After the pandemic, Mexico experienced a tourist boom that has placed it as one of the favorite destinations for international travelers and digital nomads, who are the visible face of a real estate crisis, in which it is increasingly difficult to access housing.
Accessing decent housing in Mexico City is an almost impossible mission, despite the fact that it is a constitutional right. Like other large Mexican cities, such as Guadalajara or Monterrey, the best areas of the capital are undergoing a process of gentrification, which has raised the cost of rent to levels that are inaccessible to the majority of the population.
In iconic areas of Mexico City, such as Condesa or Roma, rental prices for an apartment reach $2,500 per month or more. So that only a privileged sector of people can pay them, taking into account that the general minimum wage in Mexico barely reaches $373 per month.
This has driven gentrification, which basically involves the displacement of the native population of one area by another with greater purchasing power.
Those who can pay without problem are usually foreigners with remote work who are paid in US dollars and spend in Mexican pesos. These are the so-called digital nomads, who arrived en masse during the pandemic, in the midst of a privileged migration, and took advantage of the housing rush to settle in these areas, paying months in advance.
Their presence has generated controversy and they are seen as responsible for gentrification, but, according to specialists consulted by France 24, they are only part of the problem since in the background there is a huge crisis of access to housing and a lack of regulation in rent prices by authorities.
Uncontrolled rental prices
In the last 16 years, rental prices for housing in Mexico City have had increases eight times greater than the general minimum wage and do not keep pace with inflation, according to figures from the capital government.
Figures from the real estate platform Houm show that rents in the Mexican capital range from 300 to 2,500 dollars in areas such as Cuauhtémoc or Álvaro Obregón. The Miguel Hidalgo area was the one that registered the largest increase in the capital in the last year, since prices rose 15% between 2023 and 2024.
In fact, Mexico City is the most expensive to rent middle-class apartments among 17 Latin American cities, according to a report prepared by specialized sites such as Lamudi México, Properati and Trovit where Guadalajara and Monterrey also appear in third and fourth place, respectively.
Rosalba González Lloyde, a master in Urban Development from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, explained to France 24 that the gentrification experienced in the capital of Mexico dates back to the early 2000s, when central areas of Cuauhtémoc, Miguel Hidalgo and Benito Juárez experienced an urban renewal, which allowed the improvement of housing and public services. This was thanks to social programs promoted by the governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Marcelo Ebrard, with which the value of land use increased.
These measures allowed the renovation of old residential buildings in the most famous neighborhoods, the creation of new apartments and the arrival of new businesses. The rehabilitation was accompanied by the sanitation of the streets, an increase in transportation networks, improvements in public services, such as public lighting, security, water supply and garbage collection.
The new face of each capital city, combined with its strategic location, access to green areas and cultural capital, caused an increase in the cost of housing and, in the worst cases, the departure of the original inhabitants due to a lack of resources to cover the increase in prices and thus make way for people with greater financial capacity. In other words, gentrification.
Displacement of tenants due to gentrification
Unlike neighborhoods, known as colonias, such as La Condesa, where the population has always been within the middle class spectrum, in popular neighborhoods, where the profile of its inhabitants is working class and laborer, the processes of gentrification are more visible.
An example is Doctores, a neighbor of Roma, where old neighborhoods are bought by real estate developers who transform them into housing complexes aimed at another profile of inhabitants.
“In the Doctores (colony) it is very clear, especially for the working class population with high school studies on average (…) We already have real estate developments of 50 square meter apartments for 2.5 and a half million pesos (about 120,000 dollars),” said González Lloyde, who wonders about the fate of the original inhabitants who left to make way for the new profile of neighbor, who is looking for a space and has the purchasing power to stay.
The professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico also pointed out that the displacement of inhabitants can also be the result of other factors such as a better job offer, so one cannot speak of gentrification in these cases. “Maybe they had access to a housing loan but, due to their income, they were assigned to the outskirts, and what they cause are phenomena that we see every day of people who go to the city center and vice versa, who spend three or four hours of their day on public transport,” says González.
Generational renewal of the inhabitants
Another factor linked to the increase in the price of housing in neighborhoods such as Roma and Condesa is the renewal of the inhabitants due to a generational change, which is not related to gentrification.
González Lloyde explains to France 24 that these owners have a particular profile, being heirs of the properties, children of parents who gave them professional studies and the possibility of accessing a better socioeconomic position, with new customs that permeate the coexistence of the neighborhood.
There are also property owners who choose to renovate the spaces to rent them at high prices, since the real estate market participates in the production of housing in the absence of official systems to regulate land.
“If you own a well-located property and the market allows you to sell it or develop it for a private market, you will try to get the greatest benefit. That is private property and the rules of the market when it is not regulated,” said the specialist.
Gentrification is not exclusive to large cities
Gentrification, however, is not exclusive to large Mexican cities. After the pandemic, in the municipality of Tepoztlán, in Morelos, two hours south of the Mexican capital, there is a phenomenon of privileged migration that has caused changes in social dynamics and a significant environmental footprint due to the presence of new inhabitants.
Alejandro Ikingari Vargas Guzmán, a researcher at the Metropolitan Autonomous University specializing in privileged migration, told France 24 that a well-established network of contacts in Mexico City allowed the arrival of Argentine, French and Chilean migrants dedicated to art, academia and a high economic level to this region.
“As a result of the pandemic in Mexico City, the upper-middle class from abroad began to arrive and the upper class of CDMX went to towns like Tepoztlán to settle and carry out their own process of gentrification,” said the specialist in land use planning projects.
Vargas has been able to observe how privileged migration in this area is related to processes that he describes as neocolonialism, where the local population benefits from the purchasing power of the new inhabitants, but then becomes dependent on them and is subject to having their jurisdiction or beliefs imposed on them.
The researcher denounced that the presence of these new communities with an extractive profile has caused water shortages and ecological disorder since “they bring plants that they identify as beautiful or beneficial that can cause ecological damage in the area since they could be invasive species”
“Another very important problem is the purebred dogs, people buy them or adopt them and when they grow up they abandon them, so a pack is generated that begins to prey on local species,” he exemplifies.
Gentrification and housing in the eye of authorities
To counteract gentrification and its effects, the Congress of Mexico City approved a series of reforms to the laws of Tourism, Housing and Reconstruction promoted by the interim head of Government, Martí Batres.
Among the measures, published in the Federal Official Gazette on October 3, is the cap on annual increases in rental prices, which now cannot exceed the inflation recorded by the Bank of Mexico.
The modifications to the Housing Law also contemplate the creation of an electronic platform for landlords to register mandatory contracts for immediate authorization within the first 30 days after signing.
One of the biggest changes is in article 1 of the Comprehensive Reconstruction Law, which guarantees the construction of public housing that will be offered at affordable prices to people with low incomes, such as those who are in poverty, single mothers, workers and young people between 18 and 35 years old.
Regarding the Tourism Law, the reform seeks to reduce the hoarding of housing on temporary accommodation platforms such as Airbnb by establishing that a property cannot be rented for more than 50% of the annual nights. Likewise, properties for social purposes and rebuilt homes cannot be rented out.
Although these measures have already come into force, it remains to be seen whether they will be effective for those looking for a decent place to live, in the midst of a real estate crisis where every year nearly 100,000 people are displaced from the capital because they cannot afford the cost of a home.
Source: proceso
