Peripheral best practices and the politics of visibility: Urban planning and social urbanism in Mexico City

Urban ¿best practices¿ aimed at creating new neighborhood centralities are increasingly being implemented in the peripheries of Latin American cities. Despite their visibility, these initiatives remain underexamined in policy mobilities debates, which have predominantly focused on urban best practices in central city areas. This article explores how peripheral best practices unfold locally, focusing on the role of urban politics and governance in their integration with local planning processes. We analyze a project in La Araña in Mexico City using qualitative methods, including interviews and site observations. Inspired by Medellin's social urbanism, the La Araña project aimed to replicate Medellin's electric escalators in Comuna 13. Our findings indicate that the project was primarily driven by a mayor's desire for heightened public visibility. At the same time, challenges such as short timelines, inadequate community participation, design constraints, and limited technical planning expertise hindered the project's execution. The escalators provided a quick, visible win despite incomplete or poorly planned outcomes, a phenomenon that we call the ¿politics of visibility¿ (i.e., when a project's visibility becomes a political tool, and discourse and perception outweigh planning's due process). We conclude by reflecting on the implications of this phenomenon for governance and urban planning. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd

Peripheral best practices and the politics of visibility: Urban planning and social urbanism in Mexico City Academic Article in Scopus