Mexican cities in an independent country. Ideas, power and organiztion of the urban space

Abstract

The Bourbon monarchy of Spain gave a drive of “Enlightenment” to the use of power, which resulted in the first modern urban revolution of Mexican cities. This was interrupted by the independence revolution of Mexico with respect to Spain. In the second half of the 19th century the reactivation of world commerce along with the economic and social revolution generated by the liberal reform drove the cities from the colonial mold into the republican modernity. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910 new forms of sociability emerged in the space of the cities and the new governments strove to create their own sceneries of power. Nevertheless the course of the speculation and the real-estate business that had characterized the growth and modernization of Mexican cities during the previous decades of the liberal reforms were not affected by the Revolution.