ABSTRACT
Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and the second-largest metropolitan area in Mexico, has played an important part in Mexico’s metropolitan expansion processes, but its development has been marked by contradictions. The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (GMA) has generated wealth, economic opportunities and social well-being, but it has also produced significant levels of social inequality, poverty, exclusion and public insecurity, affecting most citizens. It has developed an effective urban infrastructure and there is a comprehensive supply of social services, but access to them is not universal. Major industrial growth has been promoted, but this has not been accompanied by a policy of environmental protection. The GMA has expanded rapidly, but the absence of effective urban policy has allowed growth to sprawl, along with a deterioration of the ecosystem. Its transition from a regional-national city to a global dynamic centre has placed metropolitan development in a new context that offers a wide range of opportunities, but at the same time it raises new challenges and extends the consequences of unresolved problems from the past.
