Peripheries in Dialogue: Rural Spaces in Urban Contexts A Case Study of Guadalajara, Mexico and Sobral, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this work is to identify transforming spaces that have adapted their productive activities to the dynamics of urban sprawl through the sale of rural products. This is analyzed through two examples related to the urban expansion process in two Latin American cities: Guadalajara, Mexico, and Sobral, Brazil. The areas affected by the unfolding of their urban footprints modified their relationship with the new surrounding exterior, disrupting old productive spaces rich in tradition and history. Simultaneously, new territories were created within these transforming spaces, where local actors have generated survival strategies based on the urban imprint. This urban growth led to the reconfiguration of economic activities in peripheral areas with significant rural activity. In the cases of Guadalajara and Sobral, the process of urban expansion toward neighboring municipalities resulted in alternative ways of coping with the precarization of their living spaces. The market size represented by the cities of Guadalajara and Sobral has prompted the emergence of cooperative projects, economic units, and even agri-food systems, such as organic producers in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga and Sobral, dairy production in Tonalá, and cactus (nopal) producers in Zapopan. These cases are analyzed under the perspective of the "new rurality," as these traditional activities maintain relationships within and outside the rural space with other complementar activities that have allowed them to survive within the urban environment of these two cities.