Building Roads to Take the Land. Urban Amazonia and the Case of San Julian

Abstract

This essay examines the vast urban transformation of the Amazon Rainforest during the second half of the twentieth century. It frames the mid twentieth century geopolitical forces and governmental ethos that instigated the largest urbanization process in the history of the forest. More specifically, the text showcases the small but prominent settlement of San Julian, in the Bolivian eastern plains, as a model project in the context of a regional forest that continues to rapidly urbanize, raising important questions and presenting an important model about urban and economic development in an age of extreme environmental uncertainty.