Management of public space and urban renewal. The case of president Masaryk Avenue

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of urban policies oriented towards the management of public space implemented in the last decades in Mexico City, analyzing the specific case of the Masaryk Avenue renovation project. This paper discribes the renewal process of the avenue based on empirical data including field trips, interviews, informal talks and hemerographic sources. The results shows how different citizen groups questioned the relevance and scope of the renewal, especially as public-private-partership project. The article concludes with a critique of neoliberal urban policies that accentuate socio-spatial segregation by favoring certain spaces as places of capital accumulation, affecting the forms of appropriation of territory.