The Urbanization of the Countryside: Depoliticization and the Production of Space in Chiapas

The Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP) is a development program for the modernization of southern Mexico and Central America through the construction of transnational urban networks. The implementation of the PPP in Chiapas provides a significant example of the relationship between depoliticization and planned urbanization in the context of contemporary neoliberal governance. The production of space embodied in the PPP advances the consolidation of capitalist social relations and the extension of state power while representing this process as a pragmatic response to economic necessity in the interest of the common good. This project, however, is undermined by the constitutive antagonisms of neoliberal urbanization, as demonstrated by multiple place-based resistances and the ongoing development of the Zapatista autonomous territories.