Mexico's Cookie-Cutter Housing Model Not Working Jill Replogle - Fronteras Desk
go to original December 24, 2013

A Tijuana suburb (Jill Replogle/Fronteras Desk)

A casual visitor to Tijuana would have little reason to stumble upon a place like Villa del Prado. You get to it by heading southeast of the city's urban core, through miles of sparsely populated hills, junkyards and humble ranches.

When you get there, it looks like a small city, filled with row upon row of identical, one and two story units — 14,000 of them.

In Mexico, some people call these types of homes, “pichoneras,” or birdcages, because they’re so small. Many of the homes in Villa del Prado are around 300 square feet.

But people like Ruth Betancourt bought into the idea of having their own home — even if it’s a tiny one — in a manicured neighborhood. Betancourt and her husband moved to Villa del Prado eight years ago from the state of Sinaloa.

Now, however, they and hundreds of thousands of other residents in developments like Villa del Prado are watching their neighborhoods decay and their neighbors flee.

In Villa del Prado, one out of four homes is abandoned, according to a study done by Provive, a firm that buys up abandoned homes and refurbishes them. Many of them have been severely vandalized, or taken over by vagrants and criminals.

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