Mobility Infrastructure and the Hierarchization of Urban Centralities in Puerto Vallarta

This article analyzes how mobility infrastructure participates in the uneven configuration of urban polycentricity in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. The study departs from the premise that the existence of multiple centralities does not guarantee a balanced distribution of accessibility, connectivity, or public-space quality, particularly in tourist cities where certain spaces acquire greater visibility and strategic value within the urban economy. Drawing on a qualitative-comparative approach, we evaluated five urban centralities through an ordinal scale applied to the dimensions of roadway design, pedestrian mobility, accessibility, cycling infrastructure, road safety, and urban environment. The results show that centralities tied to tourist activity exhibit better conditions of pedestrian continuity, spatial legibility, road safety, and infrastructural articulation, whereas predominantly residential centralities display more fragmented conditions of everyday mobility, public transit, and public space. We conclude that Puerto Vallarta’s urban polycentricity operates as a hierarchically ordered territorial structure in which mobility infrastructure functions as a material mechanism of urban differentiation. The article proposes the notion of hierarchical polycentricity as an analytical category for studying territorial inequalities in intermediate tourist cities.