Sometimes, walking around the concrete jungle of Puebla city, in central Mexico, the only trees I see are the hardy, invasive ones growing out of the cracked walls of abandoned buildings. The government planted a few trees around the city center two years ago, but with no nearby rubbish bins, the young, skinny trees, completely surrounded by concrete, often become de facto rubbish traps. The contrast with many Global North cities, with nature strips next to most footpaths and huge central parks and botanical gardens, is stark.

Canberra is the top city globally for green space with 420m²/person, followed by Wellington, Ottawa, Helskinki, Oslo, and Stockholm. Sydney is 19th, with 220m²/person, and all of the top 20 cities are in the Global North. Puebla has just 2.4m²/person—1% of Sydney’s rate, and other Global South cities are not too much better off, with Mexico City at 6m² and Bogotá at 5m².

Even when measured as a percentage of total area, the top cities are all in the Global North; Moscow (54%), Singapore (47%), Sydney (46%), and Vienna (45.5%) and the bottom cities are in the Global South; Dubai (2%), Istanbul (2.2%), and Mumbai (2.5%). Within both Global North and South cities, there are further inequalities, with green areas typically concentrated in wealthier suburbs.

The WHO set a minimum of 9m²/person, with an ideal of 50m² per capita. There are serious environmental and health consequences for low green space levels, but despite that, the city and state Puebla governments are planning a massive transport project that would reduce the city’s green space even further. Shrouded in corporate interests and opacity, and prioritizing the needs of foreign and domestic tourists over locals, the project is typical of investor-led urban policies that only increase the global green space gap. 

Disposable parks

The Morena Puebla state government first announced the Cablebús transport project in December last year, with protests against it beginning in February. With a budget of 6.75 billion pesos (AU$555 million), the aerial cable car system would only cover 13 kilometers, and require 96 towers and 9 stations located in the few remaining parks, as well as in public spaces or squares. 

Almost a thousand mature trees would be chopped down, and the project bypasses lower income areas of the city where more people rely on public transport. Also, while a cable car system makes some sense in Mexico City, with its large swaths of informal and low-income housing on steep hillsides, Puebla is flat.

“Parks represent less than 1% of the city of Puebla. Ecological corridors are increasingly fragmented, and that threatens wildlife, like the Coopers hawk. The Cablebús is also an attack on our right to a healthy environment,” Antonio Ferrer tells me. He and fellow activist, Selene Agustín, are members of the Puebla-based Citizen’s Agenda for Trees and Green Areas.

In Puebla, the last few decades of urban planning beyond the historic center have been modeled on the US, often with US companies and contractors often directly involved. This means car-first urban planning and large department stores (mostly transnationals), in a region where the majority can’t afford cars. The public transport system is disorganized and neglected, and buses and shuttle van buses are over-crowded. it can take an hour just to travel 5 kilometers.

“We need more buses, a larger and better bike path network, better pedestrian infrastructure, more local and city parks,” says Agustín.  

Why green spaces matter

Green spaces are vital for cooling (suburbs with vegetation can be up to 14°C cooler), improving air quality, reducing noise, supporting biodiversity, and better water quality. For cities like Puebla, with low-quality infrastructure and drainage and short but intense rainy seasons, green spaces can be vital in preventing floods, by absorbing water and reducing surface runoff.

Spending at least two hours a week in nature is associated with good health, including a lower risk of chronic diseases and accelerated recovery from surgery, as well as reduced stress, anxiety, and fatigue, and better cognitive performance.

Green spaces are also important recreational and social spaces. The scarcity of parks can lead to fear and distrust of public areas and dependence on commercial spaces and consumerism for socializing. Those with little disposable income can feel locked out of socializing all together.

“It’s become so normalized. People are growing up without trees or green spaces nearby, and then have little sense of how to appreciate them or look after them. And in a city like this, grey, concrete, with crap public transport, owning a car becomes something to aspire to – even a necessity, to avoid the over-crowded busses and the blazing sun,” says Agustín.

“Living in Puebla, with so little green space, makes us feel stressed, irritable, and sometimes even hopeless,” says Ferrer. 

Urban green spaces decreasing worldwide 

Global South cities overall have just one third of the green space that Global North cities have, due to lower state income and budgets for street infrastructure, and high levels of exploitation by the Global North. 

While wealthier cities are treated primarily as places to live in, cities like Puebla are used by transnationals for car manufacturing (Audi and Volkswagen in Puebla’s case), textiles and other kinds of export industries supplying Global North markets. Unequal trade agreements, like NAFTA, signed between Mexico, the US, and Canada, forced millions of small farmers to migrate to the cities, where they settled in informal housing, with no planned parks.

In addition to worldwide challenges like gentrification, many Global South cities also navigate the legacies of colonialism and imperialism, with often large slums, favelas, or informal settlements, and higher rates of urban growth. Under pressure from transnationals and organizations like the IMF, cities like Puebla and Mexico City are constantly being privatized, and corporations take over public spaces, including parks, squares, and cultural buildings, and commercialize them. 

Since public parks are much less profitable uses of land compared to say, AI data centers, industry,  or residential towers, urban green space is declining globally. One study of 344 cities found an overall reduction of 63 million m² from 2023 to 2024. 

Imposing public works

The Morena state government is bending over backwards for big business, awarding a European company, Doppelmayr, the contract for the Cablebús, and announcing yet another industrial park for Puebla. Promoted by the national government as “Economic Development Hubs,” these industrial towns include public funding for business infrastructure, with water, electricity and other services provided, and incentives for transnational and domestic big business. 

Announced late last year, the hub in Puebla will be located in San José Chiapa, a lower-income area with a Nahua community and small farmers, and will include pharmaceutical and food companies and a Google AI laboratory. More than 100 companies will benefit from 275 hectares of state-owned land. The project will consume precious water—severely scarce in the region—and generate copious amounts of rubbish and contamination.

Doppelmayr already holds multiple cable car contracts across Mexico for cable cars, where state governments are paying it a total of 22 billion pesos (AU$1.8 billion) to build the systems, then more money for maintenance and operation. With contracts like these, companies often bribe officials to get the contracts, overestimate costs in order to receive bigger payouts, then cut corners in construction.

In Michoacán state, there were significant protests against Doppelmayr’s cable bus system last year, and Isidro Ramos Sandoval, the lawyer who filed a case to stop the project was then murdered in March that year. No one has yet been prosecuted.

Doppelmayr and local governments in both Puebla and in Mexico City have not conducted the legally required studies before project approval, including environmental impact studies, technical, financial, and mobility studies. In Puebla, the government said the studies that it has conducted are “reserved” for the next five years, meaning the public isn’t able to see them.

Agustín notes that Mexico has ratified the Escazú Agreement, a landmark 2018 treaty for Latin America and the Caribbean mandating public participation in environmental decision-making.

“The Cablebús project isn’t based on any real analysis of mobility needs in Puebla. Any such analysis should consider accessibility, short trips by carers, and sustainability. It also doesn’t have the necessary land-use permits. It is incompatible with various laws and regulations, but the mayor, José Chedraui, says he will change whatever he has to to ensure the project goes ahead,” says Ferrer.

Defending green spaces

Communities where Cablebús stations will be installed in parks have organized locally, and have marched together with academics, student groups, transport and environmental collectives, lawyers’ organizations, and other civil society groups.

“Apart from the marches, there have been information requests, lawsuits, declarations, forums, artistic actions and creative workshops, and social media campaigns, says Agustín, “The movement is growing.”

“But in response, the (Morena) state and city authorities have only insulted us, accusing us of being “bots” and members of the opposition, or of having political party interests,”  says Ferrer, “But we don’t—we’re just citizens fighting for our right to information, fighting for an appropriate use of public funds, wanting to live in a healthy environment, and for the few remaining green spaces to be protected.”Email