Pratiques et perceptions de l’espace urbain dans des quartiers populaires de Mexico

Abstract

In this paper we present the results of a long, field research project carried out in Cerro del Judio, a lower-class suburban neighbourhood of Mexico City. Our aim in this project was to better understand patterns of behaviour, perceptions and representations in an urban locality characterised by, on one side, its geographical proximity to, and on the other, its socioeconomic estrangement from, affluent residential neighbourhoods. At a time when «disintegration» of urban habitat is at the heart of much research in urbanism, it seems useful - when analysing inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that feed on each other - to change perspectives, and adopt not the point of view of the well-to-do but rather that of the population’s «silent majority», people of lower-class neighbourhoods.

Keywords

• Mexico
• lower-class neighbourhood
• urban desintegration
• representations of space
• mental maps