Real estate development is a significant factor in planning the built environment. It shapes the way people live and work, and by doing so enables human activity to evolve. Real estate development forms a contemporary reflection of social, economic, environmental, and political forces at hand. Furthermore, due to globalization, we are increasingly witnessing similar trends for space despite institutional differences existing between countries and cities contained within their national borders.

In trying to influence spatial development, people engage in discussions about distinctions between places or areas, and the roles of government and society, while they need to relate to other groups of stakeholders. In other words, boundaries (between meanings of places, between government and society, and between different groups of people) are omnipresent in spatial governance. Does the peri-urban area belong to the city or to the countryside? Can nature be integrated into farming? What should be the role of governments in relation to bottom-up initiatives?

This article analyzes different visions and positions in a conflict between the developer of an open-pit mine in Mexico and project opponents using the echelons of rights analysis framework, distinguishing four layers of dispute: contested resources; contents of rules and regulations; decision-making power; and discourses. Complexities in this study manifest how communities’ land and water rights are circumvented by governmental bodies and ambivalent regulations favouring the large mining company. This process is importantly reinforced by international trade legislation.