Abstract
There is a great deal of concern over the scattered, fragmented expansion of cities, particularly in developing countries. This expansion accelerates the peri-urbanization processes expressed in a range of land uses, often with a concentration of the poor in peripheries with an acute shortage of services coupled with profound land-use changes, with far-reaching environmental impacts. The urban periphery is a transition zone, where the urban gradually merges into the rural landscape. It has become heterogeneous from a social, environmental, commercial, and service point of view, reproducing a model of metropolitan inequity with marked socioeconomic inequalities between the center and the periphery. The way these territories are managed is quite far from the road to sustainability. This article seeks to provide an updated analysis of the dynamics of urban expansion and land-use changes on the southern periphery of Mexico City (CDMX) in the Conservation Area (CA), to determine the extent to which a socially segregated, environmentally unsustainable model of urban fragmentation has been reinforced. It also discusses the regulatory, normative framework established in the CA, finding that it has been deficient and implemented in piecemeal fashion. It concludes that local government has failed to provide solutions to reconcile the protection of ecological conservation areas with the needs of the poor in a peri-urban area, thereby reproducing social inequalities in the city. In addition, CDMX land use policy has been ineffective in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban areas with high ecological value.
Highlights
The world’s urban population has grown rapidly since the middle of the last century, and as a result 55% of the world population already lived in cities by 2018
This zoning was subsequently updated in the 2006 Federal District Urban Development Law, in which the Conservation Area is maintained through land uses related to its ecological value such as ecological restoration, rural-agro-industrial production, ecological preservation, rural housing, and rural facilities (Gobierno del Distrito Federal, 2006)
SC is a special category within urban legislation, with tight restrictions on urban occupation, its recent development has been marked by two processes: first, the emergence of a growing
Summary
The world’s urban population has grown rapidly since the middle of the last century, and as a result 55% of the world population already lived in cities by 2018. At the level of urban cores, medium-sized cities have shown a marked increase: one in five urban inhabitants lives in cities with one to five million inhabitants The population of this type of cities nearly doubled from 1990 to 2018 and is expected to increase by a further 28% from 2018 to 2030, from 926 million to 1.2 billion It is argued that the rate of expansion of urban sprawl is greater than the population increase in developing countries, reflecting a clear trend toward the reduction of urban density due to the creation of more dispersed cities Several studies in the past two decades have discussed the characteristics of peripheral or peri-urban areas in developing countries, highlighting their most characteristic features These features reflect the special nature of these areas, highlighting the most relevant land occupation processes that take place within their limits
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