mexico case study geography

Causes and impacts relating to forced and voluntary migration Case study: Mexico and the USA

There are two types of migration, forced and voluntary. People migrate for many different reasons. Migration has positive and negative impacts on society.

Part of Geography Population

Case study: Mexico and the USA

According to the International Boundary and Water Commission for the United States and Mexico, the border between the USA and Mexico is 1,954 miles long. Illegal migration is a huge problem. U.S. Border Patrol guards the border and trys to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country. Illegal migration costs the USA millions of dollars for border patrols and prisons.

There are more than 11 million unauthorised immigrants living in the USA.

Many Americans believe that Mexican immigrants are a drain on the economy. They believe that migrant workers keep wages low which affects Americans. However other people believe that Mexican migrants benefit the economy by working for low wages.

Mexican culture has also enriched the USA border states with food, language and music.

Impact on Mexico

The Mexican countryside has a shortage of economically active people. Many men emigrate leaving a majority of women who have trouble finding life partners. Young people tend to migrate, leaving the old and the very young.

Legal and illegal immigrants together send some $6 billion a year back to Mexico. Certain villages such as Santa Ines have lost two thirds of their inhabitants.

There is a large wage gap between the USA and Mexico. Wages remain significantly higher in the USA for a large portion of the population. This attracts many Mexicans to the USA.

Many people find living in rural Mexico a struggle because they have to survive with very little money. Farmland is often overworked and farms are small.

It is estimated that 10,000 people try to smuggle themselves over the border every week. One in three get caught and those that do are likely to continue trying to cross the border at least twice a year.

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• Methods and problems of data collection
• Consequences of population structure

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Geography - Mexico City Case Study (Effects of rapid urbanisation in…

• Mexico city has a population of over 21 million and is the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere.
• It is one of the most important financial centres in the Americas. In 2011, the city had a gross domestic product of US$ 411 billion. This makes it one of the richest urban areas in the world. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a year in a particular location.
• There is huge inequality across the city, in terms of income, lifestyle, housing, employment and access to services. Spatial inequality is very powerful with some areas of the city being completely different to others.
• Mexico city has a culture which is a mix of Spanish and indigenous traditions. This extends to food, music, religion and architecture. The city is the most important cultural centre in Mexico. The city is home to a national opera and theatre as well as TV and radio stations which operate across the country and neighbouring countries.
• The main cause of rising natural increase is a fall in the death rate.
• Mexico City to migrants from countryside was the growth in jobs opportunities in factories and offices as economic investment was channelled into the city.
• The movement of people to urban areas from rural areas due to better jobs, healthcare and education.
• (Puebla) - it is a poor region to the east of Mexico City. There are few jobs outside of farming. Framing can e unreliable as crops may fail leaving people with limited income/food.
• (Puebla) - Only 40% of people have clean water.
• (Puebla) - Literacy rate is only 65%
• (Puebla) - Two thirds of people lack proper housing.
• Jobs - New factories, means more people are needed to work.
• 82% of people have access to clean water .
• 45% of all the country's industry.
• The cultural life of the city and its domination services in the country are other attractive.
• Push Factor: Negative aspects of a particular place that forces people from it.
• Pull Factor: Positive aspects of a place that attracts people towards it,
• There is a large CBD which is home to banks, insurance and financial services. This is in addition to government offices and headquarters of large companies. These companies are both Mexican and international (TNCs).
• Next to the CBD is the inner city, here there is a mixture of housing. There are some ageing apartment blocks, alongside some high quality modern apartment buildings.
• Extending further out the city, the pattern becomes more complex. There is a mixture of industrial areas, luxury housing areas and areas of high density housing. Some of this is in the form of squatter settlements.
• This pattern has been created by population growth, housing segregation, income level, industrialisation and developments in transport.
• People who have recently arrived in Mexico City from the rural areas are usually poor and have to live in slums or shanty towns.
• The wealthier people are also those with political power
• They are able to get homes in the better parts of the city.
• The poorest people live in shanty towns and rubbish dumps.
• The average disposable household income per person in 2013 was US $13,085, which is lower then the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of US $25,908.
• The top 20% of people in Mexico City earn 13 times as much as the bottom 20%.
• This explains the gap between the poorer and richer and the areas in which they live in.
• Poorer people also have to work longer hours in Mexico City.
• 29% of employees work very long hours compared with an average of 13% in other developing and emerging countries.
• Mexico City has the best living standards in Mexico.
• 60% of people live in informal settlements
• 4 generations live in the same building, overcrowding
• Long commutes to work
• Houses built in natural areas of beauty due to high demand
• Uses more water than any other city in the world
• Lots of sewage and water pollution due to rising population
• Current infrastructure cannot deal with the waste
• Dry lake bed amplifies earthquakes
• Cable car reduces air pollution
• Difficult to police
• Air pollution due to lots of traffic
• Small scale so people feel involved and are likely to go on supporting them after the initial interest has faded.
• Do not take long to get going.
• Do not need a lot of money.
• Do not need a lot of people initially - can set up as an example to others.
• Do not have a lot of money, so may not be able to scale up.
• Cannot easily deal with big problems like air pollution.
• May not have political support
• There is political power to make sure it happens
• The city government can make sure there is enough money for the project.
• It is possible to deal with large-scale issues such as flooding and air pollution, which smaller community-led strategies.
• It creates work for people in the city.
• They may suffer from budget cuts or corruption and so never happen.
• They do not involve local people who may feel alienated.
• They can take a long time to put into action.

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Original research article, peri-urbanization and land use fragmentation in mexico city. informality, environmental deterioration, and ineffective urban policy.

• 1 Department of Social Geography, Institute of Geography, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
• 2 Graduate Studies in Geography, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, National Autonomous University of Mexico, México City, Mexico

There is a great deal of concern over the scattered, fragmented expansion of cities, particularly in developing countries. This expansion accelerates the peri-urbanization processes expressed in a range of land uses, often with a concentration of the poor in peripheries with an acute shortage of services coupled with profound land-use changes, with far-reaching environmental impacts. The urban periphery is a transition zone, where the urban gradually merges into the rural landscape. It has become heterogeneous from a social, environmental, commercial, and service point of view, reproducing a model of metropolitan inequity with marked socioeconomic inequalities between the center and the periphery. The way these territories are managed is quite far from the road to sustainability. This article seeks to provide an updated analysis of the dynamics of urban expansion and land-use changes on the southern periphery of Mexico City (CDMX) in the Conservation Area (CA), to determine the extent to which a socially segregated, environmentally unsustainable model of urban fragmentation has been reinforced. It also discusses the regulatory, normative framework established in the CA, finding that it has been deficient and implemented in piecemeal fashion. It concludes that local government has failed to provide solutions to reconcile the protection of ecological conservation areas with the needs of the poor in a peri-urban area, thereby reproducing social inequalities in the city. In addition, CDMX land use policy has been ineffective in controlling the expansion of informal human settlements in peri-urban areas with high ecological value.

Introduction

The world's urban population has grown rapidly since the middle of the last century, and as a result 55% of the world population already lived in cities by 2018. This urbanization trend is expected to add 2.5 billion people to the world population by 2050, with 90% of this growth occurring in Asia and Africa. At the level of urban cores, medium-sized cities have shown a marked increase: one in five urban inhabitants lives in cities with one to five million inhabitants. The population of this type of cities nearly doubled from 1990 to 2018 and is expected to increase by a further 28% from 2018 to 2030, from 926 million to 1.2 billion ( United Nations, 2019 : p. 10, 15). One of the most far-reaching consequences of the urbanization of medium-sized and large cities in developing countries is the rapid expansion of their metropolitan peripheries, with a highly dispersed pattern, incorporating large swathes of territory into urban limits, which has exacerbated the problems of occupation and fragmentation of land use in both social and environmental terms.

The core problem is that cities in countries that are becoming urbanized most quickly must create an enormous supply of land to accommodate a growing population, particularly on the urban peripheries. Since the population of large cities in these countries will continue to increase, due to natural growth or the influx of immigrants, the dispersed urban expansion model is likely to continue for many years. As Angel (2014 : p. 24, 53) points out, with rapid urbanization, expansion is inevitable, and measures must be taken to prepare spaces for future expansion. This may prove more helpful than measures to contain urban expansion, which have not only failed, but also produced negative effects such as driving up land and housing prices. In fact, it is argued that the rate of expansion of urban sprawl is greater than the population increase in developing countries 1 , reflecting a clear trend toward the reduction of urban density due to the creation of more dispersed cities ( Angel, 2014 : p. 224). Several studies in the past two decades have discussed the characteristics of peripheral or peri-urban areas in developing countries, highlighting their most characteristic features. These features reflect the special nature of these areas, highlighting the most relevant land occupation processes that take place within their limits.

Peri-Urbanization, Socio-Environmental Change, and Sustainability

Land use transformations in urban peripheries are associated with what for several years has been known as the peri-urbanization process in the world's great metropolises. These changes take place in a strip with urban-rural characteristics on the edges of the urban area, the size of which varies by city and may range from 30 to 50 km. Over time, this peri-urban area, also called the rural-urban fringe, peri-urban interface ( Simon, 2008 : p. 171), or urban sprawl , loses its rural features, gradually incorporating new urban uses such as housing, infrastructure, access to services and urban productive activities, as well as experiencing environmental deterioration (see McGregor et al., 2006 ; Ewing, 2008 ; Da Gama Torres, 2011 ; Ravetz et al., 2013 ; Geneletti et al., 2017 ; Coq-Huelva and Asían Chavez, 2019 ). Recently there has been an extensive literature on informal settlements emphasizing both the spatial spread and demographic characteristics of urban fringe settlements particularly in Africa, China and South East Asia (see Abramson, 2016 , for China; Tan et al., 2021 , for Beijing; Ukoje, 2016 , for Nigeria; Brandful Cobbinah and Nsomah Aboagye, 2017 , for Ghana; Phadke, 2014 , for Mumbai; and Hudalah and Firman, 2012 , for Jakarta).

This is a transition strip, where the urban front advances and rurality disappears, in other words, a slope with intense exchanges between rural and urban areas, which is undergoing the modification of the socioeconomic structures of rural areas. There is obviously a process of urban decentralization within metropolises, which contributes to peri-urban areas experiencing swifter, extremely diffuse urbanization (see Inostroza et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2016 ). This, in turn, is the result of a territorially more decentralized economic model, where the productive urban logic spills over into a broader metropolitan or regional sphere, where, through agglomeration economies, firms develop links at these levels ( Storper, 1997 : p. 299–300), all of which encourages peri-urbanization.

The innermost area of the peri-urban interface is adjacent to the built area, while the outermost area extends over a broad area whose limits are difficult to define. This is one of its characteristics: its elasticity as a territorial unit. It might be useful to adopt the approach of an urban-rural continuum due to the difficulty of defining its limits ( McGregor et al., 2006 : p. 10–11; Simon, 2008 : p. 171) and the transformation dynamics between the two opposite poles. This enables one to analyze the gradual dynamics of change affecting the various locations of the peri-urban strip. The current most outstanding features of the peri-urban areas are described below.

First, one of the key features of peri-urbanization is land use fragmentation , non-contiguous urban expansion toward the open, rural spaces surrounding the city ( Angel, 2014 : p. 182). This discontinuous, fragmented development is inherent to the dispersed land occupation model. Metropolitan peripheries comprise patches of urban fabric interspersed with open spaces including green areas or unbuilt wasteland. If there are cities with increasingly low densities, fragmented, disconnected peripheral environments will continued to be created ( Angel, 2014 : p. 263). Fragmentation is a phenomenon inherent to the periphery of the city and reflects the dispersion of urban expansion. As empty spaces are filled in, more empty spaces emerge further away. In fact, these fragmented spaces are spaces in transition from a rural to an urban reality.

Second, nowadays the main characteristic of peri-urban areas is their growing social heterogeneity in terms of the presence of social groups. The type of residential area corresponds to the distinct types of peripheries. First, there is a rich residential periphery associated with the middle and upper classes, with decent quality infrastructure and efficient connectivity to central areas. Second, there is usually a poor periphery with irregular settlements and an acute shortage of services; and third, a traditional periphery with rural towns and agricultural activities, and in several cases the presence of indigenous peoples ( Aguilar and Ward, 2003 ; Aguilar, 2008 ). These social contrasts result in new forms of polarization and socio-residential segregation, where the poorest groups suffer severe deprivation due to their precarious social conditions, a common feature of cities in developing countries.

Third, a modern periphery has been formed, associated with new urban developments, linked to global big money. Peri-urban territories have become more competitive due to the presence of more highly qualified human capital, greater national and global connectivity, and productive diversification. In this way, for example, new urban sub-centers have been established within their territories, with shopping precincts, corporate developments, and gated communities; industrial zones and technology parks; large-scale infrastructure such as airports and conference centers; together with recreational facilities such as theme parks and natural areas. In other words, these spaces have become hubs for the flow of people, goods, and information; advanced service providers; and major consumer centers ( Coq-Huelva and Asían Chavez, 2019 : p. 3).

Fourth, there is a green periphery with ecological protection zones and high environmental value that provides the city with environmental services. It is important to mention the negative environmental impact caused by urban expansion through solid waste disposal, the exploitation of construction materials, the invasion of channels and bodies of water, the over-exploitation of underground water, and the destruction of native vegetation ( Douglas, 2006 ). This green periphery is often indistinguishable from land for agricultural use, which is gradually being encroached on by the city.

Fifth, in developing countries, it is extremely common to find an informal poor periphery resulting from the state's inability to provide inexpensive land and housing for social groups in the lowest income level. This situation has forced the public administration of each city to “accommodate” the massive demand on the part of the poor population while tolerating the formation of irregular settlements, especially on the urban peripheries, thereby allowing land occupations, which, in turn, encourage and increase the informal housing stock ( Smolka and Larangeira, 2008 : p. 101). Informal occupations are widely promoted by informal developers since they are an extremely lucrative business. The dynamic of peripheral expansion offers cheaper land and labor, larger spaces with environmental amenities, and increasingly better accessibility, which, in turn, drives settlement, in irregular conditions, with housing for poor groups and migrants with an acute shortage of services. A model of absolute tolerance is unacceptable because regularizing informal settlements, which are the visible effects, without addressing the causes of growth, yields extremely poor results, and perpetuates social inequality.

This diversity in the occupation of peripheral land is part of the challenges of its territorial planning because it is an extremely dynamic, diverse territory that is rapidly expanding. Good governance is required to deal with all the economic, social, territorial and, of course, environmental dimensions of its development, and land occupation patterns that must be addressed because of their implications for urban planning and the sustainability of cities. This occupation model implicitly or explicitly promotes a more dispersed city model rather than denser, more compact, and sustainable cities.

Socio-Environmental Processes and Sustainability

The negative environmental effects of peri-urbanization have become critical because of their implications for urban sustainability. The environmental factor makes the territorial planning of these spaces more complex due to their mixed land uses (urban and rural); the need to provide infrastructure and facilities for poor settlements (such as water networks, drainage, housing, and street paving), and actions to preserve the environment. These tasks are extremely complicated and depend on the institutional construction and financial capacity of each city. Environmental preservation has been established as a mandatory objective of urban policy, due to the enormous pressure on the environment exerted by urbanization, not only because of the intense population concentration, but also because of manufacturing waste activities, the low-quality infrastructure of housing for the poor, and the consumption levels of the middle and upper classes.

Sustainable urbanization has emerged as a new paradigm that not only encompasses ecological protection, but also other components such as economic growth, the satisfaction of social needs and the principle of social equity ( McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003 ). The social dimension is crucial because an unequal society cannot be regarded as sustainable in the long term ( Rogers, 2008 : p. 57–58). It is extremely difficult to prioritize environmental impacts in an urban context where the problems of unemployment, poverty and poor-quality housing and infrastructure, all of which are related to environmental deterioration, are not addressed ( Haughton and Hunter, 1994 : p. 26; Gilbert, 2003 : p. 79–85).

Unfortunately, little or no attention is paid to the socio-environmental processes behind manifestations such as urban occupation patterns, water provision, the deterioration of natural reserves, solid waste disposal and public transport. Society is not a homogeneous whole. Social inequalities and power relations between social groups must be recognized to be able to advance toward a more equitable, sustainable city ( Rogers, 2008 : p. 66–67).

Urbanization occurs because of a series of socio-territorial processes of change, in which environmental modifications, which are usually profoundly unjust, are analyzed. There are political processes that produce and reproduce urban conditions of a socio-environmental nature with significant environmental deterioration. In this case, it is important to ask, who produces what kind of socio-environmental conditions? And for whom? ( Heynen et al., 2006 : p. 2–4). How is sustainability built in terms of policies and institutional forms in these locations? Actors and institutions have the capacity to formulate and implement certain policies and stop pursuing others ( Gibbs and Krueger, 2007 : p. 102–103).

Urbanization is a central part of the production of new environments, in which society and nature are combined in historical-geographical production processes. And as Heynen et al. (2006 : p. 10) state, there is not usually an unsustainable city, but a series of urban and environmental processes that negatively affect certain social groups, while benefitting others. In this respect, one should always consider the issue of who wins and who loses and raise fundamental questions about the multiple power relations through which deeply unjust socio-environmental conditions are produced and maintained.

It is essential to prioritize the social value of sustainable urbanization based on commitments to change focusing on social inclusion and poverty reduction. This approach is a way to ensure the “right to the city”, which means that all the inhabitants of the city have the same rights and opportunities. Evidence from previous years shows that economic growth alone does not reduce poverty or increase social welfare, unless it is accompanied by social equity policies that enable the most disadvantaged groups to benefit from this growth. Accordingly, changes are needed that are centered on the population, and on sustainable urbanization that will prioritize the social dimension. A city will only be able to be sustainable insofar as it addresses the most pressing social needs, such as poverty, inequality, precarious housing, and irregular settlements ( UN-Habitat, 2020 : p. 62–65). This can be achieved through urban planning and an inclusive government that counterbalances the functioning of the market and seeks ways to address social inequality by promoting integration and social cohesion, with an active, informed civil society that empowers local communities so they can participate in the development of their city.

The Case Study in Mexico City. Materials and Methods

The study zone selected is a peri-urban area in the south and south-west of Mexico City (CDMX), with high ecological value where urban uses are prohibited, which at the same time is bound by a strict conservation policy due to its natural characteristics. It is called The Conservation Area or Zone (CZ) since it includes agricultural areas and natural vegetation. Encompassing an area of 87,297 ha, equivalent to 50% of the CDMX territory, it includes nine boroughs ( GDF, 2012 : p. 10). CDMX is one of the three states comprising the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA), currently made up of 76 political-administrative units divided into three states: Mexico City (CDMX) with 16 boroughs; the State of Mexico with 59 municipalities; and the State of Hidalgo with one municipality. Of these three, Mexico City was originally established in CDMX, from which it expanded into the other three states to form the current vast metropolitan conglomerate. In 2020, CDMX housed a population of 21.8 million inhabitants, 1.1 million of which are estimated to live in the CZ.

The CZ is a peri-urban area under considerable pressure from urban occupation, where informal settlements have been established in various municipalities in recent decades, even though this is prohibited by urban legislation. This territory has been analyzed from different perspectives, with several studies referring to extremely specific areas, such as boroughs or informal settlements, and highly focused urban or environmental policy problems (see Aguilar and Santos, 2011 ; Aguilar and Guerrero, 2013 ; Wigle, 2013 ; Aguilar and López, 2015 ; Perez-Campuzano et al., 2016 ; Calderón-Contreras and Quiroz-Rosas, 2017 ; Jimenez et al., 2020 ). However, there is a dearth of studies that approach this territory in an integral way, highlighting the main aspects of urban expansion and the transformation of land use, and the shortcomings in the implementation of urban containment and ecological preservation policies. Exceptions include the studies by Aguilar (2013) and Escandón Calderón (2020 ), and it is to this aspect that this paper seeks to contribute. One particularity is that most land ownership in the CA is ejido-based or communal, publicly owned land are not significant; this situation to a great extent has favored informal occupation.

In this study, the CZ is analyzed with three specific objectives: (i) examine demographic growth and the socio-economic characteristics of the population to determine the extent to which new urban occupations are associated with the presence of the poor; (ii) measure urban expansion throughout its territory in the past 20 years, identifying urban fragmentation and the presence of informal settlements, to determine the success of the measures to contain this process; (iii) evaluate changes in the main land uses, and identify the principal environmental impacts associated with urban expansion and other processes.

Methodology

Demographic growth and socioeconomic characteristics of the population.

This analysis used data from population censuses from 1990 to 2020, with growth rates and population totals being calculated for the different years. Socioeconomic variables were selected that best illustrate the conditions of poverty in which a substantial proportion of the population lives in the CZ, in comparison with the average conditions in CDMX, particularly as regards education, health, housing, services, and rates of ownership of household goods.

Urban Expansion in the CA

This expansion was quantified using multispectral satellite images (raster) for 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 based on information from high spatial resolution (SR) sensors: Landsat 4 TM (1990 with a SR of 30 m); SPOT 4 and 5 (2000 and 2010 with a SR of 10 m); and Rapid Eye (2020 with a SR of 5 m).

The method was supported by ArcMap 10.8. For each sensor, spectral bands were combined into false-color images to highlight urban or built areas. Pixels or sets of pixels with the same or similar spectral response were grouped together. These were associated with different geographical aspects captured by satellite images such as urban areas, bodies of water, vegetation, and open spaces. The satellite information analyzed in the first stage with the raster model using pixels was subsequently converted to a shape file to be verified, complemented, and improved using vector information from official sources (such as urban layout, infrastructure, and geostatistical areas), high resolution true and false color images and spatial analysis tools. In this case, the reference images used were Rapid Eye sensor images with a spatial resolution of 5 m and vector information from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

Land Use Change

Land use change was monitored using the cross-tabulation matrix, which examines the changes in two stages and represents them in a transition matrix ( Pontius et al., 2004 ; Humacata, 2020 ). For this analysis, information sources on land use and vegetation coverage were used for three time series: 2000, 2010, and 2020. For 2000, the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography) Series II layer was used. Drawn up in 2001, its analysis is based on a scale of 1:250,000. For 2010, the maps produced by the Environmental and Territorial Organization Department (PAOT) in 2012 in the Geographical Atlas of The Conservation Zone of the Federal District, based on a scale of 1:20,000, were consulted. Finally, land use was explored through the Esri Land Cover 2020, which utilized Sentinel satellite imagery for global land cover processing. Coverage obtained from the three information inputs was reclassified into seven categories or classes of interest: Human Settlements, Forest, Chinampa, Body of Water, Wetland, Non-Forest Vegetation and Agricultural Zone.

The following procedure was adopted to enhance the information on land use and vegetation, particularly in the identification of human settlements. Satellite images were used for 2000 Landsat 4TM with a 30-m resolution. For 2010, SPOT 4 and 5 images with a 10-m resolution were used and for 2020, Rapid Eye images with a 5-m resolution were used. The method applied was an assisted classification of spectral enhancements in the histogram and band combinations.

Results: Mexico City's Urban Expansion and Land Use Change in the Conservation Area

The Conservation Area dates from the 1980 Federal District Urban Development Plan, which established zoning that delimited an urban and a non-urban area. The latter has a strict conservation policy, which is the forerunner of the current CZ ( Departamento del Distrito Federal, 1980 ). This zoning was subsequently updated in the 2006 Federal District Urban Development Law, in which the Conservation Area is maintained through land uses related to its ecological value such as ecological restoration, rural-agro-industrial production, ecological preservation, rural housing, and rural facilities ( Gobierno del Distrito Federal, 2006 ).

The CZ includes significant portions of the slopes of the Chichinautzin, Las Cruces, and Ajusco mountains. To the east it includes the Cerro de la Estrella, and the Sierra de Santa Catarina; as well as the lake plains of Xochimilco and Tláhuac 2 . This is an extremely important space for Mexico City because it is officially an area with high ecological value for several reasons. It comprises natural elements that provide crucial environmental services for the quality of life of its population; contributes to climate regulation through the presence of forest stands; recharges aquifers through infiltration; reduces atmospheric pollution through the retention of suspended particles; presents high biodiversity of flora and fauna; and offers recreational activities and scenic value ( GDF, 2012 : p. 10). However, although SC is a special category within urban legislation, with tight restrictions on urban occupation, its recent development has been marked by two processes: first, the emergence of a growing number of irregular settlements; and second, environmental deterioration due to a variety of factors (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 . Metropolitan zone of Mexico City. Location of the conservation zone. Elaborated from GDF, 2012 , CONAPO, 2015 , and INEGI, 2020 .

Regarding the first aspect, the area is home to 44 indigenous peoples or agrarian nuclei descended from indigenous societies that are historical communities with their own territory and cultural identity. These nuclei are associated with a communal and ejidal land tenure regime encompassing 71% of the CA. It is precisely in this type of social property that irregular settlements have been established. Over the years, it has been impossible to stop urban sprawl in the CZ even though urban land uses are explicitly prohibited. Since the 1980s, illegal means of land occupation have constituted significant forms of human settlement, and urban planning regulations have not been effectively implemented to control the land market, or restrict land availability in the CZ, or provide land for low-income groups in CDMX. Consequently, the local state has been forced to tolerate illegal occupations ( Aguilar, 1987 : p. 286–287, 2009: p. 45–47; Wigle, 2013 ; Rojas and Aguilar, 2020 ; Tellman et al., 2021 ). In recent decades there has been an increase in low-income settlements, and to a lesser extent of middle-class settlements ( Schteingart and Salazar, 2005 ; Aguilar, 2009 : p. 43–44).

Regarding the second process, urban expansion has contributed to environmental deterioration in several areas, which has led to the gradual disappearance of vast areas of the CZ. The destruction of natural vegetation has been reported, mainly as a result of clandestine tree felling and the destruction of grasslands, despite the fact that, to conserve these areas, the local government has offered economic incentives for environmental services (see Perez-Campuzano et al., 2016 ); the invasion and obstruction of waterways and aquifer recharge areas; the occupation of areas with high agricultural productivity such as chinampas; and wastewater discharge into the channels ( Bazant, 2001 : p. 137; Torres Lima and Rodríguez Sánchez, 2005 ; González Pozo, 2009 : p. 284–286; Rodríguez Gamiño and López Blanco, 2009 : p. 269; GDF, 2012 : p. 80; Rojas and Aguilar, 2020 ).

Population Growth and Socioeconomic Characteristics

Population growth in the CZ increased sharply in the 1990–2020 period, from just over half a million inhabitants to 1.1 million inhabitants. In other words, the population doubled during the period, experiencing a much higher growth rate than the average for CDMX. In the 1990s, the population in the CZ registered the highest rate with 4% annual growth, while CDMX grew below 1%. During the past decade, although the growth rate in the CZ fell to 1.3%, this growth was more than twice that recorded in CDMX. The boroughs of Tlalpan and Tláhuac grew over 1.5% (see Table 1 ).

Table 1 . The conservation zone: demographic growth by boroughs, 1990–2000.

The CZ has become a territory of high population concentration and growth in CDMX and is therefore under strong urbanization pressure.

A characteristic feature of the CZ population is that it lives in precarious socioeconomic conditions. There are two main types of human settlements: on the one hand, original or traditional settlements that sprang up around agricultural activity, the latter although continues to exist, to a great extent it has been abandoned; and on the other, several informal settlements with self-built houses, poor-quality materials, and an acute shortage of services. Poverty levels are higher than the average for CDMX ( Aguilar and Guerrero, 2013 ).

These conditions are clearly reflected in the data in Table 2 . In terms of educational attainment, the population in this area has an average of 2 years less schooling than that of CDMX. In 2020, the proportion of the population without health insurance was 10% points above the CDMX average, reflecting greater job insecurity. Regarding housing conditions, there is a greater overcrowding and a high percentage of houses without indoor plumbing, while housing materials also reflect precarious conditions. The percentage of ceilings made from non-durable materials such as corrugated iron or cardboard, and dirt floors is higher in the CZ; and lastly, there is a shortage of household goods. The percentage of homes without a refrigerator, computer, or Internet is higher than the CDMX average.

Table 2 . The conservation zone: socioeconomic indicators, 1990–2020.

Urban Expansion and Fragmentation in the CZ, 1990–2020

To calculate urban expansion in the CA, the traditional settlements that already existed in the middle of the last century, present in all the municipalities of the CA, were identified. Most of them are adjacent to the built area of CDMX. These towns represent “ urban cores ”, from which urban expansion has taken place, mostly in the form of informal settlements. This expansion has been defined as an “ urban fringe ” that represents the peripheral urban expansions around the towns. According to an inventory of irregular settlements drawn up by the local government in the period 2008–2011, there were 867 irregular settlements in the CZ, with an occupied surface area of 2,819 ha, most of which were concentrated in three municipalities: Xochimilco (314), Tlalpan, (186) and Milpa Alta (122) ( GDF, 2012 : p. 84) (see Table 3 ).

Table 3 . The conservation zone: number of informal settlements by borough 2008–2011.

Four indicators were used to calculate urban expansion: built area; rate of expansion; density; and degree of fragmentation of the expansion.

Urban Expansion Area

Figure 2 shows urban expansion in the period 1990–2020 for the entire CZ in the south of CDMX calculated using satellite images. The map shows two key aspects: first, extensive, continuous urban expansion over the past 30 years; and second, clear urban fragmentation in the most peripheral areas. Regarding urban expansion, during the period studied, the CZ experienced urban expansion of just over 14,000 ha; the periods of greatest growth being the 1990s (3,970 ha), and the last decade from 2010 to 2020 (5,671 ha). At the borough level, urban expansion appears to be related to the number of irregular settlements that already existed in those territories. The boroughs with the greatest urban expansion were Tlalpan, Xochimilco and Milpa Alta, where there were expansions over 1,000 hain the past decade (see Table 4 ).

Figure 2 . The conservation zone: urban expansion, 1990–2020. Own elaboration from satellite images from sensors Landsat 4 TM; SPOT 4 and 5; Rapid Eye; and information from GDF, 2012 and INEGI, 2020 .

Table 4 . The conservation area: urban expansion and average density (inhab/Ha), 1990–2020.

Urban Expansion Rate

The speed of growth in the CA shows that the 1990s experienced the highest rate of expansion. During that period, the growth rate was above 12%, subsequently decreasing in the early decades of this century to just over 4%. In the past decade, the growth rate for the boroughs with the greatest expansion was 6%, for example, in Tlalpan, Xochimilco, and Cuajimalpa. It should be noted that the rate of urban expansion has stabilized, yet remains high, and cannot be said to have stopped. In fact, the rate of urban expansion is well above the population growth rate mentioned above. In the past decade, it was three times higher. Whereas, the population grew at an average rate of 1.34% throughout the CZ, urban expansion did so at a rate of 4%.

Population Density

Population dynamics at local levels reflect concentration or deconcentration processes. The aim of this section is to provide evidence to determine whether the new urban expansions are denser than the previous ones, given the current peri-urbanization process. Densities were calculated by estimating the size of the population living in each of the smallest statistical units in the census (basic urban geostatistical areas) with built areas, dividing it by the areas of these units and taking the average for each borough. The data show that average densities have increased in all the areas with urban sprawl in the CZ over the past 30 years. The average population density throughout the CZ rose from 30.5 to 61.2 inhabitants per hectare, in other words, density doubled in 30 years, in practically all the boroughs. Nevertheless, there are two municipalities that had twice the average density of the CZ in 2020, namely Magdalena Contreras and Iztapalapa, with densities above 125 inhabitants/ha. In other words, these figures obviously show that land consumption has remained constant in recent decades, and that there has been a process of redensification both within traditional settlements and the irregular ones existing on their peripheries.

Fragmentation of Urban Expansion

With respect to urban fragmentation, Figure 3 shows a zoom of two boroughs (Tlalpan and Milpa Alta), where informal urban sprawl has been particularly widespread, which are representative examples of this phenomenon. The figures show two key aspects: first, until 1990, urban cores had expanded in a continuous, contiguous way, but during the 1990s, although this expansion remained contiguous, it was already extremely discontinuous in that it contained many gaps. Second, during the next two decades of this century, the urban fringes in the two boroughs followed an extremely dispersed, discontinuous pattern of occupation, with the presence of urban patches separated from the urban cores. This pattern is extremely noticeable, particularly in the municipalities of Tlalpan and Milpa Alta but is also visible in the lake area of the boroughs of Xochimilco and Tlahuac. This type of fragmented expansion has triggered the loss of forest and non-forest vegetation.

Figure 3 . The conservation zone: zoom of urban expansion in the Boroughs of Milpa Alta and Tlalpan, 1990–2020. Own elaboration from satellite images from sensors Landsat 4 TM; SPOT 4 and 5; and Rapid Eye.

Urban fragmentation has two main origins in the CZ: illegal subdivision, and creeping urbanization (also called “ant urbanization”). In illegal subdivision, an intermediary or unauthorized land divider purchases a large plot of land with several lots, obtained through loopholes in land ownership, or by arrangement with the original owners such as ejidatarios , holders of shares in common lands. These land dividers usually charge more for lots near towns where there are services and better transport links, and less for lots that are further away. The population with fewest resources settles in more scattered, distant lots, creating a highly dispersed pattern that will densify over time. Creeping urbanization involves the individual sale of lots in social or private property in already established settlements. Available lots are in peripheral areas, which leads to widely dispersed dwellings, which are irregular and may have some services. This process causes slow, discontinuous settlement ( Aguilar and Santos, 2011 ; Aguilar and López, 2015 ; Tellman et al., 2021 : p. 6–7).

Nonetheless, it has been found that on conservation land, residents who purchase a lot value the absence of slopes and the presence of drainage more than the presence of open spaces. Access to transport is also regarded as a significant advantage. This shows that buyers attempt to be as close to existing towns as possible rather than an extremely rural area near to high-value environmental zones because they realize they are buying in an informal land market (Martínez Jimenez et al., 2017 : p. 108).

This analysis shows that municipalities with the greatest urban expansion are critical areas in land use change and should be treated as areas for special attention within urban and environmental policy. It is paradoxical that the CA is an area with high ecological value, with an explicit prohibition of urban occupation, and that the areas occupied by irregular settlements should have grown to this size. Most land ownership in the CA is ejido-based or communal, meaning that property rights are guaranteed to rural communities (called agrarian nuclei), but not to individual farmers. Accordingly, the community owns all the land, and everyone has a piece of land they are entitled to work. The community's rights to the land were unalienable and until 1992 ejidos could not be sold, nor could the land be used for other purposes. The sale of ejido land was therefore legally considered non-existent ( Azuela, 1997 : p. 222–224; Tomas, 1997 : p. 26; Duhau, 1998 : p. 150–151; Ward, 1998 : p. 194–195). But in 1992, Article 27 of the Mexican Political Constitution was amended and the privatization of ejido land authorized, triggering an enormous expansion of urban peripheries that contradicted the principles of sustainable development ( Olivera, 2015 : p. 160–164).

As a result of these changes, thousands of hectares of communal and ejido land on the outskirts of Mexico City were illegally occupied by settlements inhabited by the poor, from the second half of the 1990s onwards. The most common method for the occupation of ejido or communal land has been the purchase of lots from the purported owner who has not complied with the legal norms governing these transactions. In this case, the owner breaks the law, and the result is clandestine divisions of land with which the owner of the land agrees, but there is also complicity on the part of political actors, who are aware of these transactions and choose to ignore them ( Aguilar and Santos, 2011 : p. 651). There are two crucial aspects that explain this tolerance of informal urbanization: first, it is an escape valve for the state which, due to its inability to solve the problem of housing for the poor population, uses this political patronage as a form of social stability ( Varley, 2006 : p. 209). And second, there is enormous impunity for those who violate the law and subdivide ejido and communal land without complying with the rules, confident that subsequent regularization processes will guarantee the formalization of illegal properties, thereby encouraging new processes of informality ( Azuela, 1997 : p. 229). This process reveals the complicity of social actors together with a social pact of tolerance and non-intervention by the local state in irregular urbanization.

Land Use Changes. Environmental Impact Hot Spots

Over the past 20 years, land use coverage in the CDMX CZ has shown a similar composition in percentages, although there are changes that reflect significant trends. The highest percentages of land use are concentrated in three categories: the forest area, encompassing 70% of the CA; the agricultural zone with a percentage that varied from 16.8 to 9.3 during this period; and non-forest vegetation, which increased from 6.4 to 9.8 per cent during the same period (see Table 5 ).

Table 5 . The conservation zone: land use changes by main categories, 2000–2020.

An analysis of land use changes in the period 2000–2020 shows that the three most significant gains and losses occurred with areas higher than several thousand hectares, which in turn experienced the most significant environmental deterioration. First, the size of the agricultural area with the second highest percentage in the CZ, 16.8%, fell from 27,420 to 15,251 ha, and its share to just 9.3%. Second, irregular human settlements increased from 6,356 to 12,945 ha, practically doubling their area; and third, the area of non-forest vegetation increased from 6.4 to 9.8%. Areas with fewer than a thousand hectares, yet with a significant environmental impact, include the chinampas, which lost just over 500 ha, and decreased their share from 1.5 to 1.1% (see Table 5 ).

These changes show a dynamic of powerful environmental impacts that can be observed in the sequence of maps of land use changes (see Figure 4 ). The urban occupation process has steadily continued to the detriment of agricultural areas close to traditional settlements on the slopes of the mountains, and areas with forest and non-forest vegetation, but also in chinampa areas in the flat part of the CZ, in the boroughs of Xochimilco and Tláhuac (see Figure 4 ). Agricultural areas that have existed for several decades have been reduced by urban encroachment, but also by the abandonment of farming activities, since the younger population prefers to work in urban occupations given the proximity of the city; their decrease is clearly visible in the sequence in Figure 4 . And the increase in non-forest vegetation can be explained by deforestation, which exists in the highest part, and the invasion of abandoned agricultural areas. These changes are clearly visible in the forest zone in the south of the CZ with patches of this type of vegetation and on the edge of the high, flat zones.

Figure 4 . The conservation zone: evolution of land use and vegetation change, 2000–2020. Elaborated from land use and vegetation layers of Serie II from INEG I ( National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 2001 ); GDF (2012) Atlas Geografico del Sue lo de Conservaci6n del Distrito Federal; and Esri Land Cover, 2020.

This land use dynamic is partly the result of the failure of environmental conservation programs, two of which serve as examples: the federal Environmental Services Payment Program (PSA) and the local Funds to Support the Conservation and Restoration of Ecosystems through Social Participation Program (PROFACE). Although environmental degradation has exceeded the budget allocated for both programs, the latter have been widely accepted by the rural population, because they constitute a means of obtaining additional resources (subsidies) required for their survival. However, these problems have not stopped the changes in land use or the loss of natural spaces, especially in adjoining areas, due to the high demand for land for residential use, and its consequent illegal sale. PROFACE promotes productive projects, such as ecotourism, corn farming, nopal, dairy production, and trout farming. These projects contribute less to ecosystem conservation than to the productive diversification of this sector of the population. The PSA has several complications reflected in the constant change of operating rules, complex administrative procedures due to the lack of a comprehensive evaluation of its effects, and low, temporary wages that ultimately fail to improve the environmental situation ( Perevochtchikova and Torruco Colorado, 2013 : p. 20–21).

Land use change involves a dynamic process of gains and losses. In other words, in each period, a specific land use can gain surface area, yet also lose coverage to other uses. This process can be observed in Figure 5 . For example, the agricultural area experienced major coverage losses from 2000 to 2010 in various locations, together with a slight increase in surface area in other locations. In the following period, however, although the loss of coverage continued, it experienced a significant increase in area, yet the final balance for the period is one of overall loss. The case of human settlements is clearer in terms of surface gains in the two periods, with very few losses. The case of the forest is striking because, although it experienced losses during each period due to other uses such as urban encroachment and non-forest vegetation, it also made similar gains, in terms of reforestation, which has enabled it to maintain the same area.

Figure 5 . The conservation zone: gains and losses by land use categories, 2000–2020. Elaborated from land use and vegetation layers of Serie II from INEGI ( National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 2001 ); GDF (2012) Atlas Geograf ico de/ Sue/a de Conservaci Ò n de/Distrito Federal; and Esri Land Cover , 2020.

Finally, Figures 6 , 7 contains a sequence of maps indicating the losses and gains in the main categories of land use changes throughout the CZ, in the period 2000–2020. These maps show the location of the most critical hot spots for environmental change in each of the boroughs. The most striking features are the losses of agricultural use in the central and eastern zone of the CZ, which are greater in the first period than the second; and the losses of chinampas in the boroughs of Xochimilco and Tláhuac, during both periods. The main increases in human settlement areas occurred in the boroughs of Tlalpan, Xochimilco and Milpa Alta; and in non-forest vegetation in the municipalities themselves, with both categories experiencing similar gains in the two periods.

Figure 6 . The conservation zone: sequence of maps of land use gains and losses by category, 2000–2010. Elaborated from land use and vegetation layers of Serie II from INEG I ( National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 2001 ); GDF (2012) Atlas Geografico del Sue lo de ConservaciÒn del Distrito Federal; and Esri Land Cover, 2020.

Figure 7 . The conservation zone: sequence of maps of land use gains and losses by category, 2010–2020. Elaborated from land use and vegetation layers of Serie II from INEG I ( National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 2001 ); GDF (2012) Atlas Geografico del Sue lo de ConservaciÒn del Distrito Federal; and Esri Land Cover, 2020.

The chinampa zone has a high risk of contamination of its aquifers, due to the influx of wastewater from irregular human settlements on the banks of the canals, which lack drainage services. The case of San Francisco Caltongo in the Borough of Xochimilco is emblematic, in that it is the neighborhood in the lake area with the highest amount of residential wastewater discharges into the canals. Most dwellings lack public drainage, and the population has chosen to dispose of the wastewater from their homes in septic tanks, and green areas such as chinampas , vacant lots or the canals ( Rojas and Aguilar, 2020 : p. 54–55). The lake area of Xochimilco contains 917 plots of land that deposit ~1,374 wastewater discharges into the canals. Of these discharges, 771 are considered greywater, and 603 sewage ( Flores et al., 2015 ).

Another risk of contamination to which aquifers are exposed is the use of agrochemicals in agricultural production, which increases the nitrogen and phosphorus load in water. This encourages excess growth of aquatic weeds, namely the water lily, which in turn affects the fauna as well as obstructing navigation and sometimes permanently covering the canals ( San Miguel Villegas, 2010 : p. 158). Another negative effect associated with water resources is differential subsidence, both in the canal area due to the drop in water levels and the change in the direction of flow, and in urban areas due to intensive groundwater extraction and limited infiltration for recharging the aquifer. The most overexploited aquifers are those in Xochimilco and Tláhuac ( San Miguel Villegas, 2010 : p. 159).

A key factor is that in the chinampa area, young people are no longer interested in traditional agricultural activities. Families that can give their children a higher education no longer envisage them returning to work on the plots of agricultural land, partly because this is considered a difficult, poorly paid job, and partly because there is a negative perception of agriculture, which is regarded as a socially inferior, backward occupation. Farmers do not wish to see their children working in agriculture, preferring them to “have higher aspirations in their lives” ( Rubio et al., 2020 : p. 213).

The CZ is a peri-urban territory that has been undergoing an urban and rural transition for three decades. Three main driving forces have modified its land use: first, significant pressure from informal urban expansion, which has continued to advance and is driven by the poor population. This advance has been facilitated by the illegal subdivision of communal and ejido property. Second, according to urban legislation, the CZ is a conservation area because of its high ecological value for the city, where urban uses are prohibited, yet it is unfortunately subject to processes of significant environmental deterioration. And third, urban policy has failed to reconcile these two driving forces in land use change (urban and environmental) or to find solutions at the level of CDMX or the metropolis. This lack of solutions prevents progress in the issue of social justice for poor residents, who continue to live in precarious conditions with insecure land tenure, or in concrete actions to achieve a model of urban sustainability in the CZ.

The advance of informal urban expansion shows that the social actors involved, ejido and communal owners, continue to act arbitrarily, subdividing the land, allowing more settlements, and increasing the densification of existing ones, causing the fragmentation of land use. This process increases the concentration of the poor living in precarious conditions and contributes to environmental deterioration, as exemplified by the informal settlements in the chinampas area. Local government obviously lacks the mechanisms to stop urban expansion, coupled with the fact that there is no land occupation model within urban policy to reconcile urban expansion with environmental conservation. After decades of tolerance of informal urbanization, this type of settlement has been legitimized. Nowadays, eviction is only seen in small settlements in highly specific locations, while housing solutions have yet to be provided for the entire low-income population.

In terms of the ecological value of the CA, the destruction of the original landscape is evident, which has led to environmental deterioration, expressed through several processes: the destruction of the original vegetation such as forest areas; the occupation and abandonment of agricultural areas, leading to the disappearance of the chinampas; urban patches without connectivity and a dearth of services that cause the soil and water aquifers to deteriorate; soil sealing in recent urban areas preventing infiltration, all of which negatively impacts environmental services for the city. Despite the high priority that exists in the legislation and political discourse for the conservation of the entire CZ, to date, priorities have focused on certain aspects such as preventing clandestine logging, reforestation and the preservation of biodiversity, and the creation of parks and recreational areas. However, there is no comprehensive conservation policy for the entire CA with extremely strict zoning, or a solid policy to support agricultural activities ( Torres Lima and Rodríguez Sánchez, 2005 ; Avila-Foucat, 2012 ; Escandón Calderón, 2020 : p. 19), and traditional or indigenous peoples ( Carmona Motolinia and Tetreault, 2021 ).

Urban and environmental policies have failed to address the enormous challenge of reconciling informal urban expansion with environmental conservation in the peri-urban area of the CA. Urban and environmental regulations initially ignored irregular occupation, and have subsequently been ineffective in incorporating a strategy into their plans and regulations to manage irregular settlements, in terms of the regularization of land tenure, relocations, and definition of territorial reserves ( Aguilar and Santos, 2011 : p. 661). The most likely explanation is that the introduction of strict measures regarding land use could jeopardize clientelistic relations with the communities.

The data would appear to confirm the existence of a social pact of tolerance and non-intervention between the local state and the social actors involved in irregular urbanization. This position formalizes the informal and tolerates the occupation of the CZ, making it impossible to advance toward a model of urban sustainability at the city and metropolitan level. Solutions for informal settlements have been postponed for over 30 years and environmental deterioration continues. This inaction reflects the failure to prioritize environmental over political dimensions of urban issues. Promises of regularization have continued for many years as part of clientelistic practices ( Rojas and Aguilar, 2020 : p. 59; Wigle, 2020 : p. 67). Faced with the lack of solutions to informal settlements, this population lives in a situation of constant uncertainty, because they are neither evicted from a territory they should not be occupying, nor do they regularize their land tenure. As Wigle (2013 : p. 586) points out, these settlements are part of a planning limbo; they live in a sort of “gray area” within the CZ. But this division between the formal and the informal, and the lack of solutions to informal ownership, reproduces the social class division between groups that legally own a plot of land or a house, and low-income groups that are still unable to obtain them. Urban policy thereby fails to address structural social inequity through access to land and housing.

Conclusions

Urban expansion in cities in developing countries is inexorable, and as their economies become more solid, their cities will grow increasingly quickly. The key is to find a means of channeling their dispersed, fragmented growth on the peripheries. In terms of urban morphology, peri-urbanization is dominating the urban expansion model and densities are steadily increasing in these peripheries, exerting strong environmental pressure. Managing their expansion in a more compact, continuous way, and sustainably, is a priority of urban and environmental policy. Against this background, it is essential to define the acceptable degrees of dispersion and fragmentation in each case.

The case of the CZ in CDMX is a clear example of a fragmented peri-urban expansion process in an area with high ecological value. The CZ provides essential environmental services for the quality of life of the population, and its preservation is of paramount importance. However, for decades, local government has proved ineffective in controlling urban expansion, and faces serious dilemmas to stop the changes in land use that damage the environment of this territory. It is crucial to have a strategy that incorporates several essential principles: a territorial principle that emphasizes the fact that it is essential to address the way the city expands; and a territorial strategy that explicitly indicates the amount of land required for future growth, and how it will be achieved or resolved, particularly in the CA; it is necessary a particular strategy and mechanisms to control and shape urban expansion in each settlement, and stop illegal sales; increase densification until certain limits, and have a system of monitoring and penalties for those that contravene the land-use rules.

A principle of governance is required that will achieve a new social pact, addressing the socio-environmental processes that are the driving forces of land use change, and ensuring a dialogue with social actors to reconcile the dilemma of environmental preservation with urban expansion; for example, make agreements with social land owners to take actions to promote proper, legal land subdivisions, and also to preserve the ecological value of the zone through environmental services, and re-activation of agricultural activities with important financing support; these action can prevent rural land from becoming poor informal settlements; it is necessary to accelerate property formalization processes for accessing property titles, urban services and social programs.

There must also be a principle of social equity that meets the basic needs of the low-income population living in the CZ to reduce socio-residential segregation and inequities within the metropolitan area of CDMX; socio-economic inequality, relates to structural conditions that increase demand for cheaper land, a way to counteract this situation is to creates jobs with productive activities in the municipalities of the zone, and look for strategies to offer cheaper land or housing to the poorer groups; and housing improvement program for rural and urban areas.

And lastly, there must be a principle of sustainability that incorporates the environment into all sectoral actions, at the lowest cost and with the highest possible efficiency to occupy vacant land in a more orderly manner; it would be recommendable to apply mitigation and adaptation strategies in the context of climate change and urban expansion with monetary compensation, this could create an opportunity for the people living there and empower them with an asset. All these actions can make the city more productive, accessible, inclusive, and sustainable, all of which are essential objectives of a fair, well-balanced public policy.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

AA proposed the main argument of the article, developed the conceptual argument, selected the main information inputs, defined the main structure of the paper, and developed the discussion and conclusions of the paper. MF organized and developed main information inputs of the urban expansion section, selected the satellite images, interpreted them for the period 1990–2020, and calculated the urban expansion for periods and by boroughs. LL organized and calculated the main land use changes in the period 2000–2020, did the calculations from the main categories defined, worked out the compatibility of information sources for the measurements, and calculations related main land use categories with each borough. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

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1. ^ It is estimated that when the population of cities in developing countries doubles, from 2 billion in 2000 to 4 billion in 2030, the area occupied by cities will have tripled ( Angel, 2014 : p. 224).

2. ^ It should be noted that to the north of CDMX it also includes a small portion of the Sierra de Guadalupe and the Cerro del Tepeyac, although this area is not included in this analysis.

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Keywords: peri-urbanization, informal settlements, environmental deterioration, urban sustainability, Mexico City

Citation: Aguilar AG, Flores MA and Lara LF (2022) Peri-Urbanization and Land Use Fragmentation in Mexico City. Informality, Environmental Deterioration, and Ineffective Urban Policy. Front. Sustain. Cities 4:790474. doi: 10.3389/frsc.2022.790474

Received: 06 October 2021; Accepted: 26 January 2022; Published: 10 March 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Aguilar, Flores and Lara. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Adrian Guillermo Aguilar, adrianguillermo1@gmail.com

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Peri-Urbanization and Land Use Change

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The makeover of Mexico City

Corydon Ireland

Harvard Staff Writer

Aided by Harvard experts, officials are tackling housing, pollution, and traffic problems — and solving them

MEXICO CITY — In a poem, Octavio Paz called the vast, colorful, ever-expanding metropolis of his birth “a paradise of cages.”

It is, after all, a city where tenuous but imaginative informal housing sprouts amid the grid of formal architecture, a city where shanties, wash lines, and water tanks pop up on the rooftops of high-rent buildings. In greater Mexico City, home to 22 million people and covering 3,700 square miles, more than half of the architecture is built without regulations.

Paz also wrote of a Mexico City that “in its circular fever repeats and repeats.” That image applies to the city’s traffic. In the central, historical heart called the distrito federal , or D.F. (pronounced “day-efay”), 9 million residents of 16 boroughs live in a 570-square-mile tangle of traffic. It’s riven day and night by cars, trucks, and microbuses — more than 3 million vehicles, a third of them more than 20 years old. For commuters on the outskirts of the D.F., congestion is so bad that the daily trip to work can take up to three hours.

The same traffic contributes to air pollution . (“I am surrounded by city,” Paz wrote plaintively in another poem. “I lack air.”) In 1992, the United Nations called Mexico City’s air quality the planet’s worst, so bad that flying birds, overwhelmed, would fall dead from the sky. By 1998, the U.N. called Mexico City the world’s most dangerous city for children’s health.

Thanks to stringent regulatory reform in the last two decades, the situation has dramatically improved. Air quality in Mexico City now resembles that in Los Angeles: not wonderful, but not catastrophic. New laws have reduced the city’s once prodigiously dirty industrial footprint, which had included lead smelters.

The metropolitan area (41 municipalities outside the D.F. in the states of Mexico and Hidalgo) is in the Valley of Mexico. It constitutes the heart of a nation where “geography has been destiny,” said Jose Castillo , M.Arch. ’95, D.Des.’00. Castillo is a Mexico City architect and a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD).

That destiny includes volcanic mountains, which make the mile-high city dramatically beautiful, but also create air inversions that cloak it in trapped pollutants.

And that destiny is both wet and fragile. Hundreds of years ago, Mexico City was a soggy maze of 45 rivers and five lakes atop an ancient volcano. The lakes mostly have been filled in, and the rivers have been covered by roadways. But subsoils still wiggle like Jell-O when an earthquake hits. (The biggest recent ones rattled through in 1985 and 1957.) In the same soils, pipework supplies city water, 35 percent of which is lost in transit.

Urban challenges, Harvard initiatives

Problematic housing, snarled traffic, and stubborn air pollution are three of the most prominent challenges in greater Mexico City, which is the largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere and the fifth-largest in the world. They are the same problems that threaten to overwhelm megacities worldwide. And they are problems that Harvard has a hand in studying and mitigating in Mexico City.

Last year, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) started work on the Mexico City-Harvard Alliance for Air Quality and Health . The five-year, bi-national collaboration will study how well two decades of air quality regulation in Mexico have improved health and economic outcomes.

Similarly, at GSD, long-term initiatives are investigating housing and traffic problems. Experts there see the growing city as a vast, mutating, proximate laboratory for studying the common challenges of megacities.

In the last four years, GSD has picked up the pace on its Mexico studio courses, research fellowships, and summer and Wintersession offerings, which included one last month. Faculty members Felipe Correa and Carlos Garciavelez Alfaro published “Mexico City: Between Geometry and Geography” (2014), a study of how the capital gradually took shape as an urban center starting 600 years ago, when it was the heart of the Aztec world.

“Mexico City as a megacity can serve as a universal paradigm that cities should learn from in the future,” said Castillo, a point the new book also makes. “The allure of the megalopolis becomes very appealing as an object of study.”

One GSD program is the Mexican Cities Initiative, launched in 2013 to study urban vulnerabilities and innovations. Its faculty coordinator is urban development expert Diane Davis , the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism. She wrote “Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century” (1994) about the political and economic complexities of urbanization.

At GSD, Davis co-directs an initiative on sustainable urban development through the lens of “social” (affordable) housing, along with sustainable-cities expert Ann Forsyth , a professor of urban planning. Forsyth is director of GSD’s masters program in urban planning, an expert in planning methodologies and tools, and a blogger for Planetizen , an urban planning news and education site.

The sustainable urban development initiative at GSD is funded by Mexico’s National Worker Housing agency, Infonavit, a government-run mortgage bank established in 1972 to aid production of low-income housing. Infonavit is administered through a tripartite system, with equal participation from private-sector employers, labor, and the federal government. Workers pay into the mortgage fund through salary deductions, the private sector builds the housing, and labor has a voice in the process.

Smart housing

Paz was 15 in 1929, the year that some experts say marked Mexico City’s transformation from a sedate corner of Hispanic culture — a locale central to the poet’s nostalgia — to a booming metropolis. During Paz’s boyhood, Mexico nationalized its railroads. It was a time of industrial growth, land reform, and the new oil economy. The era also spurred the poet’s oblique obsessions, including the fate of housing that Paz equated with beauty, tradition, and the safety of a village.

In Mexico City’s D.F., housing is a big challenge. At least 40,000 units a year are needed, and half of them must be in the affordable category. But only 20,000 a year get built. This housing deficiency has an ironic counterpoint: There are abundant units of abandoned housing. Most were built on cheap land on the far outskirts of the D.F., but ended up being unsustainable culturally. They were too far from workplaces and poorly connected to rapid transit.

Part of the Infonavit-funded project is within GSD’s executive education program, directed by Rena Fonseca, Ph.D. ’91. Her office is less than a year into a three-year cycle of programs on affordable housing in Mexico, building connections with Infonavit’s executives. Insiders call the goal “capacity building,” which Castillo said creates “an ecology of knowledge” connecting Harvard with housing experts in Mexico. Last month, an executive education advance team was in Mexico City preparing for a May event at Infonavit.

With $60 billion in affordable-housing loans outstanding, Infonavit controls 70 percent of such mortgages in Mexico, co-finances 15 percent of the rest, and underwrites about 500,000 new loans a year. One in four Mexicans lives in an Infonavit-financed house. (Affordable-housing units have an average price tag of $30,000.)

Infonavit is also the largest mortgage holder in Latin America, with 5.5 million loans on its books. “That’s a big number,” said Sebastián Fernández Cortina , one of three controlling directors at Infonavit, where he represents private-sector interests. With size comes responsibility as well as opportunity. “Mexico City has grown exponentially,” he said, explaining the need for the nation’s chief test case for the resilient, sustainable urban housing of the future. “We need to do this in very organized ways.”

Population growth adds to the pressure for new housing. At present, much of what gets built is informal; no architects need apply. Visible from any high vantage in Mexico City is what megacity watchers call “the urban tsunami.” Clay-colored waves of informal housing seem to lap higher onto the mountains that enclose the city like the rim of a vast bowl.

There are 825 informal settlements in greater Mexico City, with some sweeping up into the hillsides. Up close, in one such hillside area, the D.F. below shimmers like Oz, spiked with skyscrapers and organized around straight boulevards. Paseo de la Reforma is one, its curbs lined with the same species of trees as its model, the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The hillside settlement is no Paris, but its unpaved streets are charmingly crooked and narrow and its housing, no higher than a few stories, colorful and individual. The city below, though, with its promising jobs, is hard to get to.

Drawing those waves of housing back toward the city center is central to the GSD/Infonavit initiative. Design experts such as Davis and Castillo call this “re-densifying,” that is, repopulating urban centers in ways that shorten commutes, save energy, create attractive high-density housing, and reduce social strains.

Before the Harvard collaboration, in 2008, Infonavit had already shifted its focus to “green” mortgages. These require that buildings support social good and a clean environment. By 2011, all Infonavit mortgages were required to be green, and included provisions for community-building and environmentally sustainable standards for electricity, gas, and water.

“Urban development that is not well planned has a high cost in the future,” said Cortina, who attended a 2006 executive education program at Harvard Business School (HBS). That cost could include failing to respond to climate change and failing to provide attractive housing for Mexico’s young people. Financing housing “in a much smarter way,” he said, means “housing not only for people to live in, but places where people grow.”

“Places where people grow” sums up Infonavit’s emphasis on housing that guarantees not only good infrastructure, but a chance at building community.

A year ago, Paulina Campos, M.P.P. ’07, took up that challenge as CEO of an Infonavit-founded nonprofit whose mission is community-building at affordable-housing complexes. “It’s not just about physical space,” said Campos, who has an office at Infonavit’s dramatically modern headquarters in Mexico City. “It’s about taking responsibility.”

In the end, she said, the appearance, safety, and social cohesion of social hosing is in the hands of its residents, who are often faced with starting life over in housing that cannot match the village-like atmosphere of informal housing.

“As a country, we have developed the capacity to build houses massively,” said Campos, who works closely with Cortina. “But in the end it’s not complete without building communities.” Without the right social dynamics, affordable housing can slip into decline. Maintenance is slack, neighbors don’t interact, and security is sketchy. With a sense of community, residents share common goals, organize soccer leagues, and schedule cleanup days. “This is social capital,” said Campos.

Social capital, by way of housing, is hard to recover or even maintain. Late one afternoon last fall, Castillo took guests on a roadway tour of the city, talking as he steered through traffic, down grand boulevards that gave way to four-lane streets bordering vast boroughs set aside for residents without much money. East of the D.F.’s grand core, he gestured to the right, toward Iztapalapa, a borough of 2 million and the poorest in the city, where it is hard to find potable water and where about a quarter of the homes still have damage from the 1985 earthquake. “This is part of the drama of the city,” said Castillo. To the left is another poor borough of 2 million.

Castillo pulled over and parked and stood by one of the subway stops that his firm, arquitectura 911sc , had designed. The landscaping had devolved to dried tall grass and discarded bottles. In the growing dark, on an ill-lit patch of remote Mexico City, microbuses glided past without headlights and boys gathered to skateboard.

The next day the wiry architect sprang up a set of stairs at Integrara Zaragoza, an affordable-housing complex his firm also had designed. (The firm employs 24 and has about 40 projects underway.) From the rooftop, Castillo pointed to the urban tendrils creeping up the distant foothills. But then he pointed closer, to the street, where the informal city was on display, “the public life external to the home,” he said: food stands, shops at the curb, and soccer games on the street.

Typical affordable housing can discourage the social genius of the informal sector, he said. Often, it even follows a socially destructive pattern. Tiny courtyards discourage social gathering or the possibility of plantings or gardens. A crush of parking places outside the buildings eliminates precious public space.

But in this development — the third designed by his firm, with 640 units on a former industrial site — there are spacious courtyards with handsome plantings. Parking is a half-level down from the first floor (“We hide all the cars,” said Castillo), and condo-like dwellings are small (ranging from 400 to 560 square feet) but flexibly designed to accommodate the needs of small families as well as students and single workers. “The diversity of the demographics,” he said, “has to be reflected in the typologies in the buildings.”

This housing is close to transportation, 100 meters from a subway line and 300 meters from a modern Metrobús line. And the housing project is dense: about 500 units per 2.5 acres. The aim, said Castillo, is “as many units as possible without overcrowding.” (An American suburb has 12 to 24 units in the same space.) Such urban compression, in neighborhoods reclaimed from the industrial past, and with design strategies that reclaim social capital, like the hidden parking and first-floor room for village-scale retail, “is a revolution,” Castillo said.

Campos was still at Infonavit in the spring of 2013 when Cortina, Davis, Fonseca, and Eric S. Belsky signed a letter of intent with Infonavit to create the Harvard initiative, which Campos called a think tank on sustainable urban planning and affordable housing. (Belsky, now at the Federal Reserve Board, was then managing director at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and a GSD lecturer in urban planning.) “That’s how the Harvard idea started,” she said.

As she talked, Campos stood atop Infonavit’s headquarters on the largest green roof in Latin America. Employees jog there at lunchtime and harvest greens and vegetables in a hothouse they planted. From the roof, Campos had a 360-degree view of the growing city, including its streams of endless traffic. As for social strains in housing, she said, “long commutes make a big difference.”

Smart transportation

In Mexico City, only 26 percent of commuters use personal cars. Others use city-subsidized modern buses, painted a proud, bright red, in a five-line system with 65 miles of routes. Some commuters hop on handsome, low-fare trolley cars of pale green. Millions of daily commuters board the city’s efficient subways, which are routinely quicker from point to point than a car. But none of these transportation systems are growing fast enough to meet demand.

Harvard is trying to help reduce commutes and promote alternatives. Davis directs another GSD initiative called “ Transforming Urban Transport ,” TUT to insiders, funded by the Volvo Research and Education Foundations. The idea is to use case study research to see how political leadership aids innovations in transportation. “Mobility is political,” said Castillo. “It’s not just a technical problem.”

One of the case studies is Mexico City, said Onesimo Flores Dewey, senior researcher at TUT and a GSD lecturer in urban planning and design. During the 1970s, when Mexico was flush with new oil money, he said, “There was a flurry of investment in public transportation.” But it was never enough to keep up. In Mexico City, 60 percent of commuters still depend on informal (and unregulated and polluting) microbuses. The reason is simple: Poor residents living farthest from the D.F. need access to transport that has informal stops and flexible routes.

Things are changing for the better, said Castillo. Modern, low-polluting buses with official routes are gradually replacing microbuses and displacing cars. On six-lane roads once devoted to automobiles, two lanes are reserved now for bus traffic, “a new form of equity,” he said.

One day last fall, Mexico City urban planner Laura Janka, M.A.U.D. ’11, peered at her native city through a chain-link fence atop the 47-story Torre Latinoamerica, or Latin-American Tower. Traffic glittered in silvery streams below, along wide avenues that radiated in spokes toward the mountains. Long commutes not only add to pollution, they tear at the social fabric, she said.

The traffic represents a clash of two cities, said Janka, one of 9 million people in the D.F. and another of 5 million commuters from the enormous encircling periphery. The D.F.’s budget for water, power, transportation, and parks is enough to cover 9 million, not 14 million, she said, “but we have to share it.”

Sharing of another kind reduces traffic congestion. Some Mexico City streets now have one lane for pedestrians and one for cars, as on 16 September Avenue. “I love this street,” said Rodrigo Díaz , who studied with Davis when she was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Chile-born architect and urban planner is an expert on urban land use who prefers the trolley for travel in Mexico City. Once at Infonavit, he now works for EMBARQ México, a Mexican nonprofit that developed a bus rapid-transit corridor that links road to rail.

Díaz showed visitors an even more radical recipe for reducing urban car congestion. Calle Francisco I. Madero, once choked with cars, is now a perambulatory corridor for 200,000 pedestrians a day. At one end is the Zócalo, a vast central square that has been the political and spiritual heart of Mexico since Aztec times. At the other end is the city’s busiest intersection, its oldest park, and the towering Torre Latinoamerica.

Another strategy involves EcoBici , a bicycle-sharing system, the largest in Latin America, said GSD’s Flores Dewey. It draws close to a half a million riders a month and grew 60 percent in 2014. (Membership, heavily subsidized by the city, costs $30 a year.)

The user demographics defied expectations. “Public transportation is for people who can’t afford a car,” said Díaz. “But not EcoBici.” Eighty percent of its members are male, and many of them young, but that is changing too. He passed a bike-share rack near a subway stop. There was one bicycle left.

Nearby, four streets of traffic hem in the treeless Zócalo, where on hot days visitors stand in a line in the narrow shade cast by the central flagpole. But at the plaza’s periphery, another lesson is at hand from Mexico’s informal sector, which tends to fill in sidewalks and public spaces in creative ways. The city has taken over part of official streets and created pocket parks, islands of benches and greenery, “Twelve in the last two years,” said Díaz. “If you come at noon, it’s hard to find a seat.”

The same willingness to learn from the informal sector may be the keystone of urban resilience in Mexico City, where the cultures of rich and poor, formal and informal, seem to clash fruitfully. To get the modern Metrobús system started, city officials negotiated with microbus owners to form cooperatives that buy and run bigger buses. To invent a system of pocket parks, city officials drew on informal sector habits of taking over streets in search of human scale.

In a city that is still, underneath, a place of “lakes and volcanoes,” said Castillo, resilience and adaption is built into the culture. The city grew up around first an Aztec and then a Hispanic colonial core. It absorbed forests, lakes, and villages. It burst into modernity at the same time that Paz was putting boyhood behind him. The Nobelist would go on to call his changed city “a subverted paradise.” But Harvard and its design experts and city residents see hope and progress.

“What do we do with this reality?” asked Castillo of his complicated city, with its rough road to its present. “We can’t relocate 21 million people. We can’t spend our lives whining about the bad decisions we have made. We have to actively adapt.”

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Feike de Jong Undertakes Photojournalistic Walk of the Tijuana/San Diego Border 

“Feike de Jong has begun BORDE(R), a photojournalistic walk of the Tijuana/San Diego border. The project explores Global South-North relations by observing the nexus of these cities’ geopolitical—and cultural—boundaries. Paying close attention to urban planning and design, Feike’s approach is rooted in his belief that city borders deserve more attention because they reveal urban realities that city centers may not.” Keep reading…

Mexican local government’s interventions against COVID-19: virtues and flaws  

The COVID-19 health crisis creates opportunities to analyze state government activity in Mexico. The social and economic impact faced by each of the country’s state governments demonstrates their responses to the cultural, social, and economic particularities of each locality, but also to their institutional capacities to respond to these growing demands. In this sense, the Mexican case has detonated the unrest of the past, making visible the complications that have historically existed in shaping the federalist puzzle, which should be autonomous and able to exercise its capacities to meet the demands of the moment. Keep reading…

Kiley Fellow Lecture: Seth Denizen, “Thinking Through Soil: Case Study from the Mezquital Valley”  

Seth Denizen  is a GSD Kiley Fellow and design practitioner trained in landscape architecture and human geography. In his lecture “ Thinking Through Soil: Case Study from the Mezquital Valley ”, which took place on September 21, 2020, Denizen explores the relationship between land politics in the Mezquital Valley and Mexico City. He discusses both his research and the work that GSD students produced in conjunction with UNAM students in a  studio course  focused on the region. Watch the lecture …

Navigating the Journey of Latinas to the United States  

Carolina Sepúlveda: “While migration from Mexico to the United States diminished in recent years, the number of migrants from Central America has increased substantially since 2010[1]. As a result, Mexico has consolidated as the primary transit route for migrants from the Northern Triangle countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The migration journey through Mexico is particularly violent for women[2]. At the different stages, women are subject to extortion, human trafficking, sexual violence, and even murder in the hands of gangs and organized crime groups. The paths and tactics used by women on the move present an unstable and shifting landscape reinforced by anti-migration policies and criminal groups’ presence along the routes.” Keep reading…

Del Temblor al Arte  

Antonio Moya-Latorre: “Artists’ responses to the earthquake in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec are a perfect example of how art can contribute, in an extreme situation like the one triggered in 2017, to expand community awareness by leveraging the potential of local culture.” Visit the exhibition…

Oaxaca – Beyond Reconstruction

“Harvard GSD faculty and students published a report based on two years of research and studio practice focused on Oaxaca, Mexico after its devastating 2017 earthquake. Based on work with partners at MIT and elsewhere, and through comparative reflection on Chile’s disastrous earthquake a few years prior, the contributors to this publication analyzed what went wrong in the initial disaster recovery in Oaxaca and proposed alternative frameworks for moving forward.” Keep reading…

• Seth Denizen, “Thinking Through Soil: Case Study from the Mezquital Valley”
• Mexican Cities Initiative: “Staying a Step Ahead: Institutional Flexibility in the Rehabilitation of Social Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico”
• Domestic Orbits: Frida Escobedo on architecture’s tendency to conceal spaces of domestic labor

• USA - Mexico Migration

Mexico to USA migration

Population change and migration featured in many news events during this 2011 summer. This issue looks at some of these and brings you up-to-date reports on some of your textbook's case studies.

The changing balance of the Mexico to USA migration

The migration of young Mexicans to the USA, hoping to find work and a better way of life, has been taking place for almost a century. Millions of people have attempted the crossing both legally and illegally. At the end of the 20th century the migration reached 'epidemic' numbers with hundreds of thousands attempting the crossing in the border each year, usually at night and at great risk of losing any money they have, personal injury from dangerous environment and also capture by the USA border patrols leading to deportation back to Mexico.

The case study of the Mexico to USA, is easy to understand because a rich and attractive nation has a border with a much less-economically-developed country with a rapidly growing population.

It has become one of the most used migration case studies in Welsh schools. This Year's A level students were still choosing it as their preferred case study in the summer exams, but were they correct to be still using it?

Did you know?

Mexico migration is now old news - This is about a new migration much closer to home!

Have you ever heard of Lampedusa? It is a small island that is part of the State of Italy, located in the Mediterranean half way between the coast of North Africa and the Italian mainland.

Lampedusa has a small population of approximately 6,000 people and an area of 25 square kilometres. It as hit the headlines as a serious migration headache for Italy and the EU. The EU has become a very desirable destination for potential economic migrants from poor north African countries where there are conflicts oe where there is a much lower quality of life than that in Europe. Economic migrants make the extremely hazardous journey across the Sahara to the Mediterranean Coast. Many don't make it across . A growing and criminal industry has now developed to ship these poor and hopeful people across the Sahara and then over the Mediterranean Sea to Lampedusa, usually at night and in very dangerous overloaded boats. In August, Italian coastguards have found the bodies of 25 men on a boat overcrowded with refugees fleeing Libya.The 15-metre boat landed carrying 271 survivors and the bodies of 25 men were then found in the boat's engine room. They died from lack of oxygen or engine fumes. The migrants came from countries like Somalia, Nigeria and Ghana.

Thousands of refugees from North Africa have arrived on the island in recent weeks and some estimate 1 in 10 die on the way. Italians are very unhappy that they seem to have been left to sort out this European Union problem all on their own. Emergency immigration centres have been set up in various parts of Italy to deal with the new influx of refugees but the problem is likely to get a lot worse in the future.

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But what was the pull towards the USA? What has changed? See some of the push and pull factors below.

Related Articles...

UK Population Change

The Horn of Africa Famine

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Mathematics, health & fitness, business & finance, technology & engineering, food & beverage, random knowledge, see full index, 4.3 changing cities - case study: mexico city (paper 2) flashcards preview, aqa gcse (9-1) geography > 4.3 changing cities - case study: mexico city (paper 2) > flashcards.

<p>What is the <b>site</b> of Mexico City?</p>

<p>The Central Plateau on which Mexico City stands is a flat area surrounded by a mountain range Movement of people and goods from early times was along this plateau, and Mexico City is at the centre point of all these routes</p>

<p>What is the population of Mexico City?</p>

<p>21 Million inhabitants</p>

<p>Why do people Migrate to Mexico CIty?</p>

<p>Rural to Urban Migration:</p>

<ul><li>People left the countryside and came to the city to look for better standard of housing, education and more advanced healthcare</li><li>Generally, they wanted to escape the poverty experienced by many in the countryside</li></ul>

<p>Economic investment and growth:</p>

<ul><li>Mexico City attracted a lot of FDI because of its location</li><li>This created economic growth and is what attracted people from the countryside</li></ul>

<p>What are the environmental impacts of rapid urbanisation in Mexico City?</p>

<p>Rapid urban growth causes a number of environmental impacts:</p>

<ul><li>Inadequate sewerage facilities lead to polluted water</li><li>Unregulated growth leads to housing being built in environmentally sensitive areas</li><li>A lack of gas or electricity leads to intensive cooking with wood fires, something that seriously compromises air quality</li><li>Transport and industry have both increased, considerably contributing to environmental issues. This has a knock-on effect on the health of people living in Mexico City</li></ul>

<p>Why is there national migration in Mexico City?</p>

<p>Due to poverty and lack of education in rural areas, people migrate to Mexico City in search of a better standard of living</p>

<p>What is the impacts of rapid migration in Mexico City on Housing?</p>

<ul><li>The more people that move to Mexico City the more housing is needed</li><li>There is a shortage and so many people are forced to build their own housing in slums on the edge of the city</li><li>Quality of life is poor in the slums and poor sanitation often causes illness and spread of disease</li></ul>

<p>What are the impacts of rapid migration in Mexico City on Education?</p>

<ul><li>There are not enough schools to provide education to children living in slums, instead, they often work in dangerous conditions to help provide for their families</li><li>This lack of education means people often stay trapped in poverty as they are unable to get better jobs and improve their situation</li></ul>

<p>Why are there large inequalities in Mexico City?</p>

<ul><li>Income Variation</li><li>Corruption</li><li>Large Scale Migration</li></ul>

<p>What are the impacts of Rapid Urbanisation in Mexico on <b>Water Supply</b>?</p>

<ul><li>Rising population puts enormous pressure on an already struggling water supply</li><li>This means water has to be pumped from reservoirs to the west of the city</li><li>The remaining 70% of the city’s water supply comes from wells sunk deep into the underground aquifers, which are running dry</li><li>The fact that Mexico City is 2400m above sea level makes this particularly difficult</li><li>As these underground aquifers are emptied, land subsides (sinks) and buildings, power lines and sewage pipes are broken</li></ul>

<p>What is the <b>Informal Economy</b>?</p>

<p>The informal economy is the section of the economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by the government</p>

<p>What are <b>Bottom-up</b> strategies?</p>

<p>Bottom-up strategies are small-scale community-led developments</p>

<p>What are the advantages of bottom-up strategies?</p>

<ul><li>People are passionate about their own area, meaning more likely to be involved long term</li><li>Can be started with little funds</li><li>Can be started by a small group or even one person</li></ul>

<p>What are the disadvantages of bottom-up approaches?</p>

<ul><li>Do not have a lot of money so may remain small scale, impacting fewer people</li><li>Cannot easily deal with national issues, they are better for local problems</li><li>May not have political support</li></ul>

<p>What are <b>Top-Down</b> strategies?</p>

<p>Top-down development strategies are large-scale developments usually led by governments</p>

<p>What are the advantages of Top-Down strategies?</p>

<ul><li>Government-backed so more likely to happen</li><li>Money will not be a limitation</li><li>Jobs are often created</li><li>It is possible to deal with large-scale national and international issues, which smaller community-led strategies cannot do</li><li>Could spark system-wide global change</li></ul>

<p>What are the disadvantages of Top-Down strategies?</p>

<ul><li>They can take a lot of time to plan, get approval and be put into action</li><li>They may suffer from budget cuts or corruption</li><li>They do not involve local people so it can be harder to get people on board</li></ul>

<p>What are the Barter Markets of Mexico City?</p>

<ul><li>After the closure of one of its massive rubbish tips, the city set up a massive ‘barter market’ in a large park west of the capital</li><li>Families bring their paper, metals and other recyclable waste to exchange for ‘green point’ vouchers based on weight</li><li>Residents then redeem their points for food from local farmers</li><li>Over 3000 families lined up with bags of rubbish on the market's opening day</li><li>The city estimates the market brought in nearly 11 tonnes of recyclables on its first day</li><li>The market has an impact but is only small scale compared to the issue of waste</li></ul>

Decks in AQA GCSE (9-1) Geography Class (33):

• 1.1 Challenge Of Natural Hazards Overview (Paper 1)
• 1.2 Uk Physical Landscapes (Paper 1)
• 1.3 Coastal Landscapes And Processes (Paper 1)
• 1.4 River Landscapes And Processes (Paper 1)
• 1.4 River Landscapes And Processes Case Study: The River Eden (Paper 1)
• 1.5 Glacial Landscapes And Processes (Paper 1)
• 2.1 Global Atmospheric Circulation (Paper 1)
• 2.2 Climate Change (Paper 1)
• 2.3 Tropical Cyclones (Paper 1)
• 2.3 Tropical Cyclones Case Study: Hurricane Sandy In Cuba (Paper 1)
• 2.3 Tropical Cyclones Case Study: Hurricane Sandy In Usa (Paper 1)
• 2.4 Drought (Paper 1)
• 3.3 Temperate Deciduous Woodlands (Paper 1)
• 3.2 Tropical Rainforests (Paper 1)
• 3.1 Large Scale Ecosystems (Paper 1)
• 4.1 Urbanisation (Paper 2)
• 4.2 Changing Cities Case Study: Birmingham (Paper 2)
• 4.3 Changing Cities Case Study: Mexico City (Paper 2)
• 5.1 Overview Of Development
• 5.2 Global Development Case Study: India (Paper 2)
• Living World [Optional] Hot Deserts (Paper 1)
• Living World [Optional] Cold Environments (Paper 1)
• Physical Landscapes In The Uk Introduction (Paper 1)
• The Changing Economic World (Paper 2)
• 6.1 Resource Management Overview (Paper 2)
• 6.2 Resource Management Energy (Paper 2)
• 6.3 Resource Management Water (Paper 2)
• 6.4 Resource Management Food (Paper 2)
• 6.5 Resource Management: China
• Fieldwork (Paper 3)
• 6 The Challenge Of Resource Management
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Geography AS Notes

Mexico to usa migration.

By Alex Jackson

Last updated on September 13, 2015

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The content on this page is extremely old. Much has changed in the world since this article was written. While many of the concepts will still be relevant, figures and case studies are likely to be outdated at this point.

Migration from Mexico to the United States Of America primarily involves the movement of Mexicans from Mexico to the southern states of America which border Mexico. In order to gain access to America, Mexicans must cross the “Unites States-Mexico Border”, a border which spans four US states & six Mexican states. In America, it starts in California and ends in Texas (east to west). Due to their proximity to the border & the high availability of work in these states, the majority of Mexicans move to California followed by Texas. California currently houses 11,423,000 immigrants with Texas holding 7,951,000.

Many Mexicans from rural communities migrate to America, the majority being males who move to America and then send money back to their families in Mexico. Many of these immigrants enter the country illegally, which often requires them to cross a large desert that separates Mexico and America and the Rio Grande. These journeys are dangerous and many immigrants have died, or nearly died, trying to cross into America through these routes.

Reasons for Migration

Push factors.

There are incredibly high crime rates in Mexico, especially in the capital. Homicide rates come in at around 10-14 per 100,000 people (world average 10.9 per 100,000) and drug related crimes are a major concern. It is thought that in the past five years, 47,500 people have been killed in crimes relating to drugs. Many Mexicans will move out of fear for their lives and hope that America is a more stable place to live, with lower crime rates.

Unemployment and poverty is a major problem in Mexico and has risen exponentially in recent years. In 2000, unemployment rates in Mexico were at 2.2, however, in 2009, they rose by 34.43%, leaving them standing at 5.37 in 2010. A large portion of the Mexican population are farmers, living in rural areas where extreme temperatures and poor quality land make it difficult to actually farm. This is causing many Mexican families to struggle, with 47% of the population living under the poverty line. With these high unemployment and poverty rates, people are forced to move to America, where they have better prospects, in order to be able to support their families and maintain a reasonable standard of living.

The climate and natural hazards in Mexico could force people to move to America. Mexico is a very arid area which suffers from water shortages even in the more developed areas of Mexico. The country also suffers from natural disasters including volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes & tsunamis. Recent natural disasters could force people to migrate if their homes have been destroyed or made uninhabitable. People who live in danger zones could also migrate out of fear for their lives.

Pull Factors

There is a noticeable difference in the quality of life between America & Mexico. Poverty, as mentioned above, is a major issue in Mexico, with 6% of the population lacking access to “improved” drinking water. Mexico’s infrastructure is severely undeveloped when compared to America’s. Despite being the 11 th richest country in the World, Mexico also has the 10 th highest poverty. With America offering significantly better living standards and services, such as health care, people are enticed to move to America for a better life.

Existing migrant communities in states such as Texas and California help to pull people towards migration. Existing communities make it easier for people to settle once moved and family members & friends who have already moved can encourage others to move. People are also enticed to move in order to be with their families. Cousins and brothers will often move in with their relatives after they have lived in America for a while in order to be with their family.

86.1% of the Mexican population can read & write versus 99% of the population in America. In addition, the majority of students in Mexico finish school at the age of 14, versus 16 in America. These statistics show that there are significantly better academic opportunities in America than in Mexico, which can entice Mexicans to migrate for an improved education, either for themselves or, more likely, their future children, in order to give them more opportunities in the world and allow them to gain higher paying jobs.

Assimilation of Mexicans into American communities has been problematic. Many Mexicans can’t speak fluent English and studies show that their ability to speak English doesn’t improve drastically whilst they live in the US. This is largely due to them living in closed communities of other Mexican immigrants which reduces their need to assimilate with America. This can, in turn, create tension between migrants and locals which can, in extreme cases, lead to segregation, crime and violence.

There are concerns that immigrants are increasing crime rates in areas that they migrate to. Low income & poor education are factors which can lead to crime. In addition, as Mexico is a country associated with drug trafficking, there are concerns that Mexican migrants could be smuggling drugs into America, creating the problem of drug related crimes.

The introduction of Mexican cultural traditions to America, especially in states with large numbers of migrants, have helped to improve cultural aspects of those states. Mexican themed food has become incredibly popular in America with burrito and taco fast food shops opening up across the country. The new food & music has helped to improve the cultural diversity of America significantly.

With such a large number of Mexican migrants not speaking English fluently, it is now common for Spanish to be taught in American schools, widening the skill set of the younger population and improving the potential career opportunities that students may have. This also (slightly) helps ease social tensions caused by people speaking different languages which locals don’t understand.

With so many young people leaving Mexico, its developing an increasingly dependant population as the majority of people left are the elderly who can not work. Furthermore, the lack of young fertile couples is reducing the birth rate in Mexico, further increasing the dependency ratio as there is no workforce to pay taxes to support the elderly.

The majority of migrants leaving Mexico are males leaving a population with a high number of females. This is problematic as they are unable to find partners, get married and, in a mostly catholic country, have children (out of wedlock). This is, as mentioned above, reducing the birth rate and increasing the dependency ratio.

Mexican migrants often take low paying, menial jobs, which, while low paying, offer higher wages than what they’d earn in Mexico. This was, at first, advantageous, as many Americans did not want these low paying jobs but companies needed people to fill these jobs. Now, as unemployment rises in America, Americans want these menial jobs but many migrants already have taken the jobs. This can lead to increased social tension as Americans believe that their jobs are being taken.

Migrants work at incredibly low wages. Americans who are desperate for work are now often expected to work at these incredibly low wages too, which they can’t afford to do, leading to increased poverty in America. Many companies are now also replacing American labour with cheaper migrant labour, also increasing unemployment rates are people are forced out of their jobs.

While legal Mexican migrants are working & paying taxes, they often send money they earn back to their families in Mexico, rather than spending it in America, which can effect the country’s economy as there is less money being spent on products which are taxed in America. Conversely, the increased amount of money being sent back to Mexico is helping its economy greatly as people now have money to spend on goods and services.

As people move out of Mexico, pressure on land, social services and jobs is being relieved. Unemployment will fall and health services will no longer be over capacity as the population is reduced. The problem, however, arises when the young and skilled workforce leaves, resulting in a shortage of potential workers to fill these newly freed jobs and to work in these social services. A shortage of medically trained people, for example, could counteract the relieved health system.

Mexico’s population is very dependent on food grown in Mexico. Unfortunately, the majority of migrants come from rural areas, leaving a shortage of farmers and therefore the potential for food shortages in Mexico as the economically active people from rural areas leave.

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Mexico to USA Migration Case Study

MIGRATION                                  GEORGE STANSFIELD

INTRODUCTION

Migration is the movement of people from one area to another, be it across the road, or to the other side of the earth. Everyday over 2000 Mexicans try and cross the 2000km border that spans between Mexico and the USA.  The immigrants walk for miles to try and illegally enter the country and for many it is a wasted journey as they are returned shortly after by the US border patrol police. The immigrants usually travel in groups of 10 and up, friends and families together as a large group.  To try and make the journey easier they will often travel lightly, meaning they carry no heavy, but vital, supplies such as food and water. This often leads to things such as dehydration and death as they cross the hot and dry border. Another way the immigrants will try and gain access is through human smugglers, whereby the immigrants will pay the smugglers large sums of money to smuggle them across the border. Once across the border it’s now a game of ‘hide and seek’ with the immigration officers. After crossing the border without being caught they will usually meet in some form of safe house, usually provided by the human smugglers. Once they are settled they will often rent houses in large groups so that can cut the costs dramatically and easily afford it. They can’t stay for long though as eventually they would be caught, so to keep their trail clean they move from house to house as not to alert the police.

WHY MIGRATE?

People migrate places for many different reasons be it for family or money ect. These reasons can be classified as 4 different categories; economic, social, political or environmental:

• Economic migration  - moving to find work or to follow a particular career path only available in such place
• Social Migration  - moving for a better quality of life or to live with or closer to family or friends
• Political Migration  - moving to escape/avoid political disputes, persecution or war.
• Environmental Migration - moving to escape natural disasters such as flooding

For the reasons above many people choose to migrate. For example migrants who move country to find work for money and food. Other migrants are forced during times of war and natural disaster.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Below is a map of the USA and Mexico. The map shows the movement of migrants as the cross the USA/Mexico border. The highest rates of migrants are found to be from the bordering states living in the USA’s bordering states. The arrows on the map point from where most Mexican migrants come from, and where they usually end up. They want the journey to be as quick as possible; they don’t travel far and often stay in the neighboring states.

Migrant Movement

Border between Mexico and the USA

PUSH AND PULL FACTORS

Just like everything in life there is always something that makes you want do something else. The same applies to the Mexican migrants and there are many ‘push and pull’ factors for why the Mexican migrants would want to migrate.

Push Factors

Push factors are the reasons why people are pushed away from and what to leave an area. There are many push factors for why migrants would want to leave their country and I have listed the most common below. They are all traits of an LEDC, where most migrants come for.

• Lack of services   - often a problem in LEDC’s where most migrants are from. Poor countries cannot afford to provide good quality services as MEDC’s do.
• Lack of safety - often a problem in LEDC’s, people cannot afford to pay for repairs and safety equipment ect and things go to ruin.
• High crime - often a problem in poorer countries as people cannot find work or don’t earn enough money to make ends meet, many people turn to crime.
• Crop failure - this isn’t just something you seen in poor countries but for a poor country it is a big loss and could be the final push someone needs to just get out of their old life.
• Drought - this often leads to crop failure and as I mentioned above this can be a big problem for someone relying on it to feed their family.
• Flooding - flooding is serious business and can cause masses of damage even destroying houses, losing your house could make you want to migrate to a better life.
• Poverty - nobody likes having no money, well imagine spending everyday barely making ends meet, you’d want change and quick.
• War - refuges often migrate to escape the terror and dangers of war as civilian casualties are often high in LEDC wars.

Pull Factors

Pull factors are the reasons why people want to and are pulled towards an area. There are many factors for why migrants would want to live in another country and I have listed the most common below. They are all traits of an MEDC, where most migrants migrate to.

• Higher employment  - as is often the case in MEDC’s there is much more jobs available with much higher wages.
• More wealth  - In MEDC’s people on average tend to have more money, due to the higher paid jobs.
• Better services  - More money means better services, things such as emergency personnel, education ect.
• Safer, less crime  - Places with more money tend to have less crime as people can afford to pay their way.
• Political stability  - Less chance of a political breakdown and wars breaking out.
• More fertile land  - less chance of losing crops and crops will be stronger and better than ever earring the farmer more money for his work.
• Lower risk of natural hazards  - natural disasters destroy just about everything from your home to your family. Moving away from them would be the best option.

IMPACTS OF MIGRATION

Immigration has both positive and its negative effects on the countries. The major problem that Mexico has with the immigration of its people to the USA is that the majority of migrants are young, without families. This means that old people are left behind in Mexico and this has no good effects on Mexico’s population. The older people cannot look after themselves or even boost the population for that matter. This is truer as in Mexico it’s usually the men who migrate leaving the women behind to look after their family whilst the men bring money in from a job in the USA. There is also the big problem with Mexico’s economy. The country is already very poor and with most people immigrating to America to find work there is no way money is every going to get back into Mexico’s economy. For this reason many people turn to the drugs business producing and exporting drugs to distribute across the USA. Although this brings money into the country its accounts for m any deaths across the country and is not taxed and therefore the government looses out again.

In the USA, Immigrants cost the country millions of us dollars a year. The money is spent on enforcing the border patrols and the migrants being held for deportation. The problem the USA have is that the Mexican’s take all of the low paid, labor intensive jobs and are very happy and grateful of the opportunity. Americans on the other hand are less for the idea and as the Mexicans become more popular racial attacks are often a big problem. For the USA though the Mexicans doing the low paid jobs is perfectly good for the economy, the work gets done at a low price, and the workers are enthusiastic, very great full of the opportunity they have gotten, what more could you ask for? Problems arise in America when immigrants start to gain sate benefits. With the migrants being illegal they’re not on record and hence are not accounted for the distribution of benefits, America could lose lots of money through benefit fraud.

WHAT IS THE USA DOING TO STOP ILLIGAL IMMIGRARTION?

One of the most important methods of stopping illegal immigration America uses is border patrol security. This method involves the border between Mexico and the USA being patrolled by security officers in order to try and stop any immigrants from illegally entering the country. The officers use many methods of enforcement and even have drones that can fly the border and spot any intruders. The officers are armed and will take down anybody trying to breach security, sounds harsh but essentially what the immigrants are doing is putting the countries security at risk by crossing the border as they cannot keep tabs on who is entering.

My opinion on Mexico-America immigration is slightly mixed. On one hand for America’s sake I think that more of an effort should be made to control immigration so as not ruin both Mexico’s and America’s economy. This will also stop Mexico’s population for dropping, which if it did drop would result in the economy of Mexico being even worse. As long as the immigration is controlled and not stopped then I am sure that the relationship will work and that America would benefit economically from it.

On the other hand though it doesn’t feel right not allowing the Mexicans access to America, because they’re immigrants. At the end of the day the USA was originally founded by immigrants from Europe, not to mention the fact that during the Mexico-US war, the USA ‘stole’ (some argue it was paid for) ; Texas, Arizona, new Mexico and California from Mexico. In my opinion they have every right to enter America as they will.

Teacher Reviews

Here's what a teacher thought of this essay.

Eleanor Wilson

A generally good essay looking at Mexico - USA migration. However in places it is very generalised and instead needs focus in specifically on Mexico and the USA. 4 stars

Peer Reviews

Here's what a star student thought of this essay.

Quality of writing

In terms of the different 'push and pull factors’; there was strong geographic terminology, such as 'political stability' and phrases to that nature. However, the rest of the case study did lack good geographical terminology, which showed a possible lack of good understanding of this case study and how it applies to human geography. Overall, spelling, grammar and punctuation were excellent.

Level of analysis

The analysis of the case study is good; however, it did lack depth in some places. The analysis was overall elevated by including immigration policies and how their change could potentially impact migration in different ways, which was excellent. There was not detail in the 'push and pull factors' of Mexican migration (as mentioned before), which showed that perhaps vital research was not done. The overall conclusion, entitled 'my opinion' was slightly vague; however, it did briefly cover some good points, for example, the economies of both USA and Mexico. The inclusion of the map was good; however, some US states could have been labelled, and then referred to in the analysis.

Response to question

The case study is about the migration of Mexicans to the USA. The response to this by the candidate is very good, especially as they have structured the case study clearly by the use of sub-headings. There is a good response to why they migrate, which is fundamental to the case study. Furthermore, the candidate goes into more detail than just 'push and pull factors', by stating different types of migration, e.g. environmental migration (on a more general scale). This conveys that the candidate has a good depth of back group knowledge. However, the candidate does not give specific push and pull factors for the Mexican migration.

Document Details

• Word Count 1638
• Page Count 5
• Subject Geography

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AQA GCSE Geography Urban NEE City Mexico City

Subject: Geography

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

11 January 2022

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This is an entire case study for the AQA GCSE course. It uses Mexico City as an example of a NEE city. There is a set of slides that follow the unit through with additional links and an accompanying booklet for students to work through.

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Climate-Smart Intervention Takes Top 2023 Case Studies in the Environment Prize

Case Studies in the Environment is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Case Studies in the Environment Prize Competition .

Eligible submissions are judged for their ability to translate discrete case studies into broad, generalizable findings; for advancing a strong perspective and engaging narrative; for being accessible to their intended audiences; for addressing topics that are important or notable in their novelty, impact, or urgency; and which contribute to the teaching of environmental concepts to students and/or practitioners.

The winning case study from the 2023 competition, “ Building Resilience in Jamaica’s Farming Communities: Insights From a Climate-Smart Intervention ,” from The University of the West Indies’ Donovan Campbell and Shaneica Lester, demonstrates that while climate change poses immense threats to the environment and to human livelihoods, adaptation also provides opportunities to strengthen a community.

“This positivity and sense of agency is critical to the success of climate initiatives,” noted CSE Editor-in-Chief Dr. Jennifer Bernstein. “The editorial team felt that the manuscript exemplifies the journal at its best–identifying and evaluating an important environmental question using robust interdisciplinary methods.”

The honorable mention articles from the 2023 competition are “ Teaching the Complex Dynamics of Clean Energy Subsidies With the Help of a Model-as-Game ,” from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Eric Hittinger, Qing Miao, and Eric Williams; and “ Barriers and Facilitators for Successful Community Forestry: Lessons Learned and Practical Applications From Case Studies in India and Guatemala ,” from Vishal Jamkar (University of Minnesota), Megan Butler (Macalester College), and Dean Current (University of Minnesota).

“‘Teaching the Complex Dynamics of Clean Energy Subsidies’ recognizes the value of subsidies, while at the same time acknowledging contextual constraints. The game itself allows students to work through subsidy design via a number of cases, and provides high quality material for use immediately in the classroom. This is a wildly useful tool, and exemplifies what we want to see with respect to accessible pedagogy using environmental case studies as a focus.”

“Barriers and Facilitators for Successful Community Forestry” is the author team’s second case study contribution to the journal, extending the well-developed framework of their previous article, “ Understanding Facilitators and Barriers to Success: Framework for Developing Community Forestry Case Studies ” and applying it to two unique locations.

Both the winning case study and honorable mentions have been made freely available to the public at online.ucpress.edu/cse .

The Case Studies in the Environment team extends their gratitude to everyone who submitted articles for the 2023 competition. For previous Case Studies in the Environment Prize Competition winners, please see our prize competition landing page .

Case Studies in the Environment is a journal of peer-reviewed case study articles and case study pedagogy articles. The journal informs faculty, students, researchers, educators, professionals, and policymakers on case studies and best practices in the environmental sciences and studies. online.ucpress.edu/cse

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