Resumen 

Urbanization in Latin America is increasingly occurring in small and medium cities with functional linkages to rural areas. Empirical evidence suggests that rural-urban linkages contribute to growth and poverty reduction (Berdegué et al., 2015; Christiaensen & Todo, 2016), but much still needs to be learnt about the factors that favour the generation of virtuous rural-urban linkages. This paper investigates why some rural-urban territories in Chile, Colombia and Mexico achieve socially inclusive growth and others do not, using a conceptual framework that seeks to distinguish between proximate and fundamental causes of growth and inclusion. Preliminary findings suggest that (i) rural-urban territories that achieve inclusive growth are those which have increased over time their provision of public goods and services; (ii) an increase in political competition and in indicators of state presence are associated with improvements in inclusion, but not in growth, at least in the short run; and (iii) diversification of production structure away from agriculture is associated with an increase in growth, but, at  east in the short run, with a worsening in social inclusion.