The Half City

Our project uses crisis as a way to construct a new model of participatory urbanization, The Half City, as a way to reorganize the rural state of Yautepec, design community empowerment mechanisms within the built infrastructure, incentivize annual employment opportunities, and decrease dependency on central authorities post-disaster.
As a historic state embedded in the export crop of sugarcane, as well as corrupt local politics, a new strategy for urbanizations is urgently needed. Using incremental, participatory urbanization termed “The Half City” our project seeks to trigger a new method of urban organization that more evenly distributes resources, as current infrastructural use and placement is controlled by centralized authorities. By designing a framework of basic requirements for each plot of collectively owned land, The Half City can be transformed based on the needs of individual owners. It is a radical new model of gradual urbamization that empowers urbanization from the ground-up.