WHO GETS TO BE PROTECTED? URBAN PLANNING, TERRITORIAL CONTROL AND THE POLITICS OF SECURITY

This paper analyzes how urban planning in Latin America operates as a political technology, focusing on Ecuador to reveal its inequalities in the distribution of security. Employing a qualitative, critical, and comparative research approach, the study examines how planning reinforces hierarchies under discourses of order, sustainability, and resilience, drawing on theoretical frameworks of governance and biopolitics. The analysis identifies three structural logics: First, the securitization of urban space through preventive rationality, which preemptively criminalizes certain areas. Second, the selective provision of protection by treating infrastructure—lighting, water, electricity, and digital connectivity—as instruments of exclusion. Third, the reduction of citizen participation to symbolic, non-binding practices confined to post-facto consultation. Urban planning is far from a neutral technical process; it constitutes the material expression of power relations, determining who receives visibility and protection while designating others as expendable. By introducing comparative perspectives and existing empirical evidence, this study underscores broader patterns that extend beyond local contexts. It argues that only through institutional reform—grounded in binding participation, transparency, and multi-level coordination—can planning become a tool for advancing territorial justice.