Informal settlements’ needs and environmental conservation in Mexico City: An unsolved challenge for land-use policy

The aim of this article is to analyze the effectiveness of land-use policy in Mexico City in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban zones of high ecological value. It is argued that Mexico City's land-use policy has been reactive and internally inconsistent, failing to take informal settlements into account, has not offered the poor access to housing with adequate services and greater security in terms of land tenure, and lacks the necessary financial resources and institutional capabilities for providing solutions to these problems. Through a case study of informal settlement management policy in the Tlalpan Delegation,1 applied in what has been termed SC or “Conservation Land,”2 we conclude that local government exhibits an inability to confront the new challenge of urban sustainability, that it resorts to conventional solutions which give rise to contradictory situations where political decision-making prevails over ecological considerations, so land-use policy is permissive and does not halt informal urban expansion in areas of high environmental value.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slideResearch highlights▶ Land use policy has ignored and failed to include a strategy for managing informal settlements, and show interest in maintaining the clientalist system. ▶ Land regularization process is a traditional solution which not only encourage new informal occupations but also leads to losses of land of high ecological value. ▶ In the Conservation Land of Mexico City the local government is most concerned with sustainable urbanization, but lacks the capacity to confront the challenge. ▶ Sustainability discourse is a convenient means for hiding the political nature of decision-making on land use policy.