Recent territorial strategies in Venezuela: are they viable reorganizations of territorial systems or laboratory trials?

Abstract

The historical formation of Venezuela's land use model has been criticized by different national government administrations since the 1960s, given that this model is held responsible for generating social inequalities. In response to these criticisms, the current Venezuelan government has taken up old projects and formulated new land use proposals in order to redistribute the population as well as economic activity within the national space. Given their limited methodological and conceptual foundations, political bias and lack of economic realism, it is appropriate to ask whether the proposals are viable or simply laboratory trials. The paper provides a reflection on the validity of these proposals, since they constitute centralized land use controls in spite of the federal and decentralized statutes founded in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.