Planning the metropolitan region in the era of governance: three Latin American cases

ABSTRACT

Although there is a large body of literature examining metropolitan regions, it is difficult to find specific literature on metropolitan planning, especially in Latin America. Few studies overlook the enormous diversity of institutional frameworks in a region that is often considered a homogeneous territory, failing to highlight many planning innovations. This paper aims to investigate the particularity of metropolitan planning in Latin America through a comparative case study of its three largest agglomerations: Greater Buenos Aires, the Valley of Mexico, and the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. This analysis focuses on the instrumental, institutional, and procedural dimensions of planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Metropolitan regions
• metropolitan plans
• Latin American planning
• comparative planning

Acknowledgements

P.E. acknowledges the support of National Scientific and Technical Research Council - Argentina (CONICET)

M.V. acknowledges the support of CIGIDEN ANID/FONDAP/1522A0005 and ANID/FONDECYT/1221083.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For each of these cases we consider the key background information conducted, respectively, by Vesclir (2022), Flores and Caracheo (2022), and Mayer and Longo (2022) in the framework of the book ‘Planes metropolitanos en Iberoamérica: culturas y instrumentos’ (Vicuña, Elinbaum, and Valenzuela 2022).

2. Although recently some authors have referred to ‘neo-performative’ and ‘proto-conformative’ planning systems (see Berisha et al. 2021), main comparative analyses are still based on the two more conventional categories above mentioned.

3. A decade after the SGMRBA was drafted, CIPPEC and the IDB conducted an evaluation and discussion of its objectives and scenarios through four thematic roundtables: environment, urbanization, production, and institutions. The overall conclusions emphasised the persistent issues arising from the widespread urbanisation processes and the inability of existing institutions to control them (Lanfranchi et al. 2017). Similarly, the proposals restated the desire to create a metropolitan coordination authority on a voluntary basis. This is in line with the current political context, where it is not only challenging but also undesirable for most stakeholders.

4. https://rmsp.pdui.sp.gov.br/?page_id=127

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo [FONDAP N°1522A0005]; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas.