Access to serviced land for the urban poor: the regularization paradox in Mexico

The insufficient supply of serviced land at affordable prices for
the urban poor and the need for regularization of the consequent
illegal occupations in urban areas are two of the most
important issues on the Latin American land policy agenda.
Taking a structural/integrated view on the functioning
of the urban land market in Latin America, this paper discusses
the nexus between the formal and the informal land markets. It
thus exposes the perverse feedback effects that curative regularization
policies may have on the process by which irregularity is
produced in the first place.
The paper suggests that a more effective approach to the
provision of serviced land for the poor cannot be resolved within
the prevailing (curative) regularization programs. These programs
should have the capacity to mobilize the resources that
do exist into a comprehensive program that links regularization
with fiscal policy, including the exploration of value capture
mechanisms.