RETHINKING URBAN FUTURES THROUGH HOUSING: MEXICO CITY AS A PARADIGM SHIFTER
Resurgent Cities: Mexico City Team shared their latest work in the Mexican capital at Rethinking Urban Futures through Housing: Mexico City as a Paradigm Shifter, a workshop session organized for the Resurgent Cities Forum held in Rotterdam last week. The workshop brought together a dynamic group of activists, housing organizers, urbanists, and public officials to reimagine housing beyond the confines of commodification.
Acknowledging the potential impact of Mexico City’s new constitution to embrace the team’s proposed policy framework, participants explored how the metropolis could become a global reference for permanent affordability, community land stewardship, and socially rooted urban development. Grounded in ancestral relationships to land and responding to the urgent need for public policy and instruments to guide housing rehabilitation and development, the discussion challenged the dominance of private property through actionable instruments such as land banks, community land trusts, tenant protections, cooperative housing programs, and rent stabilization pilot initiatives.
The session addressed six interconnected directions—Recover, Disrupt, Shift, Preserve, and Integrate—moving from historical reflection to actionable visions for inhabiting the future. A collective activity was performed symbolizing the interconnectedness at the heart of cooperative associations and community-led efforts. Drawing on Mexico’s indigenous legacy of collective land practices and shared governance, the workshop underscored Mexico City’s potential to lead a transformative shift toward just, inclusive, and sustainable urban futures.
The session was followed by the presentation of the General Framework of the Rent Stabilization Program for Mexico City [Marco General del Programa de Estabilización de Alquileres para la Ciudad de México] a policy framework requested by the current president of Mexico, Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum, while holding the position of Head of Mexico City. A the heart of the policy framework proposed is new rent stabilization legislation to be tested as a pilot program in specific city areas facing real estate pressure and gentrification. Acknowledging that the city needs a constellation of strategies to housing justice in the metropolis, it also offers other policy directions to preserve and expand adequate housing, particularly cooperative and social housing.
Participants included Josep Bohigas, Pablo Caballero, Gabriela Rendon, Miguel Robles-Durán, Silvia Emanuelli respresenting Habitat International Alliance, HIC-LA, and Joana Moreno Rivera, representing Mexico City’s Institute for Democratic and Prospective Planning.
