Urban regeneration for whom? Conflicting discourses in the revitalisation of Mexico City’s Historic Centre: a critical analysis

This thesis focuses on the conflicting ideological discourses regarding urban regeneration. It is based on a case study of the urban regeneration project carried out in Mexico City’s historic centre in the past two decades. Through a discourse analysis of the most recent policy plan regarding this project, pertaining to the period of 2017 until 2022, the influence of the two main opposing urban regeneration discourses is traced; these discourses are conceptualised as, on the one hand, the neoliberal discourse, and on the other hand, the social justice-oriented discourse. The following research question is answered: What ideological urban regeneration discourses have influenced Mexico City’s 2017-2022 urban regeneration policy plan? In order to do assess the respective discourses’ influence on the policy document, the social and discursive context that this policy document should be viewed in is carefully established first. This is done through a review of these two discourses’ representation of urban disadvantage (i.e. problem framing), and argumentation on how to alleviate this disadvantage (i.e. solution framing), at global, Latin American and Mexican scale. These global and Latin American discourses, divided into two ideological opposites, form the theoretical framework, and are established based on academic literature. The review of the neoliberal and social justice discourses’ expression at the Mexican level forms part of the analysis, and is based on narrative review of academic and media sources discussing the urban regeneration process in question in Mexico City’s centre. The main part of the analysis is formed by a detailed text analysis of the 2017-2022 policy plan for Mexico City’s centre, which’ representation of circumstances, values, means and goals in urban regeneration was scrutinised. The analysis found that the policy plan incorporates elements from both discourses, at all scale levels. Nonetheless, the neoliberal discourse stream was evidently of most influence. The urban regeneration plan was overwhelmingly framed through the lens of heritage preservation and restoration; the conservation of the historic centre’s architectural as well as intangible heritage is the document’s central theme, and constitutes both a primary goal of the policy plan and a means to achieve other goals, such as the promotion of tourism and the attraction of new residents. This strategy for alleviating urban disadvantage, along with its problem and solution framing, aligns with the most common (neoliberal) Latin American urban regeneration strategy since the 1990s. Its focus on the aestheticisation and reordering of public space, aiming, in part, to attract new forms of capital and to improve security, also corresponds with the globally prevalent neoliberal urban regeneration discourse, and is also supported by agents of the neoliberal discourse at the Mexican level. On the other hand, the policy document also showed influences of the social justice-oriented urban regeneration discourse stream; it placed emphasis on the importance of guaranteeing use value and diverse use of space, facilitating residents’ right to appropriation of space, and their right to co-produce space through participatory planning workshops. The research concludes that the neoliberal urban regeneration discourse has been institutionalised to a large extent in Mexico City, which is especially salient given the city’s government’s left-wing political orientation. More research on the underlying reasons for, as well as the implications of this discourse’s dominance is suggested.