Theoretical Interpretation of the Expansion and Urban Consolidation of the Low-Income Population on the Periphery

Abstract

Within the complex, dynamic urban phenomenon, I have concentrated on the expansion of cities towards their peripheries. I have analyzed their demographic, social and anthropological aspects, as well as those concerning urban structure, the environment, land ownership, low-income housing and service and infrastructural networks. Over the years, I have accumulated a considerable body of knowledge that has provided me with a better understanding of what happens in the expansion of cities. In this article, I focussed on the urban periphery as process over time. I systematically analyzed the extensive southern periphery of Mexico City over a period of nearly thirty years, beginning with its urban expansion, characterized by an extremely scattered form of territorial occupation. I then examined its urban consolidation, characterized by the gradual occupation of vacant lots, and eventually explored the saturation and high densification of the same territory. This enabled me to identify certain common features in these processes of occupation that yielded a fairly consistent empirical basis from This content downloaded from which I drew this theoretical interpretation. The model helps to explain how the variables of the process operate and how they interact to produce the urban expansion and consolidation of the periphery.