Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Mexico City lacks an updated General Urban Development Plan (PGDU). The last one was approved in 2003, 22 years ago. This fact is the starting point for analyzing the discussion surrounding the phenomenon known as “gentrification.” Governments come and go, and none have been able to develop a PGDU for Mexico City. Legally, the city is in chaos.
Informal decisions by the authorities have predominated in actions that directly affect urban development processes. In 2000, Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued Bando 2 as an act of authority. In one fell swoop, he eliminated order and control over changes to land use in the city’s four central boroughs: Benito Juárez, Miguel Hidalgo, Cuauhtémoc, and Venustiano Carranza. It should come as no surprise that they are the subject of debate on gentrification today. As we will see, gentrification is a process that has been taking place in Mexico City since the proclamation of Bando 2.
Bando 2 aimed to repopulate those municipalities that were losing population due to rising land values. It accelerated land revaluation but did not establish clear criteria for controlling the type of construction that would be allowed. Bando 2 mainly promoted the construction of medium- and high-income housing. From 2000 to 2025, only 5% of all housing construction in the city has been for social housing, according to Coneval and Canadevi-Valle de México.
Over the years, a predominantly middle-class city has been created, with varying degrees of affluence. In 2014, Coneval analyzed internal migration in the country and found that Mexico City was the urban area that expelled the most people. The National Population Council reported that the city expels approximately 150,000 people annually, mainly due to the rising cost of housing. This process began in earnest in 1998.
A notable example of this depopulation of the city is the decline in the number of federal electoral districts in Mexico City, which has decreased from 40 to 22 during this period. And they grew in the State of Mexico in the same proportion. With the rise in land prices, housing has become significantly more expensive, causing the poorest to quietly flee the city in search of more affordable places to live. If we average the number of people expelled for economic reasons during the 28 years of the PRD and Morena governments, as they are the same, nearly 4 million people, the vast majority of whom are poor, will have emigrated.
In 2014, the secretary of SEDUVI described the process of depopulation and urban transformation of the city as one of “transformation and development, not growth.” The displacement of the population has led to “the collapse of houses that have been replaced by the construction of multiple apartments, which demand improvements in services in the old neighborhoods.”
Urban planner José María Palacios was more direct in 2014. Depopulation is due to economic reasons, “and responds to the policies implemented in the two previous six-year terms of López Obrador and Marcelo Ebrard, where loans pushed people to the outskirts of the city, where there was affordable housing in those areas.”
Without a PGDU, it is impossible to say that a coherent urban development plan has been followed in the city. But what is the general legal framework for deciding what is good and what is bad for the city? There are specific laws, regulations, decrees, and dictates from the authorities. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive and orderly long-term vision. It is impossible and incorrect to attribute responsibility for the “gentrification” of the four municipalities that are the primary target of Bando 2 to foreigners.
This vacuum allows both sides to accuse each other of being responsible for the urban chaos that prevails in the city. The inevitable conclusion is that the highest authorities have been incapable of creating a city project that goes beyond the usual slogans (a city for all, a city of freedoms, etc.). But none of this constitutes a serious, long-term PGDU. They are merely political slogans for the consumption of party supporters.
Both Sheinbaum and María Alcalde say that gentrification is the fault of the opposition. They are lying. It is the result of an urban process that has taken place without order because the authorities, from López Obrador, Marcelo Ebrard, Miguel Mancera, Claudia Sheinbaum, and now Clara Brugada, have not dared to create a 50-year vision for the city. It seems that this PRD-Morena tandem benefits from urban chaos, as it makes it easier to shift blame onto others and wash their hands of responsibility for Mexico’s capital city, which suffers from legal and urban disorder.
ricardopascoe@hotmail.com
@rpascoep
Further Reading: