Resumen

KAMINKER, Sergio Andrés  y  ORTIZ-CAMARGO, Diana Patricia. Puerto Madryn, from town to mid-size city. The local population dynamics through five census portraits (1970-2010). Pap. poblac [online]. 2016, vol.22, n.89, pp.223-254. ISSN 2448-7147.

The city of Puerto Madryn, head of the Biedma department, in the southern province of Chubut, Argentina, suffered an important social, economic and cultural transformation between 1970 and 2010 that has not yet been studied from social sciences. Presently, the city is going through an urban planning process. Usually, it's common to naturalize the relationship between demographic growth and urban issues. As a consequence, through a quantitative and descriptive perspective, this paper analyses the census data from 1970 for the department in general and the city in particular, to characterize the demographic causes of this transformation in connection to the economic and social variables that turned a six thousand inhabitants town into a mid-size city.

Palabras llave : Demographic growth; mid-size cities; Patagonia.