Urban Growth and Environmental Concerns: The Venture of the Greater Mexico City Metropolitan Area

Abstract

During the second half of the twentieth century, Mexico City, the country’s capital, exhibited unprecedented demographic growth and physical expansion involving numerous local government jurisdictions transcending the historical city limits. The resulting spatial distribution of population and location of economic activities in a complex metropolitan structure generated direct and indirect pressures on the Mexico Valley environment and beyond. Comprising the metropolitan area, a set of weak municipalities impose an apparent insurmountable barrier to transcend roles and a traditional institutional structure. Most, if not all, metropolitan municipalities have shown limited capabilities to respond to what seems to be the cross‐cutting character of these trends that require coordinated multisectorial and multiscale management solutions. This article analyzes the impact of those processes and explores the scope (challenges and opportunities) of urban and environmental metropolitan policy responses.