Abstract

Large-scale housing programmes targeting low-income households have dramatically transformed Latin American cities over the last quarter of a century, creating uneven social and material geographies of peripheral urbanisation. Having experienced the sprawl of 600,000 housing units since the turn of the century, the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City can be considered a striking example of the profound territorial restructuring that has been taking place in cities across the continent. By considering nuanced perspectives rooted in political economy to address the alteration of space and place, this article analyses the social and spatial dynamics in peripheral low-income housing estates in Mexico City. It draws from empirical research in two municipalities that have the highest metropolitan concentration of newly built low-income housing estates. The comparative discussion of the results demonstrate that mutually entangled processes of abandonment and insurgent appropriation of peripheral urban habitat in two neighbourhoods may be considered as facets of a political process that has promoted the financialisation of housing and a class-related urban restructuring.

Habitat International 70: 43-49 [2017, with Luis Salinas Arreortua]

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