Empty houses across North America

Housing finance and Mexico’s vacancy crisis

Bibliographic Data

ID10863545
AuthorsPaavo Monkkonen (0000-0002-3513-0230, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume56
Issue10
Pages2075-2091
Publication date2019-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0042098018788024
OpenAlexW2893897273
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited19

In the wake of the housing market crash in the United States in the late 2000s, images of abandoned homes on the periphery of American cities dominated international media. Mexico continues to face a housing crisis that began at the same time, and the media similarly focus on the high rate of housing vacancy in the urban periphery. The vacancy rate is extreme in many newly built subdivisions in Mexico, yet it is also high in most central cities. In this article, I describe the role of government mortgage lending in housing vacancy rates, across and within cities in Mexico. I do this using data from the 2010 Census of Population and Housing for the 100 largest cities in the country. Cities with more housing built under the federal housing finance system have higher vacancy rates overall, and the relationship is strong in central areas of cities as well as the urban periphery. These findings imply that policymakers should not only be concerned with vacancy in newly built suburban developments, but they should also consider how the expansion of credit for new suburban housing has played a role in the hollowing out of central cities. The article has direct implications for Mexico and raises questions about the frame for debate about housing policy internationally. The structure of housing finance systems is often under-scrutinised. Scholars working in emerging markets should work to identify incentives in finance systems and how they shape urbanisation

Business · Census · Economic growth · Economics · Financial crisis · Government (linguistics · Incentive · Market economy · Population · Sociology · Urbanization · Work (physics · Finance · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Urban and Rural Development Challenges

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