Road infrastructure and urban projects: forms of urban mobility and territorial exclusion. Case of the San Luisito neighborhood, Monterrey, Mexico

Abstract

The recent history of the big cities in Latin America reflects a late addition to the global processes that need a bigger livability and modernization of the urban spaces. The development of the cities is not only about residents but complex metamorphosis of the metropolis through forms of planning.

This text is from a part of a longer research of collaborative and interdisciplinary teamwork that share some theoretical and conceptual framework. The research aims to identify and explain a part of the rapid transformation processes of the cities, mainly due to the socio-spatial implications with the planning construction of the urban projects and road infrastructure. The reflection is about the conjecture if these interventions in the urban space allow to create more social cohesion, urban permeability, and urban mobility improvement in the different social sectors in Mexican cities.

Our case study is situated in one of the most important metropolis in Mexico; it is localized in the northeast of Monterrey metropolitan area. There are more than 5 millions of inhabitants and the increase of motor vehicles went from 500 thousand in 1990 to 2 millions in 2015 (INEGI,2018). This situation has lead to the projection of different planning strategies and metropolitan development to find solutions to the urban and mobility problems.

Even though the situation and context of the Monterrey metropolitan area have been reviewed, the particular case has had some urban and social connectivity problems. « El barrio San Luisito » due to historical and traditional conditions represents an element of identity of the city. This community has been exposed to different forms of social exclusion and urban fragmentation. For this reason, it faces real-estate pressure and land use regulations from the surrounding area. Some decades before, it has been intimidated by government departments and private industry to build and impose urban projects and road infrastructure; they are classified as « strategic » to gain « development and progress ». These projects pursue are the answers to demands and kinds of speculation of the real-estate market, under the « rhetorical » promise of contribution in the development processes, interconnections, and urban mobility improvement.

The methodology of this research is focused on the theory and methods of the urban planning and architecture, as well as the reciprocity of human geography, sociology, and anthropology to establish a transverse framework that allows quantity and qualitative basis to support and understand social-space conditions. The results from the qualitative analyze will describe spatial conditions and everyday mobility, and explore the relations between the construction of these urban projects and road infrastructure, added to social resistance processes. In order to contextualize the derived stages from the prospective analyses that visualizes the planning forms for the urban mobility under the premise of improving the conditions and terms of benefits and quality of life and well-being. As well as, the spreading of paths to study the mobility since the analytical whole of the urban livability. Finally, it reaches some reflections about territorial exclusion and the struggles as a result of concatenation of organized efforts from the inhabitants themselves to defend their communal space.