The Politics of Immediacy: Citizenship, Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility in Mexico City By Oscar Ramón Sosa López A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in City and Regional Planning and the Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Teresa Caldeira, Chair Professor Michael Dear Professor Alison Post Summer 2017 The Politics of Immediacy: Citizenship, Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility in Mexico City Ⓒ 2017 Oscar Ramón Sosa López Abstract The Politics of Immediacy: Citizenship, Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility in Mexico City By Oscar Sosa López Doctor of Philosophy in City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley Prof. Teresa Caldeira, Chair The dissertation examines the development of sustainable transportation policy in Mexico City. It argues that while sustainable transportation interventions have been defined as examples of a commitment to democratic planning and redistribution of infrastructure investment, in practice these projects have been implemented in a top-down fashion, legitimized by a handful of experts and have targeted only a handful of central districts. The implementation of these reforms are enabling the re-valorization of central neighborhoods and generating new forms of privatization and spatial inequality. The inequality produced is not only spatial. Sustainable transportation initiatives also produce differentiated publics, reducing participation to a handful of non-state actors, namely, experts and international NGOs. I develop these claims through the analysis of Metrobus, the city’s BRT system, the bikeshare system Ecobici, and a street parking management program called Ecoparq. I draw on ethnographic evidence collected in Mexico City over 16 months in 2012 and 2013 consisting of extensive in- depth interviews with over 60 city officials, transportation experts, NGO staff members, social movements activists and citizens. I use this data to analyze política de movilidad as a policy space in which multiple actors within and outside the state have come together to redefine the goals, mechanisms and technologies used to plan and implement transportation infrastructure. I draw on the metaphor of immediacy to analyze the practices that make possible these sustainable transportation projects and bring attention to three important policymaking practices and their effects. First, I argue that the need for an immediate response to environmental crises is generative of new policies that must be implemented quickly by bypassing existing bureaucratic and political structures. Second, I show how first-hand, immediate, experience is as an important temporal- spatial dimension of policymaking. By building pilot projects that appear successful and can make sense to any resident, city officials minimize conflict and bring legitimacy to controversial interventions. And third, I propose that the metaphor of immediacy complicates understandings of the role that infrastructures play in shaping public debates around green futures. Movilidad projects postpone inclusive planning processes in which planners could mediate debates in which citizens, experts and officials co-decide how to make the city more sustainable and democratic. 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iii Acronyms ....................................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1. Introduction. Sustainable Mobility and the Assemblage of a New Policy Space: Infrastructure Citizenship and Inequality in Mexico City ....................................................... 1 1.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................1 1.2. Política de Movilidad as a Policy Space .............................................................................................2 1.3. The Context and Contours of Política de Movilidad ..........................................................................3 1.4. Conceptual Framework: Green Gentrification, Uneven Sustainable Development and Differentiated Infrastructural Citizenship ..................................................................................................6 1.4.1. Beyond Green Prescriptions: Transportation and Uneven Sustainable Development ................6 1.4.2. Urban Citizenship ........................................................................................................................7 1.4.3. Urban Citizenship and the Politics of Infrastructure ...................................................................9 1.5. The Politics of Immediacy as Guiding Metaphor .............................................................................12 1.6. On Methods ......................................................................................................................................14 1.7. Dissertation Road Map .....................................................................................................................14 Chapter 2. The Multiple Dimensions of Política de Movilidad: Spatial restructuring, Transport Policy, Environmental Policy and the Rise of the Neoliberal Left in Mexico City. ....................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.1. Economic transformations, spatial restructuring and the reinforcing of spatial inequality. .............16 2.1.1. The 1985 Earthquake ................................................................................................................20 2.1.2. Global Mexico City ...................................................................................................................20 2.1.3. Central Renaissance and Spatial Differentiation: Polanco, Roma and Condesa, .....................23 2.2. Locating the Political Role of Transportation and Mobility Policy .................................................28 2.2.1. Transportation Governance in Mexico City - Historical Perspective .......................................29 2.2.2. An Integrated System Approach and Política de Movilidad .....................................................32 2.2.3. The Sustainable Mobility Paradigm. .........................................................................................33 2.3. Air Pollution to Climate Change: Air quality and the Challenges to Environmental Governance ..34 2.3.1. PROAIRE I ...............................................................................................................................35 2.3.2. PROAIRE II (2002-2010) .........................................................................................................36 2.3.3. Challenges for Comprehensive Air Quality Governance ..........................................................37 2.4. Democracy, Planning and Participation in Mexico City ..................................................................38 2.4.1. Democratization and Fragmentation .........................................................................................38 2.4.2. The PRD: Ciudad para Todos ...................................................................................................40 2.4.3. Decentralization ........................................................................................................................41 2.5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................42 Chapter 3. Bus Rapid Transit: Policy Innovation and Political Retrofitting: Assembling a new Policy Space ......................................................................................................................... 44 3.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................44 3.2. Articulating and Legitimizing the BRT ............................................................................................45 3.3. Adapting the Office Desk Model: Making the BRT a Project of the Left .......................................48 3.4. Making the BRT a Visible Success ..................................................................................................52 3.5. The afterlife of Proyecto Metrobus and the Arrival of a New Actor, the Expert-citizen .................55 i 3.5.1. Consensus, Immediacy and Civil Society .................................................................................56 3.5.2. Drawing the Visible Limits of Política de Movilidad ...............................................................57 3.6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................58 Chapter 4. Ecobici: From Citizen Claim to Globally Visible Interventions ........................ 60 4.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................60 4.2 The Mexican Cycling Revolution? ....................................................................................................61