EMERGING PERIPHERIES: URBAN MOBILITY AND SOCIO-TERRITORIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF LATIN AMERICAN METROPOLISES IN TRANSITION
The constantly expanding peripheries of Latin American metropolises reveal a new paradigm that challenges the key question of urban sustainability. In this sense, emerging territorialities sustained by the extension of mobility circuits designed almost exclusively for motor vehicle transport (passenger and freight) would seem to contrast and come into dispute with the sustainable development goals proposed by the 2030 Agenda (ECLAC, 2017).
Likewise, the “15-minute city” model (Moreno, 2023; Brownrigg, Monzón & Alonso, 2024)—which reveals the link between proximity and sustainability—and the reality of “boundless peripheries” (Nel-lo, 1998) would appear to occupy antagonistic positions. Both scenarios reveal a profound gap between desirable urban territories and emerging territories. Nevertheless, in both situations, mobility linked to urban development plays a relevant role in territorial planning.
Focused on the theme of metropolitan socio-territorial mutations in relation to sustainable mobility, this Symposium seeks to continue a space for reflection that has been consolidated and expanded across previous editions of the International Congresses of Americanists (ICAs held in Mexico City; Vienna; El Salvador; Salamanca; and Foz do Iguaçu), where debates revolved around the presentation of different cases in order to identify the common factors shaping the socioeconomic and territorial dynamics of Latin American metropolises. This new Symposium therefore aims to strengthen that continuity, and to further deepen comparative critical studies on the emerging territories of transitioning metropolitan peripheries.
To this end, we propose some (non-exclusive) working axes to guide our debate:
a) Everyday mobility and socio-territorial vulnerability of metropolitan peripheral areas
b) Emerging centralities and selective circuits of urban accessibility
c) New industrial clusters and circulation and logistics systems
d) Metropolitan transport corridors and their connection to new forms of peripheral urbanization
e) Intra-urban renewal areas: mobility as a key factor for revitalization
f) Interstitial territories of the peripheries: between potentialization and suburban postponement
In summary, we call for an interdisciplinary discussion that, addressing these transition processes from different perspectives, allows us to understand new urban and metropolitan scenarios, proposing ideas for future research agendas aimed at the sustainability of Latin American metropolises.
