Hidden in plain sight: how racism shapes Latin American cities

Latin American societies take pride in their multicultural composition, as a mixture of Indigenous, African, and European roots. The ideology of mestizaje has enshrined this mixture as harmonious, unified, and inclusive. Yet it often masks the ongoing discrimination against Black and Indigenous populations. Mestizaje hides racism under a facade of multiculturalism, allowing inequality to persist while remaining widely unseen.

Indeed, Latin American urban experts and city officials often deny that racism influences cities, their spaces, and who has access to resources and rights. The dominant belief is that racial segregation and spatial injustice in the Americas are a problem unique to cities in the United States. In Colombia and other Latin American countries, instead, mestizaje is still seen as a unifying force that transcends race. But is this truly the case? A walk through Bogotá tells a different story.

Bogotá: invisible borderlands

In cities like Bogotá, Cali, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, and Sao Paulo, Black and Indigenous communities are largely concentrated in impoverished and marginalised areas of the city. They also face structural barriers to mobility, housing, labour opportunities, safety, and representation. This isn't by accident. It reflects a broader pattern of urban planning and policy that has privileged certain groups over others. Indeed, the majority of Afro-Colombian residents in Bogotá live in the most impoverished areas of the city, those known in Colombia as estratos (socioeconomic “strata”) 1 and 2, as it can be seen from the two maps below.

While Bogotá’s government celebrates the city’s diversity through a neoliberal take on multiculturalism (that is, aimed at capitalising on the cultural economy of its pluri-ethnic society), racism continues to play an often concealed, yet profound, role in shaping the urban space and residents’ urban lives. In a recent article, I define three main urban realms through which this continues to happen: normative (such as by racialised segregation through the system of estratificación), discursive (operated through urban imaginaries that strengthen the ideology that Indigenous and, even more so, Black citizens do not belong in Bogotá; or that purports that race plays no role in spatial segregation but, rather, regionalism, culture, and class do), and operational (through everyday urban transactions and relations between urban residents, from housing to ordinary encounters).

While this article engages these “devices” that conceal racism, disproving them one by one, it is equally important to recognise how Black social infrastructures contribute to make the city, against structural marginalization and institutional disavowal.

Concealing racism in urban spaces

Why is racism still such a taboo in urban planning and urban studies, in Latin America? One reason is that acknowledging racial inequalities is often seen as unpatriotic, divisive. Colombia’s 1991 Constitution, like those of other countries in the region, declares the nation as multicultural and pluri-ethnic. While progressive, this often doesn’t translate into the realities of everyday life for marginalised and racialised communities.

Meanwhile, most urban professionals view racial segregation as a problem exclusive to the U.S. This denial prevents meaningful conversations about how racial inequality is built into the infrastructure of cities. In Bogotá, for example, the racial making of the urban space is usually dismissed as classism, regionalism, or cultural difference. Almost none of the dozens of government officers and urban experts I interviewed between 2016 and 2022 saw inequality as rooted in structural, racialised injustice. Nor did they concede that the system within which Bogotá’s urban policy and planning are designed and implemented is, intrinsically, racialised.

However, Black and Indigenous activists, community leaders, and residents see things rather differently. They argue that racial segregation, marginalisation, and violence are structural to their everyday urban experiences. While city planners and white-mestizo residents may often not see or acknowledge the racial dynamics at play, communities and activists affected by them regularly denounce racial violence, highlighting the ways in which race-making and city-making are deeply intertwined.

Rethinking Latin American cities

Globally, scholars and activists are calling for urban spaces to be reimagined with a focus on racial justice. At the same time, international organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations are asking local governments to be accountable to racialised citizens. But Latin American cities like Bogotá are running behind, with tokenistic initiatives like the #RacisNO campaign doing little to address the issue, behind the glamorous veil of musical concerts and thumbs-up selfies. Policymaking, too, may seem inclusive but often lumps together various forms of discrimination, treating them as if they shared the same origins and experiences. This was evident in the public consultation carried out for Bogotá’s first "Ethnic Focus Plan” (Enfoque Étnico Diferencial) when only six Afro-Colombian residents were consulted overall (in a city exceeding eight million inhabitants) during only one workshop, of about one hour in total.

Furthermore, the focus groups included the same questions for “women, members of the LGBTI community, victims of the internal conflict, tall and short people [sic], disabled people, informal vendors, the homeless, and children, among others”, as a senior officer told me. Such an amalgam of unrelated groups dilutes marginalised experiences, framing them as equally “diverse” and weakening any urban policy aimed at racial justice.

To create equitable cities, it’s essential to confront the racial dynamics that shape them. Urban planners and scholars need to move beyond tokenistic approaches to ethnic participation and the myth of mestizaje. This means acknowledging that certain communities, particularly Black and Indigenous groups, are systematically and disproportionately disadvantaged in the way cities are designed and governed. It requires research on and action against the multiple ways in which race shapes spatial inequalities: from housing discrimination to (re)writing urban policies aimed at combating racial injustice to ensure they are effective. It also means to listen to the voices of Black and Indigenous communities beyond tokenistic approaches to participation; to recognise community leaders as urban experts; and to take their knowledge into account when shaping city spaces and urban policy.

Ultimately, the way we imagine, design, organise, and build our cities reflects the values we hold as a society. The research I conducted in Bogotá between 2016 and 2022, and before that between 2012 and 2015, reveals that avoiding discussions about race prevents understanding how it influences city-making, from housing to public services, and how racial difference is embedded in urban policies. It also prevents the possibility to imagine and create cities that are truly liveable, equitable, and accessible to all residents.