THE UNEQUAL GEOGRAPHY OF OPPORTUNITY IN MEGACITIES: A SPATIAL AND LIVING WAGE ANALYSIS OF MEXICO CITY.

• Author: Galdamez, Misael

INTRODUCTION

Global urbanization is accelerating at a dizzying pace. We live in a world where 34 cities break the size barrier of 10 million people, most of which are predominately located in Global South regions. Central Asia boasts 11 megacities, the most globally, while nine are in India and six in Latin America. Various forces underlie the formation of today's megacities, from political strife to agricultural modernization, to increasing climate variation. These factors and more add up to increasing concentration of populations in large global cities in an effort to find safety, security, and prosperity. (1)

Such conspicuous forces contribute to a myriad of challenges that diverge from the initial era of megacity development. In the early 2000s, Edward Glaeser and colleagues foretold that future megacities would be overcrowded, susceptible to high crime rates, lacking in infrastructure, and short on jobs, education, water, and housing. (2) In other words, the fundamentals would be missing or woefully inadequate to meet the basic needs of their citizens.

Highlighting this unequal moment of global urbanization, we present the case study of Mexico City, the second largest of Latin American cities. As in other megacities, Mexico City has bifurcated, splitting the low- and high-wage workforces into two separate factions. As the city continues to grow, urban congestion, endless traffic jams, water shortages, air pollution, and massive inequities expanded unabated. And as with other Global South megacities, the poor and economically vulnerable bear the burden of the uneven geography of opportunity. Mexico City falls short of its promise to provide an adequate quality of life for most of its citizens.

This paper first reviews the literature on modern megacities, highlighting the challenge of spatial inequality accompanying a city of the haves and have-nots. We then focus on the geography of gainful employment in the city. Following our analysis of the Mexico City's economic structure, we employ a novel cost of living analysis to quantify the shortfall between what residents need to get by and average wages earned. This analysis shows just how short the city falls in providing a sustainable livelihood for its residents. We find that roughly only 17 percent of three- and four-member households earn a living wage in Mexico City. In general, patterns of economic sufficiency follow patterns of high-value economic activity.

This novel living wage analysis is also combined with a spatial analysis of resource access, including housing quality and work commutes, illustrating the intertwined nature of economic access and infrastructural conditions. In this way, we reveal the vulnerability of Mexico City citizens. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of planning priorities for equity and competitiveness in Mexico City, and global megacities more broadly. Emblematic of the modern megacity, Mexico City must bridge deep fissures in its social and economic fabric with carefully crafted and deliberate public policy.

INCOME AND INEQUALITY IN MEGACITIES

Dating back to the 1950s, megacities were predominantly capital cities, historic centers of commerce, or sites of resource extraction. The modern megacity has outlived this description. In some countries, megacities are the result of deliberate planning, as is the case with certain megacities in China, which serve as centers of industrialization. In Africa, megacity growth serves as catchment basins for rural peasants forced out of the countryside. (3) Regardless of their origins, megacities are magnets drawing in populations attracted by the prospect of jobs, infrastructure, and the necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter.

The process of city growth often leads to rising inequality as population concentrations outstrip the development of infrastructure, the availability of jobs, and basic needs. Employment growth bifurcates with select numbers of high-skilled residents occupying high-paying jobs, granting them access to education, medical care, and personal security. A far larger share of total job growth is comprised of informal low-paid work. (4) The gap between the wealthy and the poor grows unabated and compounds over time. For example, the difference between the average income of the richest ten percent and poorest ten percent of households in China was 13 times in 2001; the corresponding difference in 2011 was 35 times, representing an unparalleled shift in wealth distribution even by world standards. (5)

New sources of inequality associated with changes in production and consumption further exacerbate urban income disparities. As Jan Nijman and Yehua Dennis Wei write:

The new economy has propelled urban inequalities in three ways: (1) greater bifurcation of the workforce and deepening income inequalities; (2) increasing inter-urban inequalities (growth vs. shrinkage); and (3) revival of central cities and urban centers that have become increasingly exclusionary, along with increased 'sorting' and inequalities between different suburban areas. (6) As disparities in income increase, social conditions deteriorate the life expectancy of residents, and health problems emerge. (7) While the causal forces of massive growth may differ across megacities, the prevalence of rising inequality among them is quite similar. In our case study of Mexico City, the city's growth over the last 50 years has led to widespread spatial inequality seen in zones of high income surrounded by bands of decreasing wealth and prosperity.

Previous research on Mexico City shows that higher-value employment in the broader metropolitan area remains centralized within the Federal District, despite the emergence of newer nodes of economic activity. (8) Residents' ability to access formal employment, however, differs substantially.

Historically speaking, in Mexican cities, low income-households were clustered in peripheral areas with little access to infrastructural or urban services, while high-income households often concentrated near the historic center--or the location where a city first developed--and grew outward in one direction. (9) In the case of Mexico City, incomes and education have generally been higher near the historic center and west of the center, while the concentration of indigenous and low-income groups increases with relative distance from this historic center, (10) especially in the eastern and southeastern edges of the city." By some estimates, 56 percent of Mexico City's residents have below-average access to jobs, and those with the least access to jobs are in the eastern peripheries of the city. (12)

We build on these findings by presenting an updated analysis of the spatial incidence of inequality by focusing on the Federal District (Distrito Federal). We contribute a living wage analysis to this literature--estimating theminimum level of income for a basic but decent standard of living--to quantify the inequality of economic opportunity and to highlight its scattered geography. While recent research observed a decrease in income inequality and residential segregation in the metropolitan area from 1990 to 2010, (13) large inequalities continue to exist within the Federal District, especially related to a household's ability to procure a dignified but basic standard of living.

THE CASE OF MEXICO CITY

Mexico City: Background

Mexico City (16) the second largest of all Latin American cities, is one of 32 Mexican federal entities and the seat of federal power. It remains the most populous city in North America and the fifth-largest economy in Latin America. (17) The city is composed of 16 boroughs or municipalities (delegaciones), each with its respective mayor and neighborhoods (colonias). Cuahutemoc is home to the historic city center. The city's population centers, in contrast, are in the boroughs of Iztapalapa on the east side of the city, Gustavo A. Madero in the city's northeastern borders, and La Magdalena Contreras and Tlalpan on the southern edges of the city.

A Bifurcated City Structure

Whereas much of Mexico City's population lives in the eastern half of the city, remunerated employment--or paid...