'La Paz We Want': Legal Geography, Urban Imagination and the Forms of the City in La Paz (Bolivia)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect on the making of imaginaries about the public space in the urban planning of the city of La Paz (Bolivia). To do this, we will turn to legal geography, as a theoretical framework that analyses the interactions between the regulations of public institutions and space planning. Our hypothesis is that the geographical imaginaries that project these documents construct spatial representations of the city and define the uses of the urban territory. In terms of methodology, we propose an analysis of the contents of "La Paz que queremos", an integral urban plan that would cover 2015 to 2040. For this analysis, we will work on three lines of meaning: on the one hand, the different scales present in the planning urban city; on the other, the urban cartographic imaginations projected from the document; and finally, around the narratives about Bolivia and the urban, to close with a brief discussion about the representations of the urban, the public policies and the geographical imagination of the space for the cities.