The urban growth of Mérida, which has become increasingly faster in recent years, exposes problems due to the constant change that the city is experiencing.
In this way, the lack of a land use policy, sustainable urban planning, and connectivity in the city represent fundamental problems in a city that is rapidly increasing its occupied territory.
Silvana Forti Sosa, director of the Urban Laboratory of the Universidad Modelo, commented that in her opinion, “the main problem of urban growth in Mérida is the lack of a land use policy.”
Furthermore, she points out that this problem is in the sense that there are no areas that are not used for the construction or growth of the city to preserve them as they are.
In that sense, she states that said land use policy consists of “you can say up to this point it is being built; from here to there, nothing. “The agricultural areas are not touched.”
However, the expert understands that the city is exposed to the market and that “everything is salable and everything is sold”, but this also implies risks and possible negative consequences in the future.
Dr. Forti Sosa gives the example of how she has observed how the sale of investment lots, which has been called illegal in several cases, continues. This causes a worrying clearing of the jungle and damage of various kinds.
However, adding to this problem is the lack of sustainable urban planning and the lack of connectivity in the city.
Distant, dispersed, and disconnected are the adjectives used to describe the city model that Mérida has had, says Jesús Pérez Pech, general coordinator of the Urban Laboratory.
These situations are a constant in the model, as it describes that “on the one hand there is housing, on the other there are services and work”, which in several cases complicates the transfer of people, for example, from home to their centers of work, thus increasing transportation expenses.
Rodrigo Emiliano Casanova Castro, Cartography coordinator of the Laboratory, explains that the growth of Mérida is occurring mostly horizontally and the quality of life of people will be reduced.
According to the specialist, people will waste part of their time transporting from one destination to another instead of enjoying the city.
In this regard, as we reported at the time, other problems are generated, such as the significant growth of vehicles on the streets, to eliminate the effects that the lack of connection generates.
“Poor urban planning in the Yucatecan capital is one of the factors that has generated the excess of vehicles in the city and the state,” says Dr. Forti Sosa.
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