Poverty in Peripheral Informal Settlements in Mexico City: The Case of Magdalena Contreras, Federal District

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relationship between the difficult economic situation in Mexico over recent years and the increasing disadvantages in irregular settlements that are found on the periphery of the Federal District. The focus is on informal settlements in the Magdalena Contreras Delegation, a peripheral municipality where the research team applied 719 questionnaires to the inhabitants. The results offer an up-to-date socio-economic analysis of the population. We are also in a position to suggest answers to the following questions: to what extent communal lands with a high ecological value act as territorial reserves for irregular settlements?; how do poverty levels in these settlements affect the consolidation process in terms of housing quality and access to public services?; how much heterogeneity is there inside irregular settlements and what is the level of poverty in these settlements and how grave is the situation?