Abstract

GASCA MORENO, Claudia Teresa  and  GARCIA GOMEZ, Miguel Ángel. Informal urbanization and unequal city, territorial disputes in a locality in León, Guanajuato. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.42, n.166, pp.148-169.  Epub Aug 01, 2022. ISSN 2448-7554.  https://doi.org/10.24901/rehs.v42i166.766.

The objective of this article is to analyze the dynamics of informal urbanization and its territorial configuration as a result of neoliberal policies that affect the way the city grows and expands. We examine the case of San Juan de Abajo, a peri-urban town in the city of León, Guanajuato, that comes as an answer to a demand for housing by a low-income population that lives outside of mechanisms that allow access to formal urban space. Through a documentary review, we examine its origins as a precarious informal settlement and, with the help of the ethnographic method, we explore its configuration, describe the urban environment and the main problems faced by its inhabitants in daily life; the results show that this settlement is not only a consequence of an unplanned expansion it also comes as a material expression of urban inequality that leads some population to find in informality an opportunity to inhabit the city.

Keywords : City; social inequality; poverty; social exclusion; urban development.