Antonio Toledo Plata

A01181740
Urban Project

Causes and consequences in the lack of public spaces

Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl and Chimalhuacn, Analogous cases
The question of public space in the border between Mexico City and the state of
Mexico is often redundant. Basically its related with the sense of considering
public space as something essential, or something secondary, in the conception of
urban design. It is possible to affirm that this question has surrounded this place
since its origins. The following lines will consider this essential question as a guide
to understand the urban form of the border between Mexico City and the state of
Mexico.
Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl and Chimalhuacan were some parts of the city developed
during the period between the 40s and the 80s. This project was conceived in the
dry bed of the lake Texcoco and was essentially planned in the border between
Mexico City and the state of Mexico. In the beginning, it was planned with a
reticular grid which was sold into private hands (fraccionadoras), which were
responsible for building up of this area.
Unfortunately, these groups went through some irregular activities, which led to the
complete sale of the available soil. These actions left the topic of public spaces off
the table, due to its inability to be profitable. This can be recognized in the text
The question of public space in Mexico city's informal areas, written by the
recognized Phd. Catterina Pregazzi.
The fraccionadoras focused on private space as an income generator. they
parcelled out all the available soil, attributing public space a secondary service
role; the growth of these parts of the city derives from the huge demand for lowcost housing and therefore space for collective activities was not provided, as this
was not considered as being among the basic needs (Pregazzi).

From this point of view, public spaces never appeared in the urban scheme, this
event provoked some social phenomena. The most significant problem was the
lack of sense of belonging to this area, which indirectly caused the rise of
insecurity around this zone. From this angle, we can say that the public space is
related with the sense of belonging to a place. In words of Pregazzi:
Urban public space holds together a community and represents its customs,
political order, culture and religious values. It is also an indicator of how balanced
the individual and the collective interests are; in effect, a good balance denotes the
ability of a community to live civilly despite social diversity (Pregazzi).
Now regarding to the physical form, the orthogonal grid ruled the area, it can be
seen that most of the places built around the border between Mexico City and the
state of Mexico were developed in this scheme. This led to some contradictions in
the form because of the rugged form of the terrain and the rigid grid.

In conclusion we can say that this actual form doesnt respond accurately to the
needs of the region. In fact it seems to be indirectly responsible for some social
problems in the area. At the end the rigid grid conceived by the fraccionadoras,
mentioned above, seems to be the result of a lack of site investigation and the
lack of planning in the urban growth.