Building Back Better Adaptive Analysis of Mexico City’s Housing Cities

The quality of life of peripheral citizens of Mexico City has stagnated at a low level since the early 20th century with marginal improvements. The high poverty rates among many of Mexico City’s peripheral vecindades, or slums, result in poorly built, temporary housing constructed with cheap materials due to lack of capital required for better building. Without accessible information about safe practices for residential construction due to complex technical jargon plaguing the Mexico City Building Code, families who build their own homes lack the opportunity to build safe housing. Although many of Mexico City’s government and commercial housing projects have resulted in a larger quantity of housing, these projects have left their beneficiaries unsatisfied. The lack of adequate alternatives to poorly constructed self-made housing perpetuates the cycle of dismal quality of life among the impoverished communities of the city and maintains high risk of total destruction in the case of an earthquake such as that experienced on September 19, 2017.

Due to a variety of barriers preventing peripheral citizens from accessing safe, affordable and comfortable housing from outside sources, the impoverished residents of these marginalized communities continue to turn to unsafe self-made dwellings. The following alternatives describe possible methods by which Taller de Vivienda can help to ameliorate the problems with low-quality housing in Mexico City. The implementation of these alternatives would require that research be conducted in order to assess the housing needs and desires of various communities within Mexico City’s periphery and thus create designs to fit those needs and desires.