El artículo tiene como objetivo analizar formas en las que el modelo de gobernanza puede mejorar las condiciones de coordinación entre los actores metropolitanos para planificar y gestionar el desarrollo de la Zona Metropolitana del Valle de Toluca (ZMVT). Para ello se han analizado instituciones políticas sobre lo metropolitano en México, situación que pone de manifiesto la crisis de la ZMVT en las dimensiones económica, social y ambiental, de modo que afrontarla ya no es sólo responsabilidad del Estado, lo que plantea nuevos retos en materia de gobernanza por la necesaria inclusión de los actores sociales en las decisiones sobre el desarrollo metropolitano y por lo tanto una Reforma del Estado. Si bien desde 1970 se presenta la metropolización, es hasta el 2005 que como respuesta metropolitana se implementa el Consejo Ejecutivo de Coordinación Metropolitana del Valle de Toluca (CECMVT), se centra en las dificultades de coordinación entre los actores que conforman un tipo distintivo de espacio urbano como es la zona metropolitana, sin embargo, no ha logrado una visión integrada de desarrollo, quedándose su planificación y gestión en la voluntad política. Abstract:
Governance, as a new form of government, does not imply the creation of new territorial political-administrative jurisdictions, i.e. it does not imply for the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca (ZMVT) a constitutionally-recognized fourth territorial scope of government (metropolitan government). It involves addressing ways to institutionalize coordination, not only between different levels of government, but with the incorporation of social and private figures that will collectively form the plans and programs. The aim of this paper is to analyze ways in which the governance model can improve the coordination between metropolitan actors to plan and manage the development of the ZMVT.
Planning and management are commonly conceived by the government as two unrelated tasks. Planning is considered to be useful for filling the political and administrative record for the benefit of immediate federal investments and, while management is useful for immediately increasing tax collection by applying rights in handing out permits, whereby sustainable metropolization and social participation are in the background.
The metropolitan phenomenon arose in Mexico in 1940, but it was not until the 1970s that urban, and not metropolitan, planning was regulated; this left uncertainty regarding the functions of metropolitan actors. The lack of coordination between them has thrown the metropolitan area into a crisis on at least three significant dimensions: economic, social and environmental. This has been found by analyzing political institutions in urban and metropolitan areas in Mexico, where the weak role of the State in planning and management is limited and mainly normative.
While since 1970 the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca has shown development based on industrialization and the a set of diversified services of regional impact, it was not until 2005 that the Executive Board of Metropolitan Coordination in the Valley of Toluca (CECMVT) emerged as a metropolitan response, focusing on the difficulties of coordination between metropolitan actors, but has failed to form an integrated vision of metropolitan development, leaving its action in the political will.
The analysis methodology presented in this article is derived from the ratio of two phenomena: the first one is the role of the State in the metropolitan area, and second is the consolidation of its political status to plan and manage metropolitan development. Both phenomena should be part of the State Reform and be linked, on the one hand to the process of governance and, second, to the transformation of metropolitan public policy.
The reform of the State of Mexico is the result of analyzing concepts related to governance, planning and management, because the reality of the country, and particularly that of the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca, faces many fundamental issues that do not coincide with political discourse, including the following:
1. The problems of marginalization and poverty that have deepened in the countryside and that are emerging in major urban areas of the metropolitan area.
2. Excessive centralization of the State, which performs planning and management tools from a vertical and authoritarian perspective.
3. The lack of coordination between metropolitan actors.
4. The evident economic, social and environmental crisis in much of the country and pointedly in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca.
The emergence of such problems has turned them into permanent evils. Social pressure on the government is the product of the belief that fundamental change is required in the political and social institutions that make up the political regime.
Moreover, the development policies in force from the beginning of the 1910s have become structurally dependent on the economic model and, consequently, focus on objectives such as infrastructure and regional equipment, undoubtedly essential to the modernization of the metropolitan area, but overcoming the facts of democracy, land use and environmental sustainability.
As main results, we find that the planning and management of metropolitan development lack a basic territorial governance model, as agencies for this purpose have been restricted to the political will, only perceiving a broad relationship between government and investors without clear opportunities for the participation of civil society. In many cases, the CECMVT promotes investments and tools that have been applied at all costs, seriously affecting the social fabric, the territory and the environment.
In the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca, the inclusion of actors other that the government, in defense of their natural resources and against authoritarian metropolitan projects promoted by the State, has allowed us to assume that the metropolitan policy, in which systems of metropolitan actors interact, is no longer a space monopolized by state public institutions, as they have lost strength in favor of local actors, focusing only on the strategy of ‘not doing and letting go’.
As a main conclusion, uncoordinated metropolitan planning and management of metropolitan development actors result in a very dynamic process of concentration of economic activities, construction of regional infrastructure and population concentration, seriously affecting the environment and natural resources due to the ineffectiveness of government actions to control and guide such a process.
The crisis of the metropolitan area is the result of decisions made by investors, who largely planned land uses through the market. This process has increased the pressure to swap the use of agricultural forestry land for urban land.
After analyzing the behavior of the social, economic, and environmental dimensions, the following was observed:
1) In metropolitan terms, it is notable how in most municipalities in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca, change in land use is sought from rural to urban without any clear signal on the part of the government that it will act accordingly. By 2010, several municipalities increased developable area above the current urban area (Almoloya de Juárez, Calimaya, Capulhuac and Mexicaltzingo), at least doubling in all cases the existing urban area without population justification. “As an example, the growth of Almoloya de Juárez in at least 300 years doubles in less that 20” (Cfr. GEM, 2011).
2) In social terms, it is surprising how the larger population growth between 2005 and 2010 occurred in small municipalities (San Antonio la Isla with 93.3% and Chapultepec with 47.9%), but we can also see, at the level of the metropolitan region in the rest of the peripheral and rural municipalities, the following: Xalatlaco 34.7%, Lerma 28%, Zinacantepec 25.1%, Calimaya 22%, Almoloya de Juárez 19.9%, Rayón 17.3%, Temaya 16.5%, Otzolotepec 16.2% and Tenango del Valle 15.9%. This was due to increased regional road infrastructure and permissiveness for formal and informal settlements to appear anywhere, resulting in the construction of such housing in those municipalities because of the availability of developable land at low prices as a result of their distance from the metropolitan center.
3) In economic terms, the metropolitan municipalities have specialized in the tertiary sector, followed by the secondary sector and lastly the primary sector. Socio-spatially, the result is a very dynamic process of concentration of economic activities, construction of regional infrastructure and concentration of population, severely affecting the environment and natural resources due to the inefficiency of government actions to control and guide metropolization.
4) In environmental terms, several of these peripheral municipalities (Temoaya, Lerma, Ocoyoacac, Tianguistenco, Tenango del Valle and Zinacantepec) have increased pressure for change in the use of forestland and agricultural to urban land.
The paper therefore contributes to the strengthening of decentralized government agencies as opportunities for governance. The analysis of institutional and organizational conditions in force in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Toluca are relevant in addressing the challenges in response to the planning and management of metropolitan development. Classification-JEL: R1 Keywords: Metropolización, Metropolization, Planificación y gestión, Plan and manage, Desarrollo metropolitano, Metropolitan development, Gobernanza metropolitana, Metropolitan governance, Actores metropolitanos, Metropolitan actors Pages: 91-118 Volume: 1 Year: 2015 File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2459.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:1:y:2015:p:91-118