At the margin of the park : social inequality in urban environmental planning in the Santo Domingo greenbelt

Greenbelts have been used around the world to control urban growth and to enhance the natural environment of cities since the last century. However, some Latin American governments, influenced by urban renewal principles and modern planning, have implemented greenbelts to beautify and order cities. Much criticism has arisen about the social repercussions of using greenbelts as a way to control citizen behavior, which in many cases has resulted in exclusionary practices, especially of low-income populations. Based on a case study that documents and analyzes the uses and perceptions of residents of the informal settlement, Los Platanitos, of the Parque Nacional Mirador Norte, my research attempts to illuminate the political and social processes shaping urban environmental planning in Santo Domingo in order to understand practices of exclusion and marginalization in contexts marked by socioeconomic inequalities.