Urbanistics and the Architecture of Fear. Some Thoughts upon Enclosed Break Away Residential Estates in Mexico.

Abstract

The paper holds that spatial social segregation in the cities of Mexico goes back at least as far as the cities
founded in Nueva España. From such times onwards both Society and the space it inhabits have undergone
important structural changes, the charting through time of these giving us a picture of the transformations
urban morphology has gone through to date. The on-going urge to split up the city from within by means of
internal boundary lines is here seen to explain the appearance of walled residential estates set down
regardless in outlying zones assailed by burgeoning poverty. These utopia tailored to the dreams of the elite
and thus of the middling sort bring with them giant undertakings and commercial zones which likewise batten
up that which is public while re-carving up the body politic of the host city. In the light of these considerations
the author finds himself faced by a series of questions the answering of which and possible lines of investigation
spring from which would, perhaps, lead on to the formulating of new, open city models that would be allincluding,
friendly rational environments.