Shrinkage of Rural Areas as a Result of Urbanization and Migration Processes in Mexico

Abstract

The study of tendencies in economic and environmental shrinkage is tied to the expressions of substantive changes in complexity of determinant contexts of internal and migration flows. This chapter answers the challenges posed by economic tendencies, using the theories and models and does not fall victim to simplistic projections and conjectures and theories based more in speculation than in fact. The method used is the critical analysis of economic, social, and political tendencies in relation to the situation of shrinking cities in Mexico. The results of this analysis led to the finding that the shrinkage process in Mexico, as a developing economy, does not follow the same patterns of well-developed countries, and an increase in shrinking cities has occurred since the middle of the 1950s and the use of incentives in some localities to attract economic growth have had modest success in turning around the shrinking process.