The Ibero-American and Lusophone geospatial tradition: The creation of a legacy in Latin America and Asia

The Iberian geospatial tradition and commercial urbanism practices have been theorized mostly by geographers and planners. However, the evolution of the Ibero-American and Lusophone territories as well as the positionalities, theories, and practices representative of the two disciplines have changed recently. The territory has been compressed and flattened, the world has gotten spikier, time and chronology have accelerated, spatiality and governance are ever more interrelated and the number of professional challenges has increased exponentially. New technologies have impacted the scholarship, professional practice, and contributions of these professionals. This paper aims to study the Ibero-American and Lusophone geospatial tradition via the downtowns of the two largest Latin American global cities and the evolution of commercial urbanism in Macau. On the one hand, the study of the downtowns of the two largest Latin American global cities serves to illustrate different conceptions of the Spanish and Portuguese territorial influences in Latin America. On the other, Macau’s commercial urbanism analyzes the evolution, challenges and opportunities of the Portuguese urbanistic tradition in Asia. The paper concludes with the claim that there is room for a more explicit definition of commercial urbanism policies aimed at promoting the co-existence and resilience of multiple retail formats and the livability of city centers in the Ibero-American and Lusophone space.