Upgrading from below : a collective approach to the Right to the City in the Federal District, Mexico

Abstract

In 2010, then-Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of Mexico's Distrito Federal (DF) signed the Mexico City Charter for the Right to the City. Echoing a global movement by activists, academics, citizens, and government officials, a consortium of municipal activist organizations had written the charter over a three-year participatory process. However, like many Right to the City movements and charters globally, Mexico City has struggled to ground the principles of the Charter through policy, financial resources, and programs at the citywide level. This thesis will suggest an alternative framework for grounding the Right to the City: through local collective action that is connected by transnational networks of civil society actors. Drawing on the experiences of Frente de Renovación Fase 2, a self-built community in the eastern delegation of Izatapalapa, this thesis illustrates how local action is effective in achieving the Right to the City in the short-term, but that long-term gains must be maintained through city-, national-, and global-level networks.