Do Mexican Cities Sprawl? Housing-Finance Reform and Changing Patterns of Urban Growth

Abstract

This study documents a recent, dramatic change in urban growth patterns in Mexico. Using information from housing developers, satellite imagery, census archives, and administrative records on mortgage lending, it contrasts the growth patterns generated by new large-scale developments of tract housing built under an expanding housing-finance system with those of incrementally built, "self-help" housing. In a series of regression models, the growing areas of cities with a larger share of new housing purchased through mortgage financing are shown to have a higher housing density and better access to basic urban infrastructure, yet are not found to be located farther from the city center than traditional neighborhoods. Although the new urban growth patterns in Mexico might visually resemble urban sprawl in the United States, they differ on several important dimensions and therefore will not have the same impacts on environmental and transportation efficiency.