Priscilla Connolly

Pearson and Public Works Construction in Mexico,1890–1910

S. Pearson & Son, forerunner to the present-day Pearsons PLC, started as a general works contractor in the 1860s and emerged as a global enterprise mainly on the strength of public works contracts undertaken for the Mexican government between 1889 and 1906. This article looks at how this business operated, analysing the capital flows through the contracts. These involved substantial quantities of public debt, mostly in the form of silver bonds. The very favourable terms achieved by Pearson and the fact that he built all the largest public works projects, suggest that he enjoyed a virtual monopoly over this kind of contract in Mexico. Some explanations of this are examined, together with their possible implications regarding technology transfers and modelling the future development of the Mexican construction industry.

(Re)constructing Informality and “Doing Regularization” in the Conservation Zone of Mexico City

Abstract This paper examines the introduction of land-use planning requirements into the regularization process of informal settlements in areas designated as “conservation land” in Mexico City. Since 1997, the government has increasingly deployed digital technologies to map and track informal settlement in conservation land in order to select those eligible for reclassification as “residential land use”: a prerequisite for other stages in the regularization process, including property titling, access to urban services and subsidised loans for home improvements. We argue that the incorporation of land use planning into the discursive and material enactments of regularization continues to reproduce the social class divisions behind the otherwise rather tenuous distinction between formal and informal urban development. Although presented as a technical concern by planners, regularization remains embedded in political processes and outcomes, a characteristic long recognised in the abundant literature on the subject. What is new is the geo-referencing of informality as part of land use planning, as this alters the dynamics of regularization processes, now involving the everyday planning practices of local government. This experience thus suggests the need for re-conceptualising informality as a form of selective spatial regulation and governance integral to the planning and urban development process.

The Guerrero Housing Cooperative: Mexico City

The case of the Guerrero Cooperative is about the experience of a group of tenants living in central Mexico City. They include factory workers, low-grade government or private employees and those self-employed in petty trade and personal services. Belonging to the lower income brackets, they are clearly not free from economic difficulties, especially in the face of high inflation and unemployment. The immediate problems facing the tenants relate to their housing, called vecindades. Overcrowded, badly-lit one- or two-roomed dwellings with ill-functioning water supply and drainage, the washing and sanitary facilities are often shared by up to forty families. During the rainy season, the roofs and walls of the old buildings frequently cave in, causing fatal injuries to their occupants.