Characterization of the sustainable city. An analysis of accessibility and its variables

Abstract

This work addresses accessibility as a benchmark for the sustainable city. City in which the population has access to both basic services and means of transportation and communication routes. The objective of the article is to analyze the concept of accessibility and the variables that determine it, in order to identify the relationship that exists between two of them: geographic distance and social distance. The first
is understood as the real distance that is generated to get from one place to another; while, in the second, three capitals intervene: the economic, the cultural and the symbolic. It is
worth mentioning that, for this study, only economic capital is considered. Thus, based on a case study in the city of Pachuca, Hidalgo, seven centralities were identified (areas in whose 500-
meter radius at least two of the following activities converge: banks, high school and high school, hospitals and government agencies). With the help of the statistical technique of simple linear accuracy, it was possible to corroborate the existence of a close relationship, of inverse type, between the variables: housing cost and geographical distance. Thus, accessibility becomes a benchmark for urban sustainability, since it improves the quality of life of its inhabitants.