43 Part II. The fight for a legitimate right to the city and space commodification process I will present first the broad lines of the historical process from the 70’s to the 90’s. I will make emphasis in the specific context in which mobilisations emerged and how community empowerment evolved in a negative way over time. In the third part, I will present a “before and after” analysis of a vecindad located in the Aztecas Street n°63, reconstructed by the Renovation Programme after the 1985 earthquake. The objective is to demonstrate that the materialisation of the “right to the city” has facilitate the process of commodification of space, which is now a source of income for empowered inhabitants who now rent their properties to street market vendors. The 70’s defence of the neighbourhood as a use value Community mobilisations started as a protest against the Plan Tepito in early 70’s (Aguilar Urbina 1987). This Plan was created by City Government as part of an ambitious modernisation plan for Mexico City. An extension of a kind of Nonoalco-Tlatelolco housing state was planned in the Tepito neighbourhood. This was going to transform radically urban structure. The Authorities justified destruction of the neighbourhood as a strategy to tackle urban poverty and convert slums into modern dwellings (Tomas François 2005). Neighbours were against the Plan Tepito as they argued City Government real intentions were to move out urban poor to the periphery in order to recuperate land in the City Centre surroundings to develop real state projects. They argue also that modern housing was not suitable to their spatial practices characterised by polychrony (Hall 1971)4. For example, vecindades were used not only for living, but also for productive activities, house daily activities, celebrations, etc. Modern space, characterised by monochrony was incoherent with local needs. Fig. 2 Lila Oriard (2011), “City Centre modernisation plan”, Daniel Manrique, “Tepito Vecindades”. The neighbours start organising themselves to stop the Plan. Meetings took place in the vecindad Tenochtitlan n° 40, so the group was called the “Commission of the 40”. This commission tried to negotiate neighbours’ needs and spatial practices. Negotiation was impossible, local practices and Plan major objectives had irreconcilable differences. Basically, community asked for improvement of the 4 Polychrony and monochrony are concepts developed by Edward Hall from an anthropological perspective on space. He argues time and space are related elements structured in different ways according to different cultures. Polychrony are spaces are characterised by its multiple, while monochrony are mono-functional spaces. existing vecindades, while the Authorities preferred radical reconstruction. In 1978, when the City Government changed administration, Authorities decided to stop negotiation and start the implementation of the Plan. Two blocks were expropriated; vecindades in these blocks demolished and housing states called “Fortaleza” and “Palomares” were built (Aguilera Urbina 1987). The 80’s an adapted plan for local needs In early 80’s, the Commission of the 40’s asked professors and students of Architecture at the National University (Atelier Max Cetto) to help them develop a Plan of Improvement for the Tepito neighbourhood, which really responded to community practice of space and specific needs. This Plan was developed in 1982; it was the first urban Plan of this nature in Mexico. The Plan won a prize in Varsovia in recognition to its innovative approach and sensibility to social space (Arregui Solano et al.,1981). In 1985, an earthquake 8.4 Richter scale hit the City Centre damaging seriously the vecindades. In the Tepito neighbourhood there was no destruction of buildings, but this disaster call the attention of neighbours about the risk of inhabiting in old, low-quality structures. Neighbours in Tepito were already organised, which facilitated the implementation of a Reconstruction Programme after the earthquake. The earthquake raised anger among citizens because City Government gave priority to recover National economy rather than taking care about population. This explains why after strong social mobilisations, the City Government changed radically its policies, and focused more on social needs to build up legitimacy, almost in crises after the earthquake (Davis 2005). As a result of this policy change, in 1986, the City created a Renovation Programme to reconstruct old vecindades in the Tepito neighbourhood5 . 5 A total of 48 800 dwelling were reconstructed by the Programme in 1985 and 1986 (Dowall and Perlo 1988). city center and tepito modernisation plan tepito vecindades (collective housing)
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