1NEW MODELS OF URBAN LAND REGULARIZATION IN MEXICO: DECENTRALIZATION AND DEMOCRACY VS. CLIENTILISM

The regularization of illegal housing areas has long been a paradigm of urban governance in Mexico.1 For almost three decades it has enabled the state to maintain its claim to govern the nation’s cities in the face of two threats to the plausibility of that claim. First, regularization avoids the need for the state to acknowledge that it cannot or will not fulfill its Constitutional commitment to ensuring that Mexicans enjoy decent housing conditions. Tenure legalization and settlement upgrading are presented as a concession to the urban poor, the product of the state’s benevolent paternalism towards its citizens. This overlooks the fact that the lack of affordable formal sector housing leaves the poor no option but to acquire land in an illegal settlement in order to build their own homes. Regularization enables the government to take the credit for a system of access to shelter operating largely outside state norms and policies.2 The illegality of this process, however, undermines the state’s ability to control and be seen to control the nature and direction of urban growth. Secondly, therefore, regularization masquerades as a strategy for regulating urban development. Government agencies respond to a ‘need ’ for intervention created primarily by discourses originating within the state itself, which present legal tenure as a necessary condition for installation of services. In practice, the processes of upgrading and legalization have mostl