“The present compilation is an indispensable work for scholars, students, and those who are generally interested in urban themes for Latin America and, most especially, in matters involving the development and consolidation of informal neighborhoods there. … One of the strengths of this work is to bring together historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, thus allowing for a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue. … It is worth mentioning the compilation’s excellent editing and production, which lend an organic quality to it that respects the diversity of ideas and theoretical options.” — Rafael Soares Gonçalves, HAHR
“Cities From Scratch will help students and other readers appreciate some of the earlier origins and nature of irregular settlements and the literature from the 1960s and 1970s.” — Peter M. Ward, Bulletin of Latin American Research
"Cities From Scratch is an extremely useful effort, both for the detailed case studies it contains and for the wealth of conceptual and analytic ideas that should provide fuel for much new work." — Henry Dietz, Latin American Politics and Society
"Cities from Scratch provides a timely addition to our understanding of how urbanization and informalization processes play out over time in various Latin American cities." — Janice Perlman, Planning Perspectives
"Cities from Scratch offers a surprisingly fresh take on slums, ghettoes, and shantytowns, classic topics in the social sciences. Based on solid empirical work, the essays are notable for the contributors' attention to local situations and politics, and their willingness to allow the research, rather than theoretical assumptions, to determine their findings." — Jose C. Moya, author of Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930
"This is an excellent collection of innovative, often bracing, reflections on crucial issues of cities and citizenship. In their essays, the contributors think outward from carefully detailed local cases, taking broader theories to task while developing valuable new methodological and conceptual tools. This collection represents both a coming of age and a new point of departure for historical and social scientific study of the informal city." — Mark A. Healey, author of The Ruins of the New Argentina: Peronism and the Remaking of San Juan after the 1944 Earthquake