Colonial Legacies in Urban Landscapes: A Comparative Analysis of Santo Domingo and Oaxaca

This study explores how colonial planning paradigms continue to shape the built environment and spatial hierarchies in Latin American heritage cities and examines what spatial strategies have emerged to disrupt or resignify these inherited forms. Through a comparative analysis of Santo Domingo and Oaxaca—two cities marked by distinct yet interconnected colonial trajectories—the research explores how urban planning, religious architecture, and spatial governance functioned historically as instruments of control. Drawing on visual ethnography, spatial analysis, and critical urban theory, the study reveals how colonial urban logics persist in contemporary issues such as heritage-led gentrification, infrastructural inequality, and symbolic dispossession. While Santo Domingo exemplifies a fortified, centralized model of imperial power, Oaxaca demonstrates a more permeable and negotiated urban form shaped by mestizaje and indigenous resilience. Yet both cities remain structured by exclusionary spatial regimes. The findings underscore the need for a decolonial urban approach—one that interrogates colonial continuities, reclaims urban memory, and prioritizes spatial justice and community agency in the reshaping of Latin American cities.