Metropolitan Governance in Mexico : Learning from the experiences of Canada and Brazil (original) (raw)
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Planning for effective governance in metropolitan areas in Mexico
This document outlines the context for metropolitan governance in Mexico, models of metropolitan governance, and key considerations to take into account when attempting to design and implement a metropolitan region. The information is derived from an action-research project that explored models and issues in metropolitan governance from around the world, with particular emphasis on learning from Canadian and Brazilian experiences.
In the globalized age, largely populated metropolitan areas, typically bringing together a number of different cities and extending over wide territories, face growing social, economic and environmental problems. International experience shows that, faced with resource constraints and conflicting interests, metropolitan management is, by and large, mostly ineffective while contributing to aggravate existing inequalities. Having to face rapid urban growth, housing shortages, informality and poverty, the Brazilian experience in metropolitan planning also reveals serious shortcomings. It can be argued that, since 1973, reflecting changing tendencies of the central administration, metropolitan management in Brazil underwent three stages. The first was a developmental phase, which spanned decades of centralized planning, and in which public agencies had access to a stream of financial resources. The second was a phase of neoliberal policies, which promoted decentralization and discredited centralized planning, and in which metropolitan agencies received reduced financial support. The third is a more recent, neo-developmental phase, which tends towards decentralization and social participation, and in which agencies are faced with insufficient resources and spreading problems. The lack of top-down directives and the absence of a national urban policy, as well as the 1988 National Constitution determination that the states establish metropolitan regions, gave rise to a multiplication in the number of these official agglomerations. Among various tendencies, four types of agencies and institutional provisions emerge, represented in the following metropolitan regions: Salvador, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte and the Great ABC Intercity Consortium 3. Aside from regional inequalities, each will have distinct historical paths which emerge in different social, economic and political situations and contribute to produce a setting which brings together resources and drawbacks. The assembly of institutional and political conditions that support the creation and implementation of common endeavors in a given setting can be understood as governance. One of the assumptions of this study is that qualified institutionalization, social organization and wide participation are factors in building a governance system, which occurs through the provision of public functions of common interest and the formulation of a shared metropolitan agenda. Hence, the objective of this article is to identify the scope and limits of different metropolitan governance arrangements in Brazil. An approximation to the metropolitan region of Montreal, whose regional authority dates back from the 1970s, guided an exploratory research including visits and interviews with key influential groups related to metropolitan planning. The aim was to elicit criteria expressing governance
2017
The practice of collaborative governance in urban planning is based on the idea that governments, civil society and private organizations are engaged in a collective publicpolicy-making process. However, little is known about the mechanisms and factors that are conducive to the "collaborative" dimension of collaborative governance and how it actually happens. Although the deliberative aspect and the role of the mediator are identified as key components of collaborative governance, the interactive/retroactive process remain elusive. How contextual conditions might facilitate or discourage the interactive dimension of collaborative governance? This research is based on three case studies of three planning processes that were carried out in Curitiba, Brazil, in 2004 and 2014, and in Montreal, Canada, in 2014, which resulted in the adoption of three urban plans. The 2004 Curitiba Master Plan was developed with limited participation, restricted to governmental organizations, universities and business sector. Because of a shift in the institutional arrangement of planning in Curitiba, the 2014 Curitiba Master Plan was developed within a more democratic framework, with the engagement of several governmental and nongovernmental actors and organizations. The democratic practices of urban policies were theoretically and practically non-existent in Curitiba before the Master Plan development process was initiated in 2014. In Montreal, the Montreal urban agglomeration land use and development plan (SAD, in French) process started in 2014, in a context where consultation on local issues is common practice since the mid-1980s. Although efforts can be made to make a process collaborative, a governance process is situated in particular histories and geographies, and collectively shared values, cultures, norms and behaviors can help or hinder the emergence of inclusive democratic practices. Despite the differences between Curitiba and Montreal regarding the institutional arrangements, the momentum surrounding the analyzed processes and the cultures of urban planning and management, the findings of the study suggests some patterns of interactions in governance processes, which are related to the endurance of informal institutions, path dependence on ideas, behaviors and actions, co-optation processes, and to the communication message as a political and planning tool.
2018
One of the key issues at metropolitan level is the provision of public services and this paper highlights the importance of understanding the governance of public services in the context of increasing urbanization and decentralization. This paper provides a comparative analysis on metropolitan governance in Latin America by analysing specific case studies. The objective is to identify how the governance setting in metropolitan areas shapes the process and the results of providing public services to wider population. We examine metropolitan governance by employing a 3x3x3 model as a framework for addressing key issues about urban services delivery. Bogota, Lima and Mexico City are the metropolitan areas selected. Secondly, we focus on three sectors: transport, solid waste collection and water. Finally, the analysis focuses in three aspects of governance: coordination, financial sustainability and coverage and quality. The data collection process involved field research in Bogota, Lima and Mexico City.
Metropolitan Governance in Latin America
2021
This book represents a powerful analysis of the challenges of metropolitan governance in all its messiness and complexity. It examines Latin American metropolitan governance by focusing on the issue of public service provision and comparatively examining five of the largest and most complex urban agglomerations in the region: Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City and Santiago. The volume identifies and discusses the most pressing challenges associated with metropolitan coordination and the coverage, quality and financial sustainability of service delivery. It also reveals a number of spatial inequalities associated with inadequate provision, which may perpetuate poverty and other inequalities. Metropolitan Governance in Latin America will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers tackling themes of urban planning, spatial inequality, public service provision and Latin American urban development.
From the Top Down: The Governance of Urban Development in Mexico
Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, 2020
New IMFG paper describes the experience of some of Mexico’s largest cities in implementing nationally mandated urban growth policies. Mexico’s population has increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan regions, which have not only increased in number, but also in size. Sprawling development patterns have resulted in housing developments forming around the peripheries of Mexico’s largest cities. In response to these developments, the federal government established Urban Growth Boundaries across 400 Mexican towns and cities in 2013. This paper analyzes the influence of local (public and private) stakeholders on the drafting and implementation of these Urban Growth Boundaries, and their experience with this federally mandated urban and metropolitan development policy in terms of how suitable and effective they have perceived it to be. This analysis is based on the findings of a survey of local and state planning officials and housing construction chambers. The survey assesses the effectiveness of the Urban Growth Boundaries in halting sprawl, promoting sustainable development and affordable housing, guiding urban planning, and facilitating institutional coordination. It also suggests who has had the most influence in the drawing and implementation of these boundaries.
International Seminar Governing the Meteropolis, 2012
In Brazil, the synergy of processes of decentralization and globalization have come to a climax during the 1990’s. The 1988 Brazilian Constitution adopted decentralization and municipalization as a rule to its federation system and the increase of globalization forces over the country, mainly affected metropolitan regions. An overview points out a tributary competition, the so called fiscal war, which engendered competitive and predatory processes that have downgraded the importance of the Federal State. An enterprise attitude adopted by state level governments in order to attract economic activities and maximize their local taxing incomes focused in municipalities within metropolitan regions, or even the metropolises themselves. A comparative research is pursued in this paper within two metropolitan regions in Brazil as to their metropolitan management, facing forces of decentralization and globalization: Belo Horizonte and Salvador. In both cases, through their different governance models, identified in this study, while the first seeks to agglutinate a set of public and private actors to integrate metropolitan plans and programs and give voice to public participation, the latter, Salvador, has an incipient articulation in governmental spheres and public participation. An exploratory investigation considers that metropolitan regions that have institutional arrangements which promote articulations in horizontal and vertical partnerships and insert public participation tools in their governance agenda are more prone than others to reap the benefits of collaborative governance. The outcome of these issues is analyzed through the application of two urban legal frameworks in Belo Horizonte and Salvador: Participatory Budgeting and Public Consortia Law. The practice of these two mechanisms, the governance structure of the metropolitan regions and the articulations within municipalities of the same metropolitan region suggest the role of metropolitan governance as a less destructive form of global insertion. A comparative research is pursued within two metropolitan regions in Brazil as to their metropolitan management, facing forces of decentralization and globalization: Belo Horizonte and Salvador. Through the application of two urban legal frameworks, Participatory Budgeting and Public Consortia Law, the outcome of this study reveals that public participation tools in a metropolitan region governance agenda is more prone to reap the benefits of collaborative governance.