Citation: Juárez, E.G.; Kurjenoja, A.K.; Schumacher, M.; Guizar Villalvazo, M.; Gonzalez Meza, E.; Durán-Díaz, P. Neoliberal Urban Development vs. Rural Communities: Land Management Challenges in San Andrés Cholula, Mexico. Land 2022, 11, 1058. https://doi.org/10.3390/ land11071058 Academic Editor: Yurui Li Received: 31 May 2022 Accepted: 9 July 2022 Published: 12 July 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). land Article Neoliberal Urban Development vs. Rural Communities: Land Management Challenges in San Andrés Cholula, Mexico Eduardo Gutiérrez Juárez 1 , Anne K. Kurjenoja 1 , Melissa Schumacher 1 , María Guizar Villalvazo 1 , Edwin Gonzalez Meza 1 and Pamela Durán-Díaz 2, * 1 Department of Architecture, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Cholula 72810, Mexico; eduardo.gutierrez@udlap.mx (E.G.J.); annek.kurjenoja@udlap.mx (A.K.K.); melissa.schumacher@udlap.mx (M.S.); maria.guizarvo@udlap.mx (M.G.V.); edwin.gonzalez@udlap.mx (E.G.M.) 2 Chair of Land Management, Department of Aerospace and Geodesy, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany * Correspondence: pamela.duran@tum.de Abstract: Since the 1980s, the municipality of San Andrés Cholula, Puebla, has been a territory with constant clashes between its rural population and the official land use policy. In this context, the rural community and its millenary bio-cultural traditions have collided with neoliberal political and economic interests, new urbanism, and land speculation, commodification of local culture and privatization of the public space. The above-mentioned facts represent a challenge for sustainable land management of the territory and for socio-spatial justice, as a large portion of the land is becoming a private asset, meanwhile the large extension of rural land has been for communal use. The present work aims to discuss the processes triggered by neoliberal urban development logic in the area, and how these dynamics have affected the identity of the place, endangered its bio-cultural heritage and jeopardized the local communal right to the land. It will also examine the possibilities for a creation of a collaborative instrument to enhance the participation of the local community (or pueblos originarios—original people—as they identify themselves), in sustainable land management processes, in order to obtain a balance between the community, the public policy and the economic forces in urban development. Keywords: neoliberal urbanism; land management; local community; socio-spatial justice; peri urban development in Cholula 1. Introduction The 1985 earthquake compelled migratory movement from Mexico City to surround- ing mid-size cities triggering changes in their socio-economic structure and causing spatial expansion of their territories. One of these urban areas was the metropolitan area of Puebla, with its 38 municipalities, a sleepy colonial city that in previous decades had had quite a stagnant urban development. However, Puebla City’s economic growth had begun a couple of decades before, in the 1960s, with the textile industry and the foundation of the Volkswagen assembly plant. In the 1990s this compact and small city began a rapid transfor- mation into a cosmopolitan multi-functional area looking forward to the new development opportunities of the 21st century. In this context, the neighboring historical and dual city of Cholula, shaped by the municipalities of San Pedro and San Andrés Cholula, also started to change its rural façade to that of an important educational, economic, touristic and residential node. At this point, Cholulas now represented an attractive opportunity to the local authorities and investors, to achieve international recognition for the Puebla metropolitan area, as its rural land offered an invaluable resource for the creation of a “New Puebla” on its territory. Thus began extensive land consumption for urban purposes, and the abandonment of agricultural Land 2022, 11, 1058. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11071058 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land