Corporate Verticalization of Urban Space in Mexico City (1940-2018)

Abstract

The emergence of tall buildings zones is perhaps the most significant territorial change of the recent urban dynamic with a clear predominance of tertiary and residential land uses of high economic cost that have contributed to revalorize urban land. The aim of this work is to analyze the process of urban verticalization in Mexico City between 1940-1980 as the most important process restructuring urban space; it is argued that this process has been widely favoured by two main factors: first, the urban economy tertiarization that arrived with the neoliberal model with a wide participation of foreign capital; and second, the local urban policy that among other things has elaborated land use norms that stimulates inversion and land speculation in central zones of high cost; giving rise to a urban space elitization that aggravates a socioeconomic and territorial structure historically unequal.