Poverty and urban inequality: the caseof Mexico City metropolitan region*

Alicia Ziccardi

Introduction

In Latin American cities, and in particular inMexican cities, poverty and inequality have

Alicia Ziccardi is Senior Researcher at theSocial Research Institute of the AutonomousUniversity of Mexico (UNAM) and Direc-tor of the University’s Programme on CityStudies. Professor of Post-Graduate Studieson Political Science and Urban Studies atUNAM. Member of the Academy of Sci-ences of Mexico. Member of CLACSO’sWorking Group on Poverty and SocialPolicies. Email: ziccardi@puec.unam.mx;ziccardi@unam.mx

been and still are very seri-ous social problems that havebeen addressed in numer-ous in-depth social and urbanresearch studies. This has par-ticularly been the case overthe last three decades, dur-ing which cities underwent arapid and profound transfor-mation faced with the needto repurpose urban spaces toadapt them to the demandsof the global economy. Thesesame globalised economic and social processesin turn take on new connotations when oneexplores the rapid and profound transformationsthat have occurred in large cities and, as will beshown, amplify structural inequalities and createnew asymmetries in access to urban goods andservices.

In this regard, taking an ecological-territorialperspective, our unit of analysis is a megalopo-lis: Mexico City, a central space that serves themain function of articulating the national andthe international economy, while still being thehub of the country’s economic, social, culturaland political life. Generally speaking, this largemetropolis has modified its urban morphology

∗I would like to thank Cynthia Gomez Camargo for hersupport in the data gathering process, and Alvaro Paipillafor the preparation of the maps contained in this paper.

significantly to repurpose it in response to therequirements of the global economy, giving riseto a major metropolitan urban region: a sprawlingmegacity with blurred boundaries, a new urban

region typical of the post-Fordism city and generatingnew territorial inequalities.To address this issue, I havestructured my paper in threeparts. The first part revisitsthe concepts of urban periph-ery, poverty, inequality andresidential segregation in thecontext of the megalopolis.The second part addressesthe attributes of these newurban macro regions, the

main urban spaces that enable certain segments ofthe local economy to articulate with the globaleconomy. The third part attempts to exemplifyand illustrate how these demographic, socioe-conomic and territorial processes are expressedin Mexico City, which over recent decades hasshown a strong process of expansion and peri-urbanisation, lending a particular dynamic tosocioeconomic and territorial inequalities, and evi-dencing strong processes of residential segregationin the vast territory of its large urban regions.

Urban peripheries: poverty,inequality and residentialsegregation

In the study of large Latin American cities, theissue of urban peripheries inhabited by popular

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sectors, low-income populations, has been one ofthe hot topics of urban sociology, anthropology andpolitical science in the region, particularly since the1960s. These popular neighbourhoods, slums, werethe key observatory for the controversial concept“culture of poverty” proposed by Oscar Lewis(1961); for the debates on the theory of marginalitysparked mainly by Jose Nun (1969) and FernandoHenrique Cardoso (1971); for the political potentialthat Gino Germani (1967, 1971) linked with thesepoor urban dwellers in his studies on populism andPeronism; and for the pioneering work of ManuelCastells (1974), Jordi Borja (1975) and Ziccardi(1983, 1985) on urban social movements as the newactors driving changes in the city.

The urban peripheries of various Latin Ameri-can cities, then called “favelas”, “villas miseria”,“callampas” (slums or shanty towns) or popularneighbourhoods, had a common trait: they wereurban settlements built on the outer edges of tra-ditional market mechanisms, often as a result ofinvasions or processes that were tolerated by theparty in office, as was the case for Mexican cities.However, the common attribute in all these expe-riences is that they were processes led by workersfrom rural areas, who came to the city in searchof better work opportunities and living conditionsfor their families. For that reason, according toGino Germani (1967), a renowned sociologist ofthat time, the city was a mechanism of socialintegration that served a double purpose: on theone hand, it enabled the geographic integrationof society, and on the other, it enabled the socialintegration associated with participation, mobilityand marginality, the latter being understood bythe author from an ecological and psychosocialperspective.

However, it is worth noting that the city was atthat time a space that provided mechanisms of socialintegration, including education, healthcare andaccess to communication media. This integration,as mentioned, was possible because migrants joinedthe work force in an informal way, with low salaries,no social security, and enduring precarious housingconditions in peripheral tenements or settlements.That is, the inhabitants of these popular neighbour-hoods did not accomplish a full integration into theproduction system (Cardoso 1971; Nun 1969) andconsequently were unable to take part in the labourunions that were gaining social and political weight.On the contrary, these popular sectors developed a

different type of social organisation that was createdbased on their place of residence, and which enabledthem to improve their rundown houses and to accessbasic facilities and services. Additionally, in somecases, such as the favelas in Rio or the slums inBuenos Aires, they connected with broader socialmovements or political parties, paving the way forthe emergence of new social leaderships (Ziccardi1983, 1984).

In the case of Mexico City, this processoccurred later on, and had particular traits, asit was in the 1980s that a popular urban move-ment emerged and thrived, giving rise to leaderswho later joined leftist parties, mainly the Demo-cratic Revolution Party (Partido de la RevolucionDemocratica, PRD) and Labour Party (Partidodel Trabajo, PT). Now, many of these popularneighbourhoods, mainly located in the periphery,have been assimilated into the city, are within thepolitical-administrative boundaries of the federalcapital, have improved housing conditions, haveaccessed basic infrastructure and equipment, andhave better commuting and public transportation,even though their environmental and social contextcontinues to be problematic (Alvarez and Ziccardi2015; Ziccardi 1995). In this context, the mainfactors contributing to the persistence of a certaindegree of precariousness are: the lack of publicand private investment, the limited wages earnedby these workers, adverse orographic conditions,peripheral locations coupled with residential segre-gation, a lack or poor quality of basic and commongoods (such as water, utilities or public spaces) anda dubious legal title. However, in spite of all theseprocesses, an overall positive view of communitylife and social organisation has prevailed in thesepopular sectors as a way to overcome materialhardships (Alvarez 2004).

Additionally, the city is an agglomeration ofpopulation and activities that theoretically offersa set of collective goods and services to thepopulation at large, with a certain independencefrom the capacity of appropriation of individualsin the market. For that reason, the city generatesthe capabilities that individuals require for theirsocial functioning (education, healthcare, housing),as Amartya Sen (2001) defined it. However, the cityis an asset with a high social and collective value, aswell as a space in which access to, and the quality of,basic goods and services are marked by profoundinequalities.

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Thus, in Latin American cities, the provi-sioning of collective goods, far from being equi-table, has been historically characterised by theserious conditions of prevailing urban poverty andsocial inequality. Additionally, one of the spatialeffects triggered by the neoliberal economic poli-cies applied over the past four decades is thatcities have become divided spaces, fragmented andsegmented (Fainstein et al. 1992; Jacobs 1992). Itis fair to say that, even though these are distinctivefeatures of Latin American cities, at present theytend to be aggravated (Ziccardi 2009).

Furthermore, in recent years some observersof cities in the region have considered that the strongchanges noticed in the morphology of urban space –which will bear the hallmark of the new Informa-tion Society – are the result of a combination ofendogenous factors, of a structural, cultural andhistorical nature, and exogenous factors, typical ofa globalised world (Borja 2003; Castells 1998; DeMattos 2002; Ziccardi 2009). These factors tendto homogenise the urban landscape with their newways of organising production and consumption,including original designs in office blocks andlarge malls that represent forms of private sectorappropriation of public spaces. At the same time, inthe era of inequality, the cities are themselves theproducers of new territorial and urban inequalitiesand this is to a large extent associated with thepersistence of poverty conditions that affect the vastmajority of working-class families (Reygadas andZiccardi 2010).

This calls for an analysis of the relations thatexist between inequality and poverty, understandingpoverty not only as an economic phenomenon butalso as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon:a process of deprivation and scarcity of social, cul-tural, institutional, territorial and political resourcesparticularly affecting the low-income sectors. It isalso important to acknowledge a kind of povertythat is associated mainly, though not exclusively,with the conditions of insertion that prevail inthe labour market, namely: instability, informality,low wages, labour precariousness, unemployment.That urban poverty, according to Townsend (1970,2003), is a relative poverty, as in cities there is ahistorically and socially accepted standard of living,and it is based on that standard of living that thedistribution of resources should be evaluated, ratherthan considering only income. For that reason, itshould be noted that to take part in the market

and in society, particularly urban society, the bareminimum to meet nourishment needs is not enough:educational and healthcare possibilities should beguaranteed, as well as access to property and infras-tructure (particularly housing and communicationand transportation means) for people to be able tofunction and circulate in the society they belong to.

From the perspective of the conditions thatcreate inequality in cities, there is no functionaldistribution of these goods, resources and capaci-ties; on the contrary, they are distributed in a highlyinequitable way. In a previous paper coauthoredwith Luis Reygadas (2010), we mentioned that ina modernizing context there is no unique trendregarding inequality (Pipitone 2002) and this is trueparticularly in the case of Mexico City, where thereare processes that encourage rights to the city andin which more social equity conditions are created,for instance: the growing empowerment of women,the greater visibility of and attention to demandsof indigenous communities, the presence of neworganisations of people with different abilities orsexual orientations, young people regaining spacesfor culture and entertainment, better living stan-dards for adults, and refurbished public spaces forsocial life (Alvarez and Ziccardi 2015). At the sametime there are new economic and social dynamicsthat perpetuate or even aggravate the old inequali-ties, intertwined with the new dynamics, as sourcesof inequality and exclusion, such as different formsof work precariousness, the emergence of newsocial exclusion practices, the increase of violenceand insecurity, the strong economic criminalityrates, and the frailty of a local democracy thatslowly progresses towards the construction of socialforces that will be capable of neutralising the currentsocial polarity (Reygadas and Ziccardi 2010).

In the case of extreme inequality in access,and particularly the lack of consistency in thequality of collective urban goods and services, oneof the effects is the intensification or aggravationof socioeconomic fragmentation (Suarez, Ruız andDelgado 2012). Inhabiting a settlement or popularneighbourhood in the periphery not only entailsaccess to scarce, substandard urban goods, or wast-ing many hours to commute from home to work or toschool, but these processes of territorial segregationalso often generate a social stigma that encumbersthe processes of work force insertion and socialintegration of workers living in those areas (Bayon2012; Lindon 2007). This is clearly linked with the

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analyses that identified the so-called “poverty traps”mentioned by Kate Bird, Kate Higgins and DanHarris (2010), which, the authors claim, explainthe persistence of poverty – a relevant fact tounderstanding the causes of poverty persistenceamong the indigenous people in the city.

From another point of view, Stewart andLanger (2012) propose the concept of horizontalinequalities, which « refers to inequalities between‘culturally’ defined groups such as ethnic, reli-gious and caste-based groups or between differentregions. Horizontal inequalities encompass multi-ple dimensions – political, social, economic andcultural status» (Langer and Stewart 2012, p.665).This territorial reality may be reinterpreted usingthis concept of horizontal inequalities given that it isin the spaces where the condition of poverty is com-pounded by the social exclusion and discriminationsuffered by the indigenous population. Differentauthors have also analysed the accumulation ofsocial disadvantages that the Mexican indigenouspopulation suffers, particularly in the case of the so-called “indigenous peoples” of Mexico City (Yanes2009; Alvarez and Ramırez Kuri, 2012).

On the other hand, in the case of Mexico Cityand other cities in the country, there have beenself-produced peripheral popular neighbourhoodsfor decades, which have consolidated and offera relatively good quality of life. However, newperipheries, neighbourhoods or settlements haverecently emerged, in areas that are farther awayfrom the main city. Many of these urbanisationsare the result of the new production, financing andsubsidy policies for the provision of new socialinterest housing that typically offers a substandardquality of life, with no public spaces or urbanfacilities, and requiring expensive commuting andsocial costs from its inhabitants (Ziccardi 2015).

Additionally, these neighbourhoods oftencompromise the natural environment, as they areusually established in conservation areas and lackfacilities, with insufficient or poor quality services(Imaz, Camacho and Ruiz 2011). The creation ofthese large social housing areas serves a double pur-pose: on the one hand, to reduce, from a quantitativeperspective, the housing deficit, mainly by movingthe financial resources of wage-earners availablefrom social security housing agencies, and on theother, to facilitate the action of real estate agentsand construction companies that seek maximumprofits, so they frequently build massive hous-

ing projects in areas where no city infrastructureexists.

This leads us to emphasise that it is govern-mental policies that create processes of territorialinequality and residential segregation, as well asnew forms of urbanisation of the territory thatreproduce a dispersed city pattern, dissociated fromthe consolidated urban structure (Ziccardi 2015).However, there is not only a process of residentialsegregation of popular sectors, there is also a pro-cess of self-segregation of high-income sectors thatchoose to live in the so-called “gated” neighbour-hoods, In this case, they seek not only a house tolive in and quality infrastructure, but also security,an appropriate environment and the symbolic valueof being among equals sharing socialisation andliving codes.

It would be fair to say that when both processescoexist, the city stops serving its purpose of beinga mechanism of social integration (Germani 1967),as all these habitation forms create new territorialinequalities. Therefore, one must insist that thesenew peripheries that are the outcome of differentsegregation processes or, as Soldano (2008) said,“territory insulation” processes, are growing andexpanding in cities. In accordance with these pro-cesses, instead of witnessing the development of acitizenship that carries the concept of city of rights,city with meeting points, socialisation and urbancoexistence, one observes citizens withdrawing intotheir privacy, creating a setting that promotes urbanviolence and insecurity. This happens even whenthere are experiences that highlight the value ofcommunity life, the existence and collective use ofpublic spaces in neighbourhoods, settlements andtowns around the city, and make new processesand ways of citizen involvement relevant, with aview to counteracting the disintegration trends ofthe twenty-first-century city1 (Ziccardi 2012b).

The new urban morphologyof megacities

Now the focus turns to the relationship betweenthis perspective and the new urban, disperse anddiffuse forms that characterise megacities, particu-larly Mexico City. Large metropolitan regions aremarked by processes of residential segregation andurban fragmentation that amplify socioeconomicand structural inequalities. In this regard, there aredifferent perspectives of analysis that address the

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issues inherent in this new urban form, emphasisingvarying kinds of occupation and use of the urbanspace, evidencing processes and phenomena sharedby different megacities. It is important to note herethe contributions that offer elements to enrich thesocio-spatial analysis.

From a geographic perspective, the first traitof large urban regions mentioned by Castells is thepresence of a new spatial architecture built by globalnetworks connecting both the main metropolitanareas and their areas of influence (Castells 2012,p.39). This new spatial configuration, termed the“metropolitan urban region” or “polycentric mega-lopolis”, is a structure that has different hierarchiesacross centres and sub-centres, where activities tendto be disconnected and services sprawl across avast territory, with mixed urban and rural landsor environmental uses, and where the boundariesof functionality are quite blurred. In this regard,the classic urban versus rural distinction no longerholds because the conversion of rural to urbanuse is accelerated concurrently with processes ofde-industrialisation and service outsourcing, whichrepresent both advanced and informal servicesthat are tightly linked with Latin American cities.The existence of better transportation to shortendistances is a phenomenon associated with theprocesses triggered by urban expansion, creatingnew nodes of activity and population that in away are integrated with the physical, territorial andfunctional perspectives (Castells 2012; Oriol Nel-lo1998).

In connection with the above, the scale ofurban analysis is modified. In accordance withDematteis (1998, p.32), the new urban periphery“appears, on a macro scale, as one large structurespreading like a network, while on the micro scale,each ‘node’ of this network reveals specific char-acters and particular identities”. These new spatialconfigurations are the result of a regional ratherthan urban-based urbanisation which, according toAguilar, promotes new forms of centrality markedby socioeconomic fragmentation and urban poly-centrism (Aguilar 2004; Aguilar and Lozano 2012).

In this context, new demands for spatial jus-tice have emerged. They were studied by EdwardSoja (2010), who focused on the so-called post-metropolis. He refers to the transition from theconventional notion of “modern metropolis” to aradically different entity: “a variety of new post-modern forms and guidelines of urban life involving

a shift from a Keynesian and Fordist mass pro-duction and consumption system, concentrated inlarge urban regions . . . to Post-Fordism systems offlexible industrialization, with an intensive use ofinformation” (Soja 2010, p.215).

We should consider the intensification ofurban segregation processes, defined by Sabatini(2006) as the “spatial agglomeration of familiesfrom the same social stratum, regardless of howsocial differences are defined”. As this authorpoints out, this implies recognising two objectivedimensions: (1) the degree of spatial concentrationof social groups, and (2) the social homogeneitythat the various internal areas of cities represent.This is also intertwined with the social conse-quences of these territorial processes, which havebeen analysed by Kaztman (2011), who arguesthat residential segregation, work segmentation andeducational segmentation can mutually leveragetheir effects on the “social and progressive isolationof the urban poor” (Kaztman 2011, p.183).2

And finally, although it is only to point tothe fact, without elaborating on it, metropolitangovernance of a multi-scalar system like this one,in a context of weakening of the national state,is an extremely complex endeavour, because theterritory has been reorganised strategically, creatingother territorial hierarchies without introducing newforms of local and metropolitan government. Forthat reason, these phenomena call for processes ofinstitutional and social innovation to reconstruct inother spheres – more virtually than in-person – thenecessary identity and feeling of belonging amongcitizens (Sassen 2011).

In summary, in these macro urban scenariosthere is a concentration and dispersion of theactivities that create material wealth, and newforms of urban expansion appear, made up by aconstellation of small cities, centres or nodes thatare even farther apart from consolidated urbancenters, where the centrality of the foundationalcity settled. In fact, this is what Francois Ascher(2004) summarised in his concept metapolis: “largesprawling conurbations, extensive and discontin-ued, heterogeneous and multi-polarized” (Ascher2004, p.57). In this context, this article analysesspecifically the territorial dimension of poverty andinequality, a phenomenon that has been little studiedin Mexico, especially with regard to the complexand dynamic metropolitan region of the Valley ofMexico.

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MAP 1. Population growth rates in the valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area, 2000–2010Source: University Program for City Studies at UNAM (Programa Universitario de Estudios sobre la Ciudad, PUEC-UNAM),2015, based on INEGI data, 2000, 2010, Population and Housing Census

The new morphology of theurban metropolitan region ofMexico City

Processes of demographic growth,re-densification of the central city andperipheral dispersion

Mexico City’s morphology shows an urban macrometropolitan region that in 2010 had 21 million

inhabitants in 16 delegations of the Federal District,59 surrounding municipalities in Mexico State and21 municipalities in Hidalgo State. Of the total,over half (53 per cent) of the population lives insurrounding municipalities of Mexico State, 42 percent in the Federal District, and 5 per cent in HidalgoState municipalities.

As Map 1 shows, the highest growth rates(from 6.24 to 11.29 per cent) between 2000 and2010 appear in the second crown of the northern

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ring, in the remote periphery away from the centralcity, particularly in the municipalities of Acolman,Tecamac, Tizayuca, Huehuetoca, in the east of Chi-coloapan municipality, and in Mineral de Reforma,in Hidalgo State.

Interestingly this urban morphology hasterritorial expansion as one of its main attributes.According to the Metropolitan Area of the Valleyof Mexico Planning Programme (Programa deOrdenacion de la Zona Metropolitana del Vallede Mexico, POZMVM, 2012), prepared by agroup of National Autonomous University ofMexico (Universidad Nacional Autonoma deMexico, UNAM) academics, the total growth ofthe urban surface between 2005 and 2010 was18,800 hectares, of which 16,500 hectares werethe result of peripheral sprawl of both new formaland informal settlements. The remaining 2,300hectares were the result of the process of inclusionof rural locations into urban locations by 2010.Most of this expansion occurred in Mexico Statemunicipalities, accounting for 68 per cent, whileHidalgo municipalities accounted for 31 per cent.Conversely, the Federal District or central city onlyrepresented 1 per cent of that growth.3

The expansion of metropolitan urban growth,as mentioned, is evident in the emergence of a newdisperse spatial architecture, as for 40 years thepopulation in the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico Val-ley (ZMVM) increased 1.42 times, while its urbansurface increased 3.57 times (CONAPO, 2012).Furthermore, inside the megacity there are patternsof both dispersion and concentration in nodes thatcorrespond to the traditional demographic nuclei ofa cultural ethnic origin, such as indigenous people,and new centres and sub-centres of economic activ-ity or concentration of low density households.

In a way, this pattern of urban expansionresponds to the double movement mentioned byManuel Castells in the sense that the metropolitanregion is the result of two interrelated processes: the“sprawling decentralization of large cities towardsadjacent towns” and the “interconnection of pre-existing towns, whose territories become integratedthrough new communication capabilities” (Castells2012, p.41).

In this region, on the one hand, the FederalDistrict is no longer capable of expanding itsurban borders without further affecting the naturalenvironment, so a process of re-densification ofthe central areas and consolidation of some of

the closest peripheral areas has started. On theother hand, it should be noted that, even thoughthere are certain municipalities in Mexico Statethat are inhabited by the popular sectors that haveconsolidated, such as Ecatepec, Valle de Chalcoand Ixtapaluca, in recent years a new peripheryhas been formed that is farther away, configuringa pattern of urbanisation characterised by low den-sity and uneven growth, with an average heightof two storeys, offering a seamless urban-rurallandscape without clear boundaries. The lack ofquality public transport and the presence of inef-ficient infrastructure and equipment have led to asituation in which the central city continues to be themain reference of economic, business and financialcentrality (POZMVM, 2012), even when there arenodes generated by other centralities, as is the caseof Santa Fe on the borders of the Cuajimalpa andAlvaro Obregon delegations.

The massive production of housing in theremote periphery, residential segregationand urban fragmentation

In this new urban reality, housing developmentshave represented the main engine of dispersaland low-quality demographic growth. Houses arebuilt with different quality and size parameters,depending on the type of market – private, public,social – and the socioeconomic level they cater for.Although there is a large supply of high-quality realestate targeted at the middle and mid-high segmentsin the central areas, in the urban peripheries there isa reconfiguration of supply, based on the construc-tion of exclusive high-class gated neighbourhoodson the one hand, and massive production of socialhousing for mid-low and low-income sectors on theother.

In this regard, starting with the PAN adminis-trations, in 2000 the National Housing Commission(Comision Nacional de Vivienda) was established,and the public agencies that manage workers’housing funds were restructured – National Work-ers Housing Fund Institute (Instituto del FondoNacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores,INFONAVIT), Housing Fund of the Institute ofSecurity and Social Services for State Workers(Fondo de la Vivienda del Instituto de Seguridady Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado,FOVISSSTE), Military Housing Fund (Fondo parala Vivienda Militar, FOVIMI) – with the goal of

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introducing a protected housing market that hasemphasised the creation of new houses, financ-ing developments with poor quality housing andfrequently lacking public services and utilities.The grounds for this policy is the prioritisationof financial criteria that subordinate the quality ofhousing to the reduction of the quantitative housinggap and to business profit. In other words, the issueof housing, which has historically been at the coreof social policies of Mexico, is nowadays primarilyconceived as part of the economic policies thatgenerate low-wage employment (Ziccardi 2015,p.57). The surplus generated by converting ruralland at very low prices into urban uses is notcontrolled by public housing agencies, unlike othercities in Latin America that enable a redistributionof the surplus to create better living conditions in thenew developments or other popular neighbourhoodsof the city.

This is an important observation because, asHarvey (2013) claims, the only way to create acity is to appropriate the surplus, whatever itsorigin, and to redistribute it to produce the worksand facilities required to provide equitable andquality urban development, with the aim of mak-ing the right to the city effective for citizens atlarge.

In ZMVM in 2010, 6.5 million houseswere counted, an estimated a quarter of which(26 per cent) was built over the previous five years(2005–2010). Of these houses, more than half werelocated in the large metropolitan municipalitiesof Mexico State, mainly in Tecamac, Huehuetocaand Zumpango, in the northern crown, which haddemographic growth rates of over 6 per cent(Tecamac, Huehuetoca) and over 3 per cent(Zumpango).

They are macro-housing compounds of low-density single-family dwellings in remote locationsentailing time-consuming and expensive commut-ing, which in turn represents higher urbanisationcosts that have to be assumed by local governmentswithout guaranteeing that they have the institutionaland financial capacities to do so. These processesare drivers of residential and socioeconomic segre-gation in the urban space, separating communitiesof various characteristics and housing systems, butwith one key attribute: offering living conditionsthat are in stark contrast with the central city,particularly in terms of access to quality urbangoods and services.

For that reason, Adrian Aguilar (2004) pro-vides an accurate description: “urban developmenthas changed the geographic scale of segregation”,intensifying at the micro scale based on the devel-opment of “urban pockets that are isolated fromeach other”. Meanwhile, at the metropolitan orregional scale, there is a “residential segregation ofthe poorest groups”, some of which have remainedin the inner core of the city, while others have beenpushed to the periphery, as the value of central landshas systematically increased.

That process has paved the way for an unprece-dented social phenomenon: the response of familiesfrom the underprivileged sectors, who cannot affordthe high transportation costs and the instalmentsfor acquiring title to the property, has been theabandonment of the houses. House abandonment isexplained by a range of reasons: job loss, insecurity,poor facilities and poor community life. However,the main cause is the remote location of theselarge housing complexes coupled with the poorliving conditions, both in terms of infrastructureand in terms of the natural and social surround-ings (Ziccardi and Gonzalez 2015, p.54). Thatexplains why at present there are hundreds ofthousands of uninhabited houses. In some cases,to avoid paying for the house, residents quit theirjobs and go back to the predicament of find-ing a place to live in. Undoubtedly, this is anunequivocal indicator of a housing policy thatis at odds with the “success” that is proclaimedin speeches extolling the advantages of the newfinancial model adopted by the government in thisarea.4

According to the National Statistics and Geog-raphy Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadısticay Geografıa, INEGI) estimates (2010), in the Valleyof Mexico area, 403,971 houses are uninhabited.Over half are located in municipalities of Mex-ico State (58 per cent), including Huehuetoca,Zumpango, Nextlalpan and Tecamac. In the FederalDistrict, there are 211,245 uninhabited houses,mainly in the Cuauhtemoc and Miguel Hidalgo del-egations, and there are 78,959 uninhabited housesin the municipalities of Hidalgo State: Tizayuca,Tolcayuca, Mineral de la Reforma, Zempoala andAtotonilco de Tula, where more than a quarter ofhouses are uninhabited.

Housing agencies have designed programmesto recover this housing stock, but there is no guar-antee that the quality of houses will be improved

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or that access to public transportation or publicservices and facilities will be granted. In fact, forthe purposes of this study, the effort to produceperipheral social housing is one of the most distinc-tive signs of this new spatial architecture, which atthe regional scale increases structural inequalities,leading to intense residential segregation processesand prevalence of poverty.

The process of urbanisationof poverty versusincome inequality

According to the National Council of Social Devel-opment Policy Evaluation (Consejo Nacional deEvaluacion de la Polıtica de Desarrollo Social,CONEVAL, 2010), 46.26 per cent of the Mexicanpopulation as a whole lives in a situation of poverty,while in ZMVM the percentage is 34.71 per cent,but in round numbers it represents 7 million peopleliving in conditions of poverty. The phenomenon ismore acute inside ZMVM and at the municipalityor delegation level, where a very high percentage ofthe population (over 55 per cent) live in multidimen-sional poverty conditions. As shown on Map 2 thehighest levels of concentration of poverty are foundin the metropolitan municipalities of the states ofMexico and Hidalgo.

� Mexico State. Southeast: Atlautla, Ecatzingo,Ozumba, Tepetlixpa and Juchitepec; east: Vallede Chalco, Chimalhuacan, Atenco, Tezoyucaand Chinconcuac; northeast: Axapusco, Temas-calapa and Otumba; north: Hueypoxtla, Apaxco,Tequixquiac, Coyotepec and Nextlalpan; andwest, Villa del Carbon.

� Hidalgo State. Eight of the 21 municipalitiescomprised in ZMVM have very high percentagesof the population in multidimensional povertyconditions. It is interesting to point out that theyare adjacent to the municipalities of Mexico Statethat have a high multidimensional poverty score.These are: Ajacuba, Tetepango, Tlahuelilpan,Tlaxcoapan, Tezontepec de Aldama, Mixqui-huala de Juarez; Zapotlan de Juarez and Villade Tezontepec.

Conversely, the lowest poverty levels arefound in the political delegations inside the Fed-eral District: (in white) Coyoacan, Benito Juarez,Cuauhtemoc, Azcapotzalco, Miguel Hidalgo and

Cuajimalpa de Morelos; the municipalities of Cuau-titlan and Coacalco in Mexico State, and Mineralde la Reforma, in Hidalgo (Map 2).

However, using the marginalisation indexprovided by the National Population Council(Consejo Nacional de Poblacion, CONAPO) itis possible to conduct an analysis on a smallerscale which, in turn, allows for the identificationof pockets of poverty in which people live in com-munities that are part of the Valley of Mexico andwhere they endure the accumulation of socio-economic, territorial and cultural disadvantages.According to this marginality index, in 2010slightly less than half (48 per cent) of ZMVMlocations reported high and very high marginalityscores. These are concentrated mainly in the urbanareas close to conservation areas, both in theFederal District and in Mexico State and also inmunicipalities of Hidalgo State combining ruraland urban activities. They comprise the delegationsin the south of the Federal District – Milpa Alta,Tlahuac, Xochimilco and Tlalpan (on the borderof conservation soil) – and the municipalities ofMexico State located in the vicinity of conservationareas of Sierra Nevada and Sierra de las Cruces.Thus, it is clear that the vast territory of the urbanregion of Mexico City is sprinkled with locationsor constellations of locations with very highmarginality scores.

In Mexico State there is a concentration oflocations with very high marginality scores in theeast and west. At least 21 municipalities in thisState have very high marginality in their territories:Axapusco, in the east, and Villa del Carbon, in thewest, are the municipalities with the highest numberof locations with very high marginality rates. Inthe case of Hidalgo, most of the municipalities inZMVM, have locations with very high marginality;in Tepeji del Rıo and Tezontepec de Aldama, onthe western limit of the region, there are eight andsix of them, respectively; in the east, Epazoyucanalso has six locations with very high marginal-ity. In the Federal District, in the three southerndelegations –Tlalpan, Milpa Alta and Xochimilco– there are locations with very high marginalityscores and these are places inhabited by indigenouspeople.5 Thus, “they are more likely to be notonly income poor (poverty headcount) but alsoseverely and chronically poor (poverty gap andpoverty duration)” (Bird, Higgins and Harris 2010,p.4).

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MAP 2. Multidimensional poverty in the valley of Mexico Metropolitan Area, 2010Source: PUEC-UNAM, 2015 with CONEVAL data, Multidimensional Measurement of Poverty, 2010

In the same way, in the metropolitan areaof the Valley of Mexico there are processes ofhorizontal inequality, particularly in places inhab-ited by the indigenous population where conditionsof socio-economic poverty and uneven access topublic goods and services are worse. Thus, theindigenous population living in localities with highand very high levels of marginalisation represents4.7 per cent, more than twice the percentage of thenon-indigenous population living in such localities(1.79 per cent) (CDI, 2010).

It has also been noted that in Mexican munic-ipalities predominantly inhabited by indigenouspeoples, social conditions of poverty and backward-ness (Puyana 2015; Puyana and Murillo 2012) aswell as conditions of horizontal inequality (Stewart

and Langer 2012) prevail. However, in the caseof the ZMVM, where the indigenous populationrepresents less than 4 per cent of the total, mostof them show medium, low or very low levelsof marginalisation (CDI, 2010). This suggests thatthe urban indigenous population experiences fewerhardships than the indigenous populations living inother locations in Mexico (Yanes 2009).

Now, if we consider only the dimensions ofmultidimensional poverty according to CONEVALin the territorial and spatial dimension of analysis, itcan be observed that unmet needs in housing qualityand space affect slightly over 2 million inhabitants(approximately 10 per cent of the total).6 Themunicipalities of Mexico State with the highestconcentration of these unmet needs are located in

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the southeast: Amecameca, Atlautla and Ecatzingo;in the east: Valle de Chalco Solidaridad and Chimal-huacan; and in the centre-north, the municipality ofNextlalpan.

Although to a lesser extent, the lack of basicservices for houses also affects 7% of the ZMVMpopulation, which represents approximately1.5 million inhabitants.7 A major proportion isconcentrated in the southeast of Mexico State, inthe Ecatzingo municipality, and in the west, in Villadel Carbon. Of note, the main indicators on accessto water services reveal a highly heterogeneousmetropolitan reality, even inside the FederalDistrict (Gonzalez and Ziccardi, 2013; Graizbordand Sotelo, 2012).

Broadly speaking, it is in the east and southeastof ZMVM that the most acute infrastructure deficitsoccur, where the highest vulnerability conditionsand lowest quality public spaces and housing ser-vices are found, while the central city concentratesthe best urban infrastructure and facilities, indicat-ing the profound inequalities that exist in terms ofquality of life between the inhabitants of the twoareas.

Decline in income inequalityand widening of urbaninequality

Going back to what Ramiro Segura observedabout Latin American cities, considering that weare confronted with a “complex and paradoxicalscenario”, marked by a “(moderate) reduction ofincome inequality, an (accelerated) continuity offragmented urbanization and a (significant) deep-ening of the housing problem” (Segura 2015, p.80),it may be argued that, beyond the specificitieslinked with the local reality, these processes seemto reappear in the urban metropolitan region in theValley of Mexico (zona metropolitana del Valle deMexico, ZMVM).

As in other Latin American cities, between1990 and 2010 a moderate decrease in incomeinequality is observed in the municipalities anddelegations comprised in ZMVM, as measured bythe Gini coefficient. However, in each municipalityand delegation different trends can be identified.In 1990, most of the delegations of the FederalDistrict presented conditions of high and very highinequality. Between 1990 and 2000 there was a

steady decrease of inequality in 13 of the 16delegations, while Alvaro Obregon, Tlahuac andXochimilco showed rising inequality in the period.In the subsequent period, 2000–2010, their inequal-ity decreased to below the levels reported in 1990. In2010, 15 delegations reported “relative inequality”and one was considered to have moderate inequality(Tlahuac).8

As regards municipalities in Mexico State,most saw increased inequalities between 1990 and2000, but a decade later this trend was moderatelyreversed. It should be noted that most of the Mex-ico State municipalities were rated as “moderateinequality” in 1990, and the only municipality with“extreme inequality” in ZMVM was Huixquilu-can, a municipality adjacent to Cuajimalpa whereSanta Fe is located, a venue for advanced services(banking and IT), a residential area for businesselites and the private education system. Althoughthis municipality has steadily reduced its inequalitylevels, in 2010 it had the highest inequality levelsinside ZMVM, jointly with Papalotla and twomunicipalities in Hidalgo State (Atitalalquia andMineral de la Reforma), which were categorized as“high inequality” (Fig. 1).

However, in the inequitable distribution of andaccess to urban services, infrastructure and utilities,it can be observed that inequality as measured by theGini coefficient hides the profound divides existingin the megacity. The coefficient should be taken asa preliminary indicator, as results vary substantiallydepending on the spatial scale considered. That is,inequitable distribution of city goods and servicesrequires analysing other sources of data as well asfieldwork.

Conclusions

In conclusion, it would be fair to claim thatmetropolitan growth in Mexico Valley wastriggered by intense peri-urbanisation and poly-centralisation processes, as well as residentialsegregation and fragmentation of the urbanstructure (Aguilar and Hernandez 2012, p.204).It is a metropolitan zone with a central city thatstill concentrates the greatest part of the activitiesand employment, with a poly-centric morphologythat is fragmented from the periphery, as well asintense processes of residential segregation acrosssocial classes or groups, which should be studiedthrough fieldwork.

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216 Alicia Ziccardi

FIGURE 1. Number of ZMVM municipalities, by federative entity and inequality level, 1990, 2000, 2010Source: own analysis, based on CONEVAL data, 2010

However, we may give some conclusions aris-ing from this analysis of the urban region of MexicoCity, as follows.

� Throughout the territory, there are regions ofpoverty that comprise the native communi-ties and the popular settlements that are self-produced by low-income sectors, and at the otherextreme, there are nodes with a quality of lifethat is suitable for the middle sector, as wellas luxury housing for consumption of the upperclass. Such is the urban landscape of inequalitythat is observable on a daily basis.

� The new urban configuration has intensifiedstructural inequalities and created new asymme-tries in the absence of public policies to over-come the institutional and financial obstacles oflocal governments that prevent the distributionof quality urban goods and services for thepopulation at large.

� The process of expansion of the urban region ofMexico City, led by the technical elites asso-ciated with the projects of the business elite,has not been tied to a concept of spatial justicethat takes action to redistribute surplus and thusimprove the standard of living of popular sectors,including people who have accessed their home

either informally or through a loan from a publicfinancing institution. There is no evidence eitherof any inclusion of the ideas that have emergedin the international sphere to build a new agendafor common development post 2015, such as theSustainable Development Goals, in particular,Goal 11: Make cities and human settlementsinclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.9

� The construction of housing projects in theperiphery of Mexico City has been a key driverof the urban expansion reported over the pastdecade. However, this has not necessarily meantan improvement in terms of urban equity insidethe macro region, because many houses werebuilt in remote peripheries and very few werebuilt in the city.

� Although a moderate decrease in incomeinequality is observed in the large region overthe past decade, probably as a result of themass production of housing for low and mediumincome wage earners, this necessarily implies theachievement of a better quality of life, comparinglife in a popular settlement or in a neighborhoodin the central urban zone of the city.

� Finally, all of the above creates a megac-ity with complex urban governance and majordifficulties to achieve efficient and effective

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territory management (Cabrero and Montiel2012). Therefore, it is essential to promoteinclusive and sustainable urbanisation, and todevelop participatory planning and managementcapabilities in the territories.10 In this regard,urban research conducted on Mexican cities muststill explain why, unlike other Latin American

countries, there is a weak presence of socialmovements that seek redress for spatial justicegrievances, and the right to the city. Only in thisway will we be able to ascertain more preciselythe extent to which the territorial dimension gainsrelevance in the analysis of social inequality andsocial transformation processes.

Notes

1. This refers in particular to theFederal District Government’sNeighborhood ImprovementCommunity Program.

2. Kaztman argues that thedevelopment of “marginalsubcultures” feeds the isolation ofthe poor. In this respect he draws adistinction between Lewis’s “cultureof poverty” referring to a “legacy ofvalues and standards that helps tounderstand the persistence ofpoverty” and the establishment of“marginal subcultures” as “areaction to structural conditioningsthat come from the functioning ofthe market, the State and society,i.e., one of the results of theprogressive sedimentation ofadaptive responses faced with a setof negative factors converging in aprecarious and segregated medium”(Kaztman 2011, p.184).

3. This is shown by comparing thecartography of the MunicipalGeostatistical Framework (MarcoGeoestadıstico Municipal, MGM,urban locations) of 2005 and 2010,according to INEGI, andquantifying this (POZMVM, 2012).

4. See, among others, agroundbreaking study of

uninhabited houses in Mexico bySalazar and Sanchez (2011).

5. It should be noted that alllocations reporting extremely highmarginality in 2010 have a commontrait: they are small locations, withfewer than 2,500 inhabitants.

6. Populations with housing qualityand space deficiencies mean peopleliving in dwellings that have at leastone of the following traits: (1) Floormaterial is earth. (2) Roof materialis cardboard or discarded materials.(3) Wall material is mud orwattle-and-daub (bajareque); reedgrass, bamboo or palm tree;cardboard, metal or asbestos sheets,or discarded materials. (4) The ratioof people per room (overcrowding)is higher than 2.5 (CONEVAL,2010).

7. Unmet needs for basic housingservices refer to situations in whichwater is obtained from a well, river,lake, stream or tanker, or is carriedfrom another house or from thepublic tap or hose. Additionally, itmeans there is no drainage systemavailable, or the drainage system hasa connection to a pipe that leads toriver, lake, sea, ravine or crevice.Additionally, there is no supply of

electricity and fuel used for cookingor heating food is wood or coal, withno chimney (CONEVAL, 2010).

8. Inequality ranges are taken fromUN-Habitat (2014: 51) based onGini coefficient inequality levels:moderate inequality (0.300 – 0.399),relative inequality (0.400 – 0.449),high inequality (0.450 – 0.499),very high inequality (0.500 –0.599), extreme inequality(+0.600). Information on theevolution of Gini coefficient is takenfrom CONEVAL, “Evolucion de lapobreza por ingresos estatal ymunicipal”. Available at: http://www.coneval.gob.mx/Medicion/Paginas/Evolucion-de-las-dimensiones-de-la-pobreza-1990-2010-.aspx

9. In September 2015, the UnitedNations General Assembly formallyadopted the 2030 Agenda forSustainable Development alongwith 17 Sustainable DevelopmentGoals.

10. See Report of the OpenWorking Group on SustainableDevelopment Goals(A/68/970/Add.2) (12 de agosto,2014).

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