Abstract

MORENO CARRANCO, María. Generation of Spaces in a Global Context: Public and Private Spaces in Santa Fe, Mexico City. Alteridades [online]. 2008, vol.18, n.36, pp.75-86. ISSN 2448-850X.

Mexico City's public space has been the target of numerous debates. Most authors draw profoundly pessimistic observations, noting an increasing commoditization of the urban landscape, escalating crime and violence, social and spatial polarization and the more and more common exclusion practices. Globalization is extensively held to be a core cause of these problems. Pressures to be better positioned in the global city hierarchy have provoked government support for a sequence of urban megaprojects that seem to present diluted representations of national or regional identities and to be inappropriately designed for the Mexican context. This article looks at the Santa Fe megaproject in Mexico City, arguing that seen through everyday practice these global spaces are decidedly differentiated and open possibilities for spatial appropriation transformation and subversion. Everyday contestation reveals "the local production of the global".

Keywords : public space; globalization; megaprojects; urban development.