Examining the Sustainable Urban Development Agenda in Mexico City: can low carbon urbanism produce a more inclusive city?

• In Event: Transportation and housing #1: precariousness and social exclusions in Latin America and the United States

Abstract

In recent years city officials, NGOs and consulting firms have collaborated to produce visible transformations in the provision of transportation services and infrastructure in Mexico City. The effective implementation of transportation solutions–such as Metrobus and Ecobici–have generated the conditions for these actors to push for deeper transformations of local planning and urban development agendas. For instance, in recent months concerns with livability, low-carbon transportation and green urban development have materialized in the city’s new Ley de Movilidad (mobility law). This new law attempts to guarantee the right to urban mobility for all city dwellers by re-organizing the goals of transportation policy around non-motorized transport and mass transit and, among other institutional changes, it promotes transit oriented development (TOD) as a desirable development model. This paper analyses the political processes by which policies such as the Ley de Movilidad come about and reflects on the impact that a shift toward sustainable urbanism may have on patterns of spatial segregation in Mexico City. This paper draws on participant observation data of meetings between relevant actors, interviews with planning officials, experts and NGOs and secondary data on socio-economic patterns and housing markets. This work situates “green reforms” as part of larger transformations in the city that involve the institutional, political and socio-spatial contexts in which these policies are promoted and adopted. The conclusions point to the deeper governance transformations that accompany the increased concern with low carbon transportation and urban development in Mexico.

Author

• Oscar Sosa, University of California/Berkeley