The notions of center in the global city

Abstract

For the inhabitants of the great metropolis that is Mexico City, going to the "center" means being able to participate in interaction, and even in confrontation, through social contact and exchange. Saying "I'm going to the center" represents both entering the spheres of social identification and anonymity typical of the collective processes generated in the use of the city, as well as sharing leisure with friends, reading the newspaper over a coffee, negotiating projects or get information, shop, transact business, pray, hide in the crowd or sell cheap goods on a cruise.But what is the center of the city? Where is it? Urban or sociological explanations such as "Historic Center", "central business district" or "old center in social and functional deterioration", have marked their limit of explanatory validity in the face of the current process of metropolitan centrality.The paradigms of concentric circles and their expressions as the central city and the inner city no longer explain what is happening today in Mexico and in other large cities in the world. They do not account for the current process of expansion, multiplication and complexity of centrality that expresses both the way we use our cities and the destination of our daily movements.