Despite impressive economic growth and increasing prosperity, cities in Mexico do not seem to have fully captured the benefits of urban agglomeration, in part because of rapid and uncoordinated urban growth. Recent expansion of many Mexican cities has been distant, disconnected, and dispersed, driven mainly by large single-use housing developments on the outskirts of cities. The lack of a coordinated approach to urban development has hindered the ability of cities in Mexico to boost economic growth and foster inclusive development. It also has created a fissure between new housing developments and urban services, infrastructure, and access to employment. Mexico Urbanization Review: Managing Spatial Growth for Productive and Livable Cities in Mexico provides an analytical basis to understand how well-managed urban growth can help Mexican cities to capture the positive gains associated with urbanization. To this end, the authors analyze the development patterns of the 100 largest Mexican cities using a set of spatial indexes. They then examine how the recent urban growth has affected the economic performance and livability of Mexican cities and offer recommendations for adjusting urban policy frameworks and instruments in ways that support sustainable spatial development and make cities more productive and inclusive.

Today in Texas, over 1500 colonias in the counties along the Mexican border are home to some 400,000 people. Often lacking basic services, such as electricity, water and sewerage, fire protection, policing, schools, and health care, these "irregular" subdivisions offer the only low-cost housing available to the mostly Hispanic working poor. This book presents the results of a major study of colonias in three transborder metropolitan areas and uncovers the reasons why colonias are spreading so rapidly. Peter Ward compares Texas colonias with their Mexican counterparts, many of which have developed into fully integrated working-class urban communities. He describes how Mexican governments have worked with colonia residents to make physical improvements and upgrade services-a model that Texas policymakers can learn from, Ward asserts. Finally, he concludes with a hard-hitting checklist of public policy initiatives that need to be considered as colonia housing policy enters its second decade in Texas.

This book examines how Mexico can develop more competitive, sustainable and inclusive cities; improve the capacities of institutions and foster greater collaboration among them, and how they can better fulfill their pension mandate.

Written as a social history of urbanization and popular politics, this book reinserts “the public” and “the city” into current debates about citizenship, urban development, state regulation, and modernity in the turn of the century Mexico. Rooted in thousands of pages of written correspondence between city residents and local authorities, mostly with the city council of Morelia, the rhetoric and arguments of resident and city council dialogues often highlighted a person’s or group’s contributions to the public good, effectively positioning petitioners as deserving and contributing members of the urban public. Making an Urban Public tells the story of how Morelia’s residents—particular those from popular groups and poor circumstances—claimed (and often gained) basic rights to the city, including the right to both participate in and benefit from the city’s public spaces; its consumer and popular cultures; its modernized infrastructure and services; its rhetorical promises around good government and effective policing; its dense networks of community; and its countless opportunities for negotiating to forward one’s agenda, and its urban promise for a better life.

Hidalgo is one of the smallest states in Mexico. It benefits from its close proximity to Mexico City and contains a number of economic and environmental assets in its territory. After a long period of economic stagnation, the state is now closing up the gap with national standards. ...

The story of crippling overdevelopment in Mexico's economic and social center.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.