Espacio público y lugares comunes en la Ciudad de México y Los Ángeles

Abstract

This paper puts forward a generalized reflection on the planning of public spaces addressed to prompt a particular definition of the public meant to use them. With the help of examples as different as the arrangement of the Main Square in Mexico City since XVI century and some public spaces planned during the last years in Los Angeles, different projects to define the civil and urban public are found. The historic and geographic comparison allows putting into perspective the way that societies and dominant actors in urbanism —prisoners between the temptation of segregation and the need for common spaces— have ruled the diversity and the inherent heterogeneity of urban space.