The Urban Land Problem and Popular Sector Housing Development in Mexico City

Abstract

Mexico City's housing crisis has little chance of being abated without changes in mechanisms of land allocation and in institutions that control the priority setting of national and municipal development goals. Yet, the existing constellation of economic interests and political power in the Mexican system raises serious obstacles to the realization of such changes. Thus, access to land for a majority of the poor in Mexico City depends upon the effective organization of popular sectors in a way aimed at transforming dominant social and political relationships of power.