This process of economic reinsertion has been largely concentrated in a limited number of strategic urban sites.
During the current period of international economic restructuring and the subsequent realigning of developmental models along neo-liberal lines, these urban places operate as key strategic sites, linked via information technologies, in the emerging global chains of finance, production, and consumption.

The implementation of IT in Latin America is an uneven process. This is particularly evident in the privatization, denationalization, and modernization of telecommunication systems in certain Latin American countries. Foreign firms are particulary interested in this important sector because it functions as a key vector in implementing and expanding such important telematic business and financial services as data communications, sound and image communications, mobile communications, multi-digetal networks, and text communications.

These telematic services are both commodities and important technological inputs that facilitate and enhance the operations of transnational and allied domestic firms in the emerging neo-liberal regimes.
The growth of regional networks and Internet access is becoming an increasingly important resource for both transnational and domestic firms in Latin America.

The Internet is increasingly being utilized to: penetrate domestic and international markets; market products; provide access to technical and economic databases; and to communicate with suppliers and corporate offices.
Moreover, Latin American Internet access is now being viewed as an increasingly profitable venture by U.S. commercial service providers. Compuserve and Performance Systems International, two U.S. firms, are currently marketing Internet access in major Latin American cities.
The rapid expansion of Internet access, nevertheless, is significantly constrained by the high costs of telecommunications.
For example, in the case of Mexico, the high cost structure has limited the connection of many business and and other institutions to the Internet. Since 1993, when the World Wide Web was introduced in Mexico, many firms and institutions have shown a significant interest in utilizing this powerful technology. Yet,
Internet access has been constrained because few firms have the disposable capital to pay the high costs of a permanent connection -- especially in light of the current financial crisis.
In effect, the costs associated with Internet access has limited participation largely to the most dynamic and financially robust firms (read transnational corporations and domestic firms linked to foreign capital).

This situation is resulting in a skewed access to the Internet and other international and regional networks that, in the final analysis, favors certain overvalorized firms and economic sectors, i.e., the finance sector with access to SWIFT (the international banking network).
The above mentioned processes, of course have significant political and economic consequences.
In effect, these processes engender a series of important questions for the future of the region. For example: 1) Are the new technologies increasing or decreasing the levels of Latin America's economic and technological dependency? 2) How are these technologies impacting on the internal structure of the Latin American city? 3) Are these technologies accentuating and accelerating a process of internal urban fragmentation and leading to the development of informational and technological enclaves?

ÿ