TWO MILLION HOMES FOR MEXICO

In 2000, Mexican presidential candidate Vicente Fox Quesada proposed an unprecedented plan to build two million low-income houses throughout the country during his six-year term. On the eve of his election, Fox proclaimed, “My presidency will be remembered as the era of public housing.” To enact this initiative, the Mexican federal agency INFONAVIT ceded its authority over the construction of low-income housing to a small group of private real estate investors. Then, almost overnight, grids of 20 to 80,000 identical homes began sprouting up, and they continue to spread in remote agrarian territory throughout the country. Encountering these developments on land or by air, or even via satellite imagery, evokes a rare sensation. These are not the neighborhoods of a “Home Sweet Home” dream fulfilled—they are ubiquitous grids created by a vast ecological and social intervention, the scale and consequences of which are difficult to grasp. In such neighborhoods, urbanization is reduced to the mere construction of housing. There are almost no public amenities, such as schools, parks, or transportation systems, and there are few commercial structures, such as banks or grocery stores. Yet demand for these low-income houses continues to increase and developers continue to provide them with extreme efficiency. During Fox’s six-year presidency, 2,350,000 homes were built, at a rate of 2,500 homes per day, and this trend has continued. From 2000 to the present, I have been exploring these developments in Two Million Homes for Mexico. Through images, films, and interviews, I look for the space between promise and fulfillment. In my photographs of multiple developments throughout the country, I consider the rapid redefinition of Mexican “small town” life and the sudden transformation of the ecological and social landscape. These urban developments mark a profound evolution in our way of inhabiting the world. In my work, I seek to give form to how these developments affect the experience of individual residents. What exactly happens in these two million homes? How do they change over time? How do tens of thousands of lives play out against this particular kind of confined cultural backdrop?