Shopping Centers in Mexico City: The Rise of Consumer-Oriented Real Estate Business

Abstract

The shopping mall is one of the major landmarks in contemporary cities. Its rapid expansion and diffusion suggests the reconsideration of new forms of building and spatial organization of places oriented to the distribution and consumption of goods and services. Mexico City has registered since the nineties an unprecedented boom in attracting investment in various segments of real estate, one of which is the retail megaprojects. This paper analyzes the process of expansion of shopping centers from three aspects. First, as part of the deployment of circuits of capital placed in large real estate projects in the city; second, as the result of the expansion of new forms and scales of consumption promoted by local and global corporations of retail distribution. Finally, as devices that articulate new forms of production of urban space, especially from the sub-centers they promote.