Ciudades dispersas, viviend

Abstract

Mexico's housing policy, created in the year 2002, gave the private sector whole support to participate in the production of social housing. The first action of the federal government was creating the National Commission for Housing Support, (CONAFOVI, later CONAVI), a decentralized organization of the Secretary of Social Development, SEDESOL, created by the President on 2001. This Commission has the responsibility to design, promote, direct and coordinate the national housing policy, which despite supporting different housing levels, from high income to social housing, now seen this last one as a highly profitable real state product, whose credit is insured by the government's subsidies. The social housing is promoted by the public sector itself since its considered an important source of economic activity even while in times of a recession and to economic development is granted and being a support for the sector development, creating a virtuous circle which imminently impacts on social and cultural aspects. Though social housing development was stimulated in the whole country, it was in the northern border, particularly in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, where the echoes of this program had a greater magnitude; so much that it is responsible for the biggest production of economical housing on four consecutive years, from 2004 to 2007, in the whole country. Ciudad Juarez is the main pole of development in the state, where 40.52% of the state's population resides and proximately 82% of the PEA has an income equal or less than four minimal wages, which makes it a potentially beneficiary of economic housing credits. This fact can have several different readings, nevertheless the one now deserves our attention is the impact this phenomenon has had in the residential land use and the participation that the public and private sector have had in its occupation during the 2001 to 2006 period, as well as the real state pressure that has been exerted and is responsible for increasing the city limits without taking into account the Municipal Development Plan of Juarez. The different percentages of participation in the production of social housing by the public and private sectors with their projection in the land use, the location of developed housing sectors and the number of housing actions that have taken place according to their diverse levels: social, middle and high income, when added constitute an important segment of the panorama that will take us to know the impact that the national housing policy has had in the city, which has been its main receptor, thus, its best example. Seven years in time, we have a city that suffers from segregation, disarticulation and with a great amount of inner empty spaces. Disperse growth and the questionable "housing demand" have produced a scenery in which consolidated neighborhoods look abandoned; along side, a high percentage of built homes in the new neighborhoods have not been inhabited because of the lack of equipment and urban services. The ability to acquire a second house, even if it is social level, has caused them to be incorporated to the rental market even though this contradicts their social character. In conclusion, we have found that unconditional support to the production of social housing without foreseeing its collateral effects has been a key factor for the irrational expansion in Mexican cities.