The Unseen City: The unseen parts of the wicked urban problems
While deteriorating infrastructure, precarious housing, and informal activities are clearly present in the illustration, they are symptoms of a deeper issue: a lack of social agency.
Urban development often neglects or overlooks the needs of humans, non-humans and more-than-human allies. This becomes especially evident in “hidden” systems such as waste management and drainage, which are essential to everyday urban life, yet they remain largely invisible and politically neglected. In contexts like Mexico, investment tends to favour highly visible projects like roads and highways, whilst critical systems that manage waste and environmental health are underfunded or ignored.
The result is an urban condition where key decisions are shaped without inclusive participation, and where essential infrastructure needs are overlooked or ignored because they lack visibility.
Understanding the city, therefore, requires looking beyond what is seen and questioning whose needs are considered, and whose needs are not.
