Rural historic areas of the metropolitan area of Merida, Yucatan. Rurbanization between XX-XXI centuries

Abstract

The concept “rururban”  refers to processes of spacial transformation of settlements whose rural origins are disturbed due to an unstoppable urban growth, thus  resulting in hybrids between rural and urban. This work studies eleven historical settlements –former haciendas and villages– located on the borderlands of Mérida city in México, to explain the process of accelerated rururbanization in the last decade in the region. The results indicate that one condition of this process were land use policies that implemented by both federal and national governments decades ago. Such policies basically consisted on the change from the communal land regime to the private land, the expropriation decrees and the a priori action towards metropolization medium cities in the country by the government. This investigation also shows –as a conclusion-- the effects that such actions by the government have on the territory regarding land use and occupancy of the space forms and the changes in the type of inhabitants and their buildings. Changes that are observable in the current rururban image of these settlements.