The Vast Housing Developments of Mexico's Failed Experiment
Aerial shots of these housing developments reveal an indifference to human needs
Photo: Jorge Taboada01In the early 2000s, the Mexican government launched an ambitious effort to build affordable housing for millions of the country’s most impoverished citizens, ultimately spending more than $100 billion on hundreds of sprawling housing developments.
Photo: Jorge Taboada02Unfortunately, the program was plagued by corruption, poor planning, and shabby construction methods. Even today, many of the developments lack running water or sewer systems.
Photo: Jorge Taboada03Mexican architectural photographer Jorge Taboada first noticed these developments springing up in the suburbs around his home of Monterrey a few years ago. He was struck by their size and uniformity, which became especially apparent from the air.
Photo: Jorge Taboada04"I discovered these low-income houses that were being built by the thousands in the suburbs of the main industrial cities of Mexico," he says, "and I began to document them."
Photo: Jorge Taboada05Taboada trained to be an architect at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in the mid-1990s, later combining that training with his passion for photography to become one of the city’s top architectural photographers.
Photo: Jorge Taboada06From above, the endless rows of identikit houses take on a SimCity-like appearance. Although the images possess an abstract beauty, Taboada emphasizes that their rigorous geometries reveal an indifference to human needs.
Photo: Jorge Taboada07"On one hand I see the beauty of this architecture—the monochromatic landscapes, the fractal forms," he says. "But then I think there are people who live there, and who are suffering the consequences of the depersonalization of housing.”
Photo: Jorge Taboada08“These are small, concrete cubes, very hot in the summer time, and without backyards. I call them sinister paradises.”
