Neoliberal hegemony and the territorial re-configuration of public space in Mexico City

Abstract

[EN] Sustainability, ecological modernization, citizen participation, public space and rights are concepts that have acquired great importance in international political discourses and that have figured in indicators, guidelines, programs and policies, at national level, giving rise to a urban planning from administrative units or “zoning”, which instead of showing the different structures, forms and functions of cities as a whole, what has generated is a fragmentation of urban space. In a certain way, the implosion of these themes shows the success of capitalism in a period of neoliberal hegemony, since it becomes a smokescreen to hide the class differences superimposed on global discourses of modernization and development, as well as the transformation of natural resources in products, the capitalization of nature and the transformation of politics into management. The text seeks to reflect on the territorial configuration of public space in the light of emerging urban policies and programs in a neoliberal geopolitical context based on two axes of analysis: in the first analyze the neoliberal imposition models on how to construct public space and in the second will analyze the institutional bases, programs and policies of intervention highlighting their objectives, limitations and contradictions that help to understand the material and immaterial forms that the public space adopts at different scales in Mexico City through of the socio-territorial relations that are constructed in a process of mutual reciprocity.