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The factors behind the failure of land use planning in Mexico City, as reflected in the concentration of 65% of its population in irregular settlements, are explored in this book. It documents the structural role that the lack of secure property rights of the ejidos , the surrounding peasant communities, played in determining such an outcome within the context of the national economic policy of import-substitution industrialization which favored Mexico City's growth. An original policy proposal, whose significance is broader than the specific case of Mexico City, presents an alternative based on privatization of the ejidos in the urban periphery and the establishment of land development trusteeships for low-income settlements within the framework of an urban land reserve planning system.
List of contents
Contents: Mexico City growth, import-substitution industrialization, land-use planning failure, land property rights, irregular settlements, suburban ejidos, ejido history, ejido legislation, the Lerdo Law, the 1917 Constitution, article 27, agrarian reform, privatization of ejido land, land reserves, ecological reserves.
About the author
The author: David Cymet received his professional degree as an architect from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico, his Masters in City Planning from MIT and his Ph.D. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware. He taught at the Graduate Division of the School of Architecture of the National University of Mexico for many years, and conducted important urban and environmental policy studies for Mexican government agencies.
Report
"In most of the third world and some of the first world, a single city is essentially swallowing a whole country. As the world's largest city, Mexico City is a good illustration of the problem and this book brings a lot of understanding to the whys and what-nows." (Lester Thurow, Dean, MIT Sloan School of Management)
"(This book) is the most comprehensive study on the interrelation of urban planning and land tenure in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City available in English. I found it particularly useful in giving the reader a clear explanation of the urban policies of the major Mexican presidencies, and of how these policies affected, and were affected by, the 'ejido' system." (William A. Doebele, Harvard University)
"(This) study is impressive and pathbreaking: well organized, sharply focused, scholarly, and very well written. It shows how doctrinaire adherence to reforms which served an earlier period can block social policy and economic progress for a later generation; and how important it is for us to adapt our institutions and policies to changing needs and circumstances. The policy recommendations are an imaginative illustration of how this might be done." (Lloyd Rodwin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
"The book is a 'must' for specialists of urban Mexico and the problems of land tenure in developing world cities more widely. General readers and practitioners will also locate much of interest and should be challenged in their thinking by the recommendations of the last chapter." (Gareth Jones, Urban Studies)
