Abstract
Public spaces are considered a vital ingredient of prosperous cities as they support their sense of community, identity and culture. Understanding their relevance, the Mexican government has developed new regulatory frameworks. In 2016, the first federal legislation in Mexico was created and combined the concepts of urban development, public space, and social participation. This change affected national and local regulations. Acknowledging that public spaces are anchored to the institutional and governance context, we based our explorative research from a theoretical perspective on the Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) and its five governance elements. Considering the regulatory and institutional framework for public spaces in Mexico, this research aims to understand how the different actors perceive the current conditions of public spaces in Mexico City. This research adopted a case study approach, and we conducted eight semi-structured interviews with stakeholders that participate in the planning process of public spaces in Mexico City. Through these interviews and revision of secondary sources, we found that all interviewed actors agree that the regulatory framework of public spaces differs with the application in practice, with legal gaps and lack of clarity in responsibilities which brings confusion among practitioners and developers of public space projects. The implementation of the public spaces policy is affected by the lack of continuity of public space projects and the discrepancies between the efforts to promote inclusive and safe public spaces, and a negative perception of society on the current conditions of public spaces.
Highlights
Public spaces are considered a vital ingredient of prosperous cities as they support their sense of community, identity and culture
Multi-level: how do the different governmental actors perceive the conditions of public spaces in Mexico city?
What it is important to mention is that at the federal level, there is a positive vision on the work developed for the improvement of public spaces, which contrast with the perception of the local government. They mentioned that public spaces in the centre and south of Mexico City, where there are urban settlements of the upper-middle class, present a more significant quantity of public spaces, with more presence, quality in their design and maintenance than in the north of Mexico City in middle-lower class settlements
Summary
Public spaces are considered a vital ingredient of prosperous cities as they support their sense of community, identity and culture. 157–177; Gehl & Svarre, 2013; Lucio, 2000; Madanipour, 1999; Narciso, 2018) Along with this type of definition, it is understood that political and economic shifts in the last part of the twentieth century have changed the way cities provide and manage their public spaces (Schmidt & Nemeth, 2010). Public spaces are included as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through the target 11.7.
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