INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL MODERNIZATION IN CENTRAL MEXICO

Abstract

The public infrastructure entrepreneurship policy characterizes the current phase of the national territorial modernization process and serves as a development strategy to address regional contrasts in social and environmental conditions, the regulation and/or deregulation of urbanization, demographic dynamics, and the use of natural resources such as land, water, and biodiversity. This modernization process is particularly evident in the central region, which has the highest levels of urbanization. Despite decentralization initiatives, it has generated extensive debate due to the proliferation of road corridors connecting metropolitan nodes within the framework of development poles associated with industrialization projects, especially within the construction sector through housing programs. All of this unfolds in a megalopolitan-scale agglomeration marked by both potential and contradictions tied to the rising value of real estate markets. This context raises questions about what model of modernization underlies strategic planning through public works in the central region and in interregional relations, particularly in confronting the dichotomy between the social and spatial uses of territory, competitiveness, and the local needs of population centers. Therefore, this study examines the experience of the public infrastructure entrepreneurship project, focusing on the deployment of road corridors that drive the peripheral expansion of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico. It analyzes the articulation of networks of metropolitan nodes and development poles through the radial axis of functional conurbation with the metropolitan area of Querétaro, in order to elucidate the social and environmental implications of modernizing rural/urban society. The results indicate the need for critical review and evaluation of the insufficient sectoral strategy behind infrastructural public works entrepreneurship, as it ultimately socializes costs for the benefit of private investment in certain industrial sectors—among them construction and real estate developers—thereby reproducing social and spatial inequality and, consequently, intensifying urbanization at the regional scale of megalopolitan agglomeration. This scenario underscores the necessity of rethinking the development agenda within the context of the contradictions inherent in regional metropolitan urbanization in the central zone.