Liminal Centres: Central São Paulo and Guadalajara between Vacancy and Occupancy

By means of a comparative diachronic analysis of the urban centres of São Paulo (Brazil) and Guadalajara (Mexico), this article develops the notion of ‘liminal centre’ for coming to terms with the distinctive ambivalent urban condition of Latin American historical urban centres. It unfolds a long-durée urban development history of both centres, drawing particular attention to the iterative making and remaking of their material urban forms, consisting of principle landscape features such as geomorphology, topography and vegetation, as well as the built materiality of urban morphologies, plot structures and building topologies, as they mutated throughout five centuries of urbanization. Historical cartography, urban analysis and fieldwork observations provide therefore the main data sources. Bound up with broader Latin American urbanization patterns, both cases illustrate notorious iterations of vacancy and occupancy, eternally alternating between planned interventions and spontaneous practices of various social groups. Both centres consequently appear wedged between formal and informal constituents of urbanism, incessantly oscillating between sheer decay and prompt renewal, between abundant vacancy and thriving occupancy. ‘Spatial liminality’ will therefore be proposed as a useful theoretical denominator for capturing such paradoxical and ambiguous urban condition.

Publication year:2019

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