I've often wondered if the great urban in-migration you see around Latin America is a result of free trade and other pieces of economic globalization. While the shantytowns around Lima grow, in some places in rural Peru, the female to male ratio is eight to one, as all the men have moved away to get better paying jobs in the city.
The optimistic explanation for this is that, although life in the shantytowns of Lima is very hard, insecure, and unhealthy, it's a damn sight better than the life of the rural peasant, tilling the fields out in the sun, rain, and wind all year. Thus, people get away to find a better life.
On the other hand, if you're or a pessimist (or a hippie) you probably think it's ol' man globalization rearing his pasty white head--low-priced agricultural imports driving local agriculture out of business, and forcing the producers to the city to support their families. Though city life is terrible, it's the only option many people have to keep from starving. In the second scenario, globalization may be a strong countervailing force against human and economic development.
Although the second scenario is kind of attractive because it's slightly counter-intuitive yet compelling, I've come to believe more strongly in the first story. Although many rural Peruvians are market-oriented, most peasants in the most rural (and poorest) parts of the country--the places where there has been a large amount of migration to the cities--mostly produce only for their families. Basically, they exist in a subsistence economy.
If this is true, it's awful hard for global economic forces to have any impact on these people at all. Hence, my optimism that rural out-migration is really a desirable phenomenon.
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