and redefines the concept of territorial policy. Next, a theoretical approach is described that includes a discussion of the nature of territorial issues, a fundamental aspect of policy interventions in the territory. The historical overview traces the origins of policy interventions in Latin America on the basis of two foundational experiences: the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was established by Roosevelt in the 1930s, and the Cassa per ilMezzogiorno, a development agency created in southern Italy in 1950. In each case, I present the most important Latin American replicas of those experiences. The section on paradigmatic territorial policies provides a detailed examination of the evolution of these instruments. Next, the discussion of the objectives of territorial interventions and their results reviews the goals that were set and the outcomes. My hypothesis regarding a more than evident failure explains the reasons why success was not achieved. The section on key events from the twenty-first century addresses new interventionist trends in Brazil and Chile and the World Bank’s 2009 report on the global economy as a significant milestone from this century. Finally, the conclusions describe the overarching weaknesses of the approaches and interventions that have been developed thus far.