The Hacienda as a Spatial Legacy: Colonial Land Distribution and the Contemporary City

2019

Authors:

Ignacio Cardona, Researcher

Advisors:

Anita Berrizbeitia, Diane Davis, Rahul Mehrotra

Institutions:

Harvard Graduate School of Design

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Developed as part of the doctoral research Spatial Opportunities for Self-Produced Environments, this study investigates how historical systems of land ownership continue to shape contemporary spatial inequality. Focusing on the hacienda as a socio-productive system in Latin America, it examines the relationship between colonial patterns of land distribution and the subsequent urbanization of Caracas.

Through historical and spatial analysis, the research identifies relationships between the geography of colonial haciendas and contemporary patterns of urban inequality. It traces how historical land divisions relate to conflicts over water distribution and to the later emergence of self-produced settlements, revealing how inherited territorial structures can persist long after the economic and political systems that originally produced them have changed.