Mexico City growth and regional dispersal: The expansion of largest cities and new spatial forms

This paper argues that the recent urban expansion of the main metropolis in large developing countries is different from the process of simple suburbanization and the expansion and merging of continuous urban fringes. It also differs from the classical concept of metropolitan areas. These processes and concepts no longer seem appropriate to describe the territorial forms which main city urban systems are taking. The new spatial forms are showing qualitative changes, for example the spatial fragmentation of productive processes which affect rural areas, a less marked separation between the centre and the periphery, the emergence of new centrality patterns, and a network of cities which interact without distance constraints. The new spatial forms can clearly be seen in Mexico's Central Region where decentralization policies, the improvement of communication networks and infrastructure provision have increased the economic and demographic influence of Mexico City in the Region. The recent development of Mexico City has been characterized by a slower demographic growth and a relocation of industrial activities at regional level. This has led to a rapid growth of nearby cities to constitute a polycentric urban pattern as the basic structure of a new urban regional order. The concepts used to understand the general trend in the largest metropolis have to be re-defined in order to incoporate structural changes linked to the global economy, One example is the technological innovations which enable the progressively centralized control of production and the greater decentralization of production to cheaper locations that include small cities and rural areas. This paper sustains that new spatial patterns and urban networks, such as those found in the expansion of Mexico City, require a regional approach which is focused on different urban categories and on the emerging social and territorial inequalities in the "core" region of each country. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.