This paper sheds light on the interrelationship between spatial arrangements and political processes in Guadalajara, Mexico, during the first half of the 20th century. Through a structural urban analysis the path–dependency relationship...
moreThis paper sheds light on the interrelationship between spatial arrangements and political processes in Guadalajara, Mexico, during the first half of the 20th century. Through a structural urban analysis the path–dependency relationship between political ideologies, projects and urban transformations is presented. Space throughout this reading is regarded as a stage simultaneously framing and affected by contingent social processes. In parallel, by addressing the ‘distribution of the sensible’ –that is, the contingent ways in which society and space are arranged according to a well defined system of hierarchies, places and functions– rather than reading the urban effects of ‘industrialization’ as a political-economic regime, it is possible to distinguish a particular kind of non-democratic politics steering the precipitated reshaping of Guadalajara's city centre: that of a ‘modernist consensus’.
