Informal Settlement: the Case of Ampliación San Marcos, Mexico City
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47(2) 411–436, February 2010 Social Relations, Property and ‘Peripheral’ Informal Settlement: The Case of Ampliación San Marcos, Mexico City Jill Wigle [Paper first received, August 2007; in final form, March 2009] Abstract This article explores the complexities of informal urbanisation at the metropolitan periphery of Mexico City through a case study of Ampliación San Marcos, a former agricultural area on the city’s south-eastern periphery. While the physical annexation of small towns and their environs is a common feature of Mexico City’s growth, the settlement of Ampliación San Marcos is more accurately described as a two-pronged process involving the extension of a nearby pre-Hispanic town and the expansion of Mexico City itself. The case study shows that the rural periphery of Mexico City is no tabula rasa upon which urban growth simply ‘takes place’, rather, settlement processes are influenced by longstandingin situ social relations and practices related to property. The paper highlights the importance of considering the relationships among social relations, property and informal settlement for understanding the complexity of metropolitan growth and change in large cities such as Mexico City. 1. Introduction population of 3.2 billion will increase by another 2 billion, reaching its expected apogee It is now an oft-cited adage that we have of approximately 10 billion in 2050 (Davis, entered the first ‘urban century’ and that for 2004). Almost all of this urban growth will the first time in human history, the number be accommodated in the so-called developing of people living in urban areas will soon world where many of the largest and fastest- outnumber those living in rural ones. Over growing cities in the world are now located the next 30 years, the current global urban (UN-HABITAT, 2003; World Bank, 2000). Jill Wigle is in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, B340B Loeb Building, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. 0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online © 2010 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098009351189 412 JILL WIGLE Notably, most of this growth will take place be emphasised by the promulgation of such in informal settlements in peripheral urban terms as ‘hyper-city’. areas (World Bank 2000), as part of what This paper describes and analyses the set- Mike Davis (2004, p. 14) has termed “slum tlement of Ampliación San Marcos, a former sprawl”. In this way, the ‘first urban century’ chinampería (an area used for cultivation, as will largely be lived in thousands of infor- described later) of a pre-Hispanic town on mally settled communities in cities across what is now the south-eastern periphery of the developing world, produced through the Mexico City. Ampliación San Marcos is one of efforts of the urban poor seeking to access the numerous informally settled communities affordable land and build their own housing which comprise a significant proportion of on an incremental basis over time. the built-up area of the metropolitan zone. These important urban trends are reflected While the physical annexation of small towns in international urban literature which and their environs is a relatively common refers not only to the increasing urbanisa- characteristic of Mexico City’s territorial tion of human settlement (Cohen, 2004; expansion, the settlement of Ampliación Montgomery et al., 2003), but also focuses on San Marcos is more accurately described as the growing roster of the world’s ‘mega-cities’ a two-pronged process involving both the and their immense size and expansive met- extension of a nearby pre-Hispanic town and ropolitan forms (see for example, Simmonds the expansion of Mexico City itself. This two- and Hack 2000). Indeed, many mega-cities pronged process is more complex than just now exceed the conventional definitional the territorial annexation or absorption of an threshold of 10 million or more inhabitants.1 outlying town into a growing mega-city. In the Concomitantly, a new urban lexicon is emerging case of Ampliación San Marcos, a particular to describe the unprecedented size of the set of localised social relations among nativos world’s largest cities, with terms like “hyper-city” (locals) related to informal modes of pos- (Davis, 2006, p. 5) now used to refer to cities sessing and transferring chinampas land (see with 20 million or more inhabitants. later) influenced the initial settlement of what Given this context, it is not surprising to is now known as Ampliación San Marcos. This find that the size and form of the world’s case study makes an empirical contribution largest cities assume such prominence in to Cruz’s (2001b) assertion that different the urban literature, contributing valuable property types are associated with particular insights into the broad contours of urban kinds of informal urbanisation in Mexico growth in the world’s largest cities. At the City. In particular, the case study contributes same time, however, it remains important to understanding informal settlement proc- to study the unique social and spatial factors esses and patterns as they relate to chinampas influencing urban growth at the local level. land, a particular type of private property in In this regard, community-based case studies Mexico. The case study also highlights that serve a complementary role in the literature land or urban space is not simply a ‘surface’ by providing a nuanced understanding of the upon which human activities or urban growth myriad of social and spatial factors mediating takes place. Instead, the case study underlines urban growth patterns and processes in differ- the importance of considering the dynamic ent mega-cities. Detailed community-based interactions among social relations, property case studies represent not only a different and informal settlement for understanding approach to metropolitan-wide studies, but the complexity of urban growth, especially with also help to deconstruct the mega-city as a respect to the informal settlement processes, kind of urban monolith that might otherwise which constitute such significant drivers of INFORMAL URBANISATION IN MEXICO CITY 413 this process. In this regard, the case study of concentrate a large number of inhabitants, the settlement and eventual urbanisation often representing a significant proportion of Ampliación San Marcos excavates some of of a country’s total population. Secondly, the social and physical complexity of informal mega-cities often serve as a national hub of development processes at the periphery of both economic activities and political power. Mexico City. Thirdly, mega-cities present considerable This paper draws primarily upon research social and environmental challenges, such as conducted in Mexico City between 2004 urban poverty, traffic congestion and environ- and 2005, including a randomly adminis- mental deterioration. Finally, Aguilar (2004, tered household survey in Ampliación San p. 6) argues that this focus also stems from Marcos and semi-structured interviews an interest in the emergence of new spatial with community residents and leaders, as forms related to the territorial expansion of well as local government officials.2 Hence, mega-cities, including the transition to a more the research represents a mixed-methods polycentric pattern of development incor- approach in which quantitative and qualita- porating sub-centres within an increasingly tive data are used in complementary ways. It dispersed and complex metropolitan area, also incorporates some additional interview including its periphery. data gathered through subsequent fieldwork The metropolitan peripheries of large cities in Xochimilco in 2008. After a brief review in the developing world are distinguished of recent relevant research on urban growth from similar areas in more affluent coun- and informal urbanisation focusing on large tries by the prevalence of informal housing cities in Latin America, the paper provides and settlement processes. In most cities of an overview of urban growth in Mexico City, the developing world, informal settlement with an emphasis on the informal urbanisa- is not only a fundamental part of urban tion processes that serve as a thematic focus structure, but also a principal impetus of of this paper. The following section out- urban expansion at the periphery (Cruz, lines the municipal context for Ampliación 2001b; Villavicencio, 1997). As highlighted San Marcos, an informally settled but now by Connolly (1999) and Pezzoli (1998), this relatively consolidated community in Mexico growth pattern reflects the difficulty of find- City. The next section describes the settle- ing land affordable to the urban poor within ment and consolidation of Ampliación San the built-up urban area, combined with the Marcos. The paper concludes with a discus- availability of cheaper, less regulated lands sion of the implications and conclusions for development on the urban periphery. drawn from the case study. It is now widely recognised that access to affordable land is particularly important for 2. Mega-cities and Informal the urban poor, given that almost all afford- Urbanisation in Latin America able housing in most cities of the develop- ing world is developed through informal There is now a plethora of literature on housing processes in which all or part of the mega-cities and various aspects of their construction of a dwelling is built or man- development in the Latin American context aged by the occupant(s) over time (Gilbert (see Aguilar, 2004; Davis, 1998; Garza, 2000; and Gugler, 1992). Not surprisingly, access to Gilbert, 1996; Pezzoli, 1998; Pick and Butler, land, and by default housing, is also one of 2000; Ward, 1998). Aguilar (2004) articulates the most visible struggles for space in Latin four reasons for this focus on mega-cities. American cities (Jones, 1994) and emerged First, and perhaps most obviously, mega-cities as a major focus of urban research in Mexico 414 JILL WIGLE beginning in the 1980s (Delgado and Perló, other kinds of property include, for example, 2000; Schteingart, 2001).