Society for Latin American Studies

Urbanization and Agrarian Law: The Case of Mexico City

Author(s): Ann Varley
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1985), pp. 1-16
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Society for Latin American Studies
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Bull Latin Am. Res., Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1-16,1985. 0262-3050/85 $3.00 + .00
Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd.
Society for Latin American Studies

Urbanization and Agrarian Law:

the Case of Mexico City

ANN VARLEY

Department of Geography, University College London

INTRODUCTION
When the delegates to the Convention of Queretaro signed the new Mexican
Constitution in January 1917, they were setting their seal to a document that
has been described as more remarkable than any other constitution in the world
at the time (Hall, 1981). The Constitution of 1917 was intended to express the
fundamental ideals of the Mexican Revolution in legal form, and the most
remarkable product of the Convention's deliberations was Article 27 of the new
Constitution (Niemeyer, 1974). This Article attributed the original ownership
of all land to the nation, and gave the state the right to regulate landholding in
the public interest. In short:

It subordinated the property rights of the individual to the needs of the

society: the right to land became a social right (Hall, 1981, p. 180).

The concept of the social utility of landholding set out in Article 27 remains in
force today. Whilst it originally applied above all to rural property, the Article
was reformed, and the principle of social control over property reiterated in
1976, in order to include in its provisions the planning of centres of population,
for the improvement of living standards in both rural and urban contexts {Diario
Oficial, 6 February 1976).
It is the intention of this paper to show how in Mexico City the ideal of social
utility regulating property has been systematically subordinated to private
interest.1 The subject of discussion is a type of property arising from the Revolu?
tion that inspired Article 27: the ejido. An ejido is an area of land intended for
agricultural use by a specific community, and ejido property is supposed to
embody in practice the Revolutionary principle of a social right to land. Although
it is unique to Mexico, the ejido represents a kind of landholding to be found
in many parts of the world. The precise legal character of this form of land
tenure varies, but it can loosely be assigned the generic name of community
land.2 This is land held collectively by a particular social group rather than
individual private landowners or the government. The importance of com?
munity land in urban development and the supply of land for housing the
urban poor has been acknowledged in recent discussion (Angel et al., 1983;
Baross, 1983). Particular concern is expressed about the difficulties that com?
munity land tenure can present to state housing programmes involving the
conventional or self-help development of these lands (Lea, 1983). One result
of these difficulties is that community land development has taken place mostly
by informal means such as invasion, cession or illegal sale.
2 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

It is well known that ejido lands in Mexico have been urbanized by informal
means (Sudra, 1976; Connolly, 1982; Gilbert and Ward, 1984), but what is less
well appreciated is that much informal development has taken place in the
context of a set of formal, legal provisions for the alienation of ejido property.
This paper will review the legal procedures that have been applied in both the
formal and informal urbanization of Mexico City ejido lands. These procedures
have a double significance: first, because they have provided a context and
a stimulus for urbanization of ejido lands, and, second, because they could
be used by the state to promote a more 'rational' development of ejido land for
low-income housing purposes.

EJIDO PROPERTY AND ITS URBANIZATION IN MEXICO CITY

The Constitution of 1917 decreed that villages without sufficient agricultural
lands for their needs should be provided with them. The land grants that were
made in this way were given the name of ejidos. Since the Revolution, it is
estimated that a half of all cultivable land has officially been granted to rural
communities in the Mexican agrarian reform (Zaragoza and Macias, 1980),
with the creation of over 24,000 ejidos throughout the Republic.3 The legal
characteristic that makes the ejido a distinctive type of landholding is its posses-
sion by a specified group of individuals from the ejido community who cannot
legally sell, rent, mortgage or in any other way alienate or dispose of their lands
(with certain exceptions to be discussed in this paper) (LFRA, Articles 52,
75).4 Ejidatarios' rights can be defined as rights of usufruct: they are entitled
and even obliged to use the land for agricultural purposes (LFRA, Article 85).
On their death, they may bequeath their rights to another member of the
family (LFRA, Article 81). Ejidatarios may receive individual parcels of land
within the ejido for their personal use, but the property of the ejido is vested
in the artificial or juridical 'person' composed collectively of all the ejidatarios
together (Hinojosa Ortiz, 1983).
The ejido has been seen as a form of social property because lands are granted
for agricultural use in perpetuity by a group of Mexican citizens who otherwise
possess only a limited amount of land or capital (LFRA, Article 200). Any
actions by private individuals or state authorities depriving ejido communities
of their agrarian rights in contravention ofthe agrarian law are defined as legally
invalid (LFRA, Article 53). Nevertheless, the following sections of this paper
will describe how ejido lands around Mexico City have become urbanized in
such a way that the pretended primacy of social utility over private interest
has been undermined, and many ejido lands converted into private property.
The urbanization of ejido lands has often been depicted as an anarchic
process, taking place without reference to the law (Unomdsuno, 15 March
1983). Such a portrayal is misleading, because much urban development on
ejido lands has taken place in the context of legal procedures for their alienation.
These constitute exceptions to the formal inalienability of ejido property. The
first is expropriation, which is essentially a process of compulsory purchase.
The second is exchange, a method by which a particular area of ejido land
could be swapped for the lands of a private individual. The third legal method
of alienating ejido property is the creation of an ejido urban zone. This is an
area of ejido land formally set apart to house ejidatarios.
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW 3

Investigation of these methods of alienation leads to three major findings

that provide the themes of subsequent sections of this paper. The first is that
different social sectors use different methods of acquiring ejido lands. Expropria?
tion and exchange are associated with land alienation by or for industrial or con?
struction capital, state agencies and the middle classes. The urban zone provides
the context for ejido land acquisition by low-income groups. These differences
are not coincidental, because lands alienated in an exchange or expropriation
do not suffer from certain constraints affecting the use of lands in an urban
zone. Full ownership of expropriated or exchanged lands is transferred to
the people who occupy them almost immediately, and land titles can thus be
obtained. The lands can also be incorporated fully into the municipal area,
qualifying them to receive the standard range of urban services without further
ado. In an urban zone, people acquiring plots have to occupy them for at least
four years before a variety of bureaucratic procedures eventually result in the
granting of private land titles (LFRA, Article 96). During this compulsory time
lapse, the area may not become fully integrated into the municipal structure
of the city, and so there is no guarantee that it will receive services. Thus, these
two sets of social groups?rich and poor?acquire ejido land for urban uses
in different ways.
The second major finding is that all three procedures are subject to modifica-
tions which can at best be described as improper, and at worst as illegal. It can
be argued that such irregular manipulation of legal mechanisms occurs 'across
the board', that is, in all three ofthe procedures in question.
The third finding is that the irregularity involved in the abuse of these pro?
cedures is recognized by the state only in the case of the urban zone, in which
it is primarily the low-income population that is involved. The illegitimacy of
ejido lands' appropriation by other means, for other social sectors, has largely,
and predictably, escaped attention by the state. Areas developed by these
means have not been subject to regularization programmes. (Regularization is
a means by which the state charges residents of illegal settlements for the plots
which they occupy, and in return provides them with a legal land title.)
Regularization programmes are not confined to ejido lands, but they are of
interest here only in so far as their application reveals the partial nature of
state definitions of illegality in relation to ejido lands' urbanization.
The social utility of the ejido has been subordinated to private interest on
a large scale. Since the Revolution, some 600 km2 have been granted to ejidos
belonging to what is now the Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City (Fig. I).5
Different sources estimate that between 110 and 140 km2 (18-23%) of these
ejido lands had been incorporated into the built-up area by the mid-1970s,
but the figure is now nearer 200 km2 (33%) (Cruz Rodriguez, 1981; Schteingart,
1982; Varley, 1985). Two-thirds of the ejido lands had been created by the
end of 1930, and most ofthe remainder were added during the Presidency of
Cardenas {ibid.), so that by the time urban development accelerated in the
1940s, one-quarter ofthe Metropolitan Zone was held in ejido property (Schtein?
gart, 1982). Over one-quarter of the expansion in the urban area between 1940
and 1982 took place on ejido lands (Varley, 1985).
Table 1 presents an analysis of the areas of ejido land which one author
has classified as being occupied by various urban uses (Cruz Rodriguez, 1981). It
 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

FEDERAL
DISTRICT
BOUNDARY EJIDOLANDSIN THEEASTERNMOST
PARTOFTHEMETROPOLITANZONE
OR DELEGACION
MUNICIPAL (CHIMALHUACANAND LA PAZ
BOUNDARY ARENOT INCLUDED
MUNICIPALITIES)

FIGURE 1 Ejido lands of Mexico City {ejido lands belonging to municipalities outside the
Metropolitan Zone are excluded).
Source: Agrarian Reform Ministry maps. Metropolitan Zone details adapted from
Unikel(1972).
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW

TABLE 1 Urban Uses of Ejido Lands in the Federal

1940-1976
District,

Percentage
of urbanized
ejido area

Private uses
Middle class housing 3
Luxury housing 9
Sports clubs ng
All private uses 13

Low-income housing
Colonias populares 49

Public works
(State infrastructure and services)
Industrial zones 3
Housing development 16
Sports facilities 5
Schools 10
Parks 2
Roads 1
Other 2
All public works 39

Total all uses 100

Percentages are correct to nearest whole number.

ng: negligible (less than one per cent).
Source: Cruz Rodriguez, 1981.

can be seen that approximately one-eighth of ejido lands are allocated to 'private
uses', one-half to low-income colonias populares, and the remainder to public
works. This classification, whilst valid, gives the impression that the privatization
of ejido lands is a matter simply of their occupation by the middle classes,
whereas the colonias populares, industrial zones and government housing
developments also represent mostly private occupation of former ejido property.
Altogether, therefore, some four-fifths of urban growth on ejido lands since
1940 has involved their privatization, as opposed to their use for public facilities
or collective urban infrastructure.6
The privatization of ejido lands does not necessarily imply a loss of social
utility. At best, it can only offer an approximate guide to the undermining of
the precepts of Article 27. The use of ejido lands for low-income housing prob?
ably benefits a greater number of people than their use for agricultural purposes,
especially when it is considered that a large proportion of ejido lands in Mexico
City are of poor agricultural quality, so that many ejidatarios abandoned agri?
cultural production and turned to other occupations many years ago. However,
6 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

most low-income housing development has taken place through the initiatives of
ejidatarios and settlers, rather than systematic state intervention to preserve
or increase social utility. In many other cases, the privatization of ejido lands
has clearly represented a triumph of private interest over social considerations.
The following sections describe the ways in which ejido land alienation is
shaped by the legal procedures for expropriation, exchange and the creation of
an urban zone. The illegality of the various types of urban development taking
place will not for the moment be the subject of comment, because it is not
always easy to define. The uses to which the lands are put will be described,
along with the ways in which the practices involved deviate from the ideal
pattern laid down in the agrarian legislation.

Expropriation
Expropriation is a process of compulsory purchase. A request is submitted for
expropriation of a certain area of ejido lands for a specific purpose, and once
this has been approved by the Agrarian Reform Ministry and the President,
the lands are formally removed from the ejido. Compensation must be paid
to the ejidatarios.
Table 2 analyses the 311 expropriations which had been made in the Metro?
politan Zone by the end of Lopez Portillo's Presidency in November 1982.
Expropriation decrees had been issued for some 170 km2, although this figure
over-estimates the area actually involved, because in some cases the expropria?
tion decree was never executed, and a second expropriation decree may have
been issued for the same area. Excluding expropriations for the regularization
of illegal settlements, on the grounds that they concern an existing land use,
it can be seen that some three-quarters of the expropriations, and one-half of
the expropriated area, were intended to provide land for infrastructure or
social services. One-fifth of the decrees, and one-quarter of the area, were for
government or private housing projects, industrial plant or government agencies'
uses, mostly constituting private property. The category of 'infrastructure',
however, also contains a large area expropriated for industrial zones in the north
of the city, which also eventually become the property of individual firms.
There is, therefore, evidence for a very large-scale expropriation of ejido lands
in Mexico City, much of which has resulted in the privatization of ejido pro?
perty rather than its transfer to collective urban uses.
Article 27 of the Constitution stipulates that expropriation is only permis-
sible in the cause of 'public utility' and on payment of compensation. The
requirement of public utility is echoed in the agrarian legislation, but no defini?
tion is given of its meaning. This is problematic, because the ejidos were them?
selves set up in the name of public utility, and since 1971 it has also been
a condition of expropriation that the public utility involved should be greater
than the existing social utility of the ejido (LFRA, Article 112). However,
no guidance is given as to how to set about quantifying the amount of public
utility contained in any particular land use.
Agrarian law has listed reasons for expropriation that constitute sufficient
justification of public utility. These include the establishment of means of
communication, and the installation of public services. In such cases, the public
utility is fairly self-evident, but other acceptable reasons for expropriation
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW

TABLE 2 Uses of Ejido Lands Expropriated in the

Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City, 1915-1982

Percentages are correct to nearest whole number.

Source: Collated by author from Agrarian Reform Ministry
summary of Presidential decrees, cross-checked with other sources
(see note 5).

include the creation or improvement of centres of population and their sources

of employment (LRFA, Article 112). Such very general clauses can be inter-
preted so as to apply to virtually any urban land use, even those in which the
benefits accrue almost entirely to private individuals. A few examples will
illustrate the use of expropriations to benefit private bodies. In the 1940s,
twenty hectares were expropriated from an ejido in the north of the Federal
District, in order for them to form the (presumably private) playing fields of
the Metropolitan Polo Association, although the sport could hardly be described
as enjoying great popular participation {Diario Oficial, 30 August 1945). In the
State of Mexico, ejido lands were expropriated in the 1950s for industrial use
by private firms, such as the Lock Joint Pipe Co. (Diario Oficial, 31 March
1955), and in the east of the city land was expropriated from an ejido called
Santa Anita for private construction companies. One of the expropriations was
justified as a contribution to solving the problem of housing scarcity that was
'so distressing for middle-class families' (Diario Oficial, 5 July 1950).
In later years, expropriations of ejido land for urban uses have only been
8 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

made in favour of government agencies. This is now a legal requirement (LFRA,

Articles 116-7), and such obvious cases of private benefit from ejido lands'
expropriation are, therefore, no longer to be found. Nevertheless, expropriations
still result in private economic gain, and the thesis, which has often been
advanced, that expropriation is a means by which the state subsidizes land
acquisition by private capital, or privileged social groups, still applies (Garcia,
1979; Cruz Rodriguez, 1981; Schteingart, 1982).
There are at least two ways in which legally-correct expropriations have been
used to veil the transfer of ejido lands to economically and politically powerful
social sectors. The key to both of them is the role played in expropriation by
state agencies. In the first case, agency officials take advantage of an expropria?
tion decree to sell lands for their private benefit. In the second, an expropriation
justified in general or vague terms is used by the agency for a purpose rather
different from that which was originally announced, or which could be deduced
from the agency's brief. It should be noted at this point that the stated purpose
of an expropriation decree is legally binding. Should the lands be put to other
uses, or simply not used as stated by the agency within five years, the expropria?
tion will be legally invalid and the agency will (theoretically) lose ownership of
the lands (LFRA, Article 126).7
These two methods of diverting ejido lands from their intended purpose may
both be found together in a single case. It is unlikely to be easy to pinpoint the
source and means of the diversion, because it is clearly not in the interests of
the agency or officials concerned to let this become public knowledge. Two
examples concern the Institute for Urban Action and Social Integration
(AURIS), a State of Mexico agency created in 1970 to assist 'rational settlement'
in the State, particularly in its urban areas, with special reference to housing
the low-income population (AURIS, 1972; Gaceta del Gobierno del Estado de
Mexico, 3 January 1970).
In 1970, some 1500 hectares were expropriated on behalf of the State of
Mexico government from eight ejidos in the north and west of the Metropolitan
Zone, to be used for a variety of purposes by AURIS. In the expropriation
decrees, the reason for the expropriation was typically quoted as 'the creation
of a housing zone'. One use to which the lands were put was the provision of
sites for AURIS housing developments known as 'Izcallis'. Eight 'Izcallis' were
developed on lands expropriated from the Metropolitan Zone ejidos, and a study
of these developments has shown that four ofthe 'Izcallis' were managed jointly
with private companies, and had almost twice as much land allocated them as
four others supposedly developed by AURIS alone (Garcia, 1979). It is alleged
that these projects were little more than a device for passing land with building
permission from ejidos to private construction companies (ibid.). In only one
case, San Rafael Chamapa, was an 'Izcalli' developed for the low-income popula?
tion, whereas it could have been expected from AURIS' brief that a majority
of the developments would be aimed at this social sector. Other 'Izcallis' were
used for middle-class housing. Development companies and individual specu-
lators, including AURIS officials, were also involved in at least two of the
'Izcallis' supposedly completed by AURIS alone (ibid.).
The 'Izcalli' programme thus offers examples of both agency officials'
corrupt land dealings and the diversion of lands from a general policy of
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW 9

low-income housing support to sale and development for the middle classes
by construction companies. Much the same happened in the second example,
the new city of Cuautitlan-Izcalli, developed on ejido lands expropriated in
1970 for AURIS. A special-purpose Cuautitlan-Izcalli agency was later set up,
and although it was originally intended to concentrate on the 60% of the popula?
tion who could not afford housing built by construction companies, conven-
tional housing development became the norm (Bock and Rothenberg, 1979).
By 1973, the cheapest houses available were beyond the means of at least
four-fifths of wage earners {ibid.). Again, the conclusion which has been drawn
from this portrays the project as a stratagem for incorporating ejido property
into the commercial land market.
Finally, some ejido lands have been occupied by state agencies in the context
of what would probably be called expropriations, but in which no expropriation
decree has ever been issued in the name of the agency. This is partly a result of
the length of time which it may take for an expropriation request to be approved
?as much as fifteen or twenty years. Some state agencies have simply occupied
the lands in a de facto expropriation, which may constitute an invasion of ejido
lands. Cases in which this has occurred include offices of the Agrarian Reform
Ministry itself, on lands of San Jeronimo Aculco, and the Naucalpan municipal
offices, on Santa Maria Nativitas lands. There is also a large area of ejido land
in the west of the city occupied informally by the army in the First Military
Camp.8

Exchange
The exchange of ejido lands allows two ejido communities to swap their lands
if they are more suitable for use by the other ejido involved (LFRA, Article 63;
Hinojosa Ortiz, 1977). In the past, agrarian law also permitted exchanges with
private property {Codigo Agrario, Article 146). This led to the incorporation
of some 46 km2 (4574 hectares) of ejido lands into the urban area of Mexico
City between 1943 and 1964. These lands were used almost entirely for middle-
class housing developments. The best-known case is the famous area of luxury
housing in El Pedregal de San Angel, built on lands exchanged in the 1950s with
San Jeronimo Aculco and Tlalpan ejidos. To this example may be added many
others. Ejido lands of San Miguel Tecamachalco were converted into elegant
housing developments near the elite residential area of Lomas de Chapultepec,
and the middle-class suburb of Ciudad Satelite absorbed lands obtained in
exchange from two ejidos.
The conditions for an exchange were that it should be in the economic
interests of the ejido to allow the operation, and that it should be approved by
the ejidatarios. Private landowners were to offer in exchange lands whose exten?
sion and quality would adequately compensate the ejido for its loss. An addi-
tional financial compensation could also be required. The idea was that
ejidatarios should not lose out by an exchange, that they should continue to
earn their living from the land, and that the newly-acquired area should become
part ofthe ejido property.
In practice, the process led to a loss of lands from the ejido sector. Private
landowners were eager to exchange an area of agricultural land with urban
ejidos, because the differential in land values clearly worked to their advantage
10 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

when they developed and sold the former ejido property. But the ejido did not
lose out in relative terms alone. In over two-thirds of these exchanges, the area
received by the ejido was located outside the present Metropolitan Zone. As
many as one in six cases involved areas located in the distant state of Veracruz.
In such circumstances it was obviously nonsensical to expect the new lands
to be incorporated economically into the existing ejido, and the best that could
be hoped for was the creation of two separate ejidatario communities. Most
ejidatarios, however, were unwilling to leave Mexico City.
In some cases the formal conditions concerning compensation for exchange
were not fulfilled. In theory, the exchanges then became invalid and could be
nullified. Complaints of failure to observe the terms ofa 1958 exchange have
been made in the ejido of San Juan Totolepec (Excelsior 14 May 1977), and legal
experts of the Agrarian Reform Ministry have reported that one of the San
Angel exchanges was not carried out correctly.9 It is likely that payments were
often made by the private party to the ejido community to ensure its coopera?
tion, since ejidatarios would be more interested in this financial gain than in
the strict observance of the correct legal procedure. As a result, exchange has
been described as a perfect example of a legal institution's becoming so de-
formed as to betray its original intentions and represent nothing more than
a quick road to illicit riches (Hinojosa Ortiz, 1977).

Urban zones
The creation of an ejido urban zone is an extremely complex operation which
cannot be described with justice in a few words. What is of interest for the
present is the very widespread occurrence of such zones in Mexico City, and
the way in which irregular manipulation of the legal procedure has almost
completely subverted the original concept of the urban zone. Agrarian law
states that the urban zone is intended to house ejidatarios and expressly forbids
its use to serve the needs of nearby villages and towns (LFRA, Article 91).
However, the key to use of the urban zone for precisely those ends which the
law forbids is the permission given for plots which are surplus to the needs
of ejidatarios to be sold or rented to people known as avecindados, defined as
Mexican citizens who work in an occupation 'that is of use to the community'
(LFRA, Article 93). The problem with this clause is that no criteria are pre?
sented for evaluating the usefulness of an occupation. It is no doubt intended
to allow crafts workers, or other agricultural workers employed in the ejido
to settle close to their place of employment, but the law does not spell this
out. In consequence, ejidatarios have used the cession of plots to so-called
avecindados as a pretext to sell off lands to whomsoever they have chosen.
Thirty-four of the 154 Mexico City ejidos have been granted urban zones,
the earliest in 1944, and the last in 1964.10 Some 14 km2 (1383 hectares) of
ejido land have been incorporated into urban zones. These figures, however,
significantly underestimate the importance of the urban zone in ejido land
alienation for urban uses, because for each official urban zone, there have
been several unofficial ones. By 'unofficial urban zones' is meant those cases
in which the procedure for creating an urban zone was formally initiated and
usually carried through at least as far as the appointment of an official surveyor
(Ingeniero Postulante) to draw up the plans for the zone. Considering those
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW 11

ejidos which have been expropriated for regularization purposes (that is, a
sample of ejidos occupied by illegal settlements), it is found that at least three-
quarters of them had either a formal or an unofficial urban zone. In all prob-
ability the majority of Mexico City ejidos have included such a zone. Although
the last formal zone was established in 1964, unofficial zones continued to
be set up into the 1970s. Even in 1982, ejidatarios of San Francisco Chimalpa
were still campaigning for an urban zone in their ejido.
The ways in which lands have been alienated within the context of the urban
zone are varied and complex, but a typical example can be drawn from the
ejido of Santiago Atzacoalco in the north-east ofthe Federal District. Atzacoalco
ejidatarios sought permission for an urban zone in 1949, but a formal urban
zone was not established until eight years later, by which time the original
68 plots requested (67 for ejidatarios, one for a school) had become 152 plots
(52 for ejidatarios, 91 for outsiders, and the remainder for services or future
growth?Diario Oficial, 29 July 1957). However, the main thrust of irregular
development took place in the much larger surrounding area (some 180 hectares),
designated an extension of the urban zone. Settlement expanded onto this
area from the formal urban zone, as ejido authorities and agrarian ministry
officials co-operated in the sale of 200 m2 plots. The vendors used a classic
urban zone sales technique, producing documents known as constancias, which
pretend to register the plot purchaser as an avecindado. In fact no considera-
tion was given to the usefulness to the community ofthe purchasers' occupation.
The great majority of developments in and around urban zones are low-
income settlements. There are a few exceptions, such as the ejidos of San
Jeronimo Aculco and Padierna, where very wealthy as well as poor people
bought land and built their houses in unofficial urban zones dating from the
late 1960s. These cases constitute significant but fairly minor exceptions to
the general rule associating urban zones with informal land acquisition by the
poor. Ejidatarios are very far from being or appearing to be professional estate
agents, but the urban zone has provided them with a near-perfect means to sell
off ejido lands piecemeal to the low-income population, with just sufficient
trappings of legality to keep purchasers happy and just enough procedural
complications effectively to stave off any serious intervention from above for
many years.

THE QUESTION OF ILLEGALITY AND STATE INTERVENTION

The accounts given of expropriation, exchange and the urban zone indicate
that informal and improper alienation of ejido land has taken place in the
context of all three procedures. It is not an easy matter to say with certainty
whether or not these informal practices can be defined as illegal. One source
of difficulty is the lack of clarity in the agrarian legislation. Concepts such as
'public utility' are imprecise and lend themselves to misinterpretation. Argu?
ments can be made for the occurrence of illegal practices in all three procedures
described, on the grounds that the process of alienation contradicts require?
ments set, either by the law itself, or by the Presidential decrees or resolutions
sanctioning an- expropriation or exchange. Non-observance of Presidential
decrees legally invalidates the procedure, and ejido land alienation without
the protection of a formal change of status is illegal.
12 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

Another argument concerns not the detailed steps taken in any one procedure
for alienation, but the overall outcome. The end result of developments occurring
in Mexico City is clearly irregular: ejido lands are alienated in a fashion which
puts private advantage before social utility, and this applies to all three pro?
cedures described.
The Mexican state has, however, reacted differently to the results ofthe three
procedures. In the case of the urban zone, attempts have been made to regularize
the resulting settlements, but the urban zone procedure has not been written
out of the agrarian legislation. In the case of expropriation, there have been few
attempts to prevent improper use of expropriated lands by state agencies, and
the law remains largely unchanged.
The state has clearly recognized the illegitimacy of land alienation in the guise
of exchanges, as can be seen from a series of measures intended to modify, and
eventually to suppress exchange with private lands. At first, regulations sought
to ensure that the lands to be received by the ejido were of sufficiently high
an agricultural quaUty (Agreement of 9 March 1948), and then to insist that no
cash payments should be involved and that the private party should use the lands
gained only for agricultural purposes, on pain of cancellation of the exchange
(Agreement of 15 April 1959). In 1971 the right to exchange ejido lands with
private property was abolished.
Three factors can explain these different state responses to improper or
illegal manipulation of the procedures for expropriation, exchange and urban
zone formation. The first is their association with different social sectors. The
state does not take action against land use by those social sectors to which it is
most closely allied, even if illegal practices are sometimes involved in expropria?
tion and exchange. The other two factors require a little more explanation.
They concern what can be described as a 'whitewash' effect, and the degree of
state agencies' involvement in a procedure.
The 'whitewash' effect relates to the possession by users of land titles, and
can be explained as follows. Expropriation decrees and the Presidential resolu?
tions permitting exchanges order the inscription of the change of ownership
in the National Property Register. Once these decrees have been executed,
land titles can be issued to the new owners, even though subsequent develop?
ments could still invalidate the legal procedure. In an urban zone, in contrast,
two Presidential resolutions are required, the first setting up the zone, and the
second, at least four years later, authorizing the issue of titles. (In practice,
only a handful of Mexico City urban zones have been granted land titles for
their residents, except in the regularization programme.)
Once land titles have been issued, it becomes much more difficult to do
anything about abuse of the legal provisions. The new owner may rapidly
develop and sell off the land, and the consequent issue of another set of land
titles records a process which may be totally legitimate from the purchasers'
point of view. The documents issued by ejidatarios selling plots illegally in an
urban zone cannot have the same legal value as titles, and are often totally
invalid. This leaves the purchasers vulnerable to state intervention. In short,
the 'whitewash' effect does not operate in urban zones.
The third factor mentioned above concerns the involvement of state agencies
in the various procedures. To a large extent, expropriation is an internal state
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW 13

process, since state agencies initiate, authorize and benefit from expropriations.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the state has neither revised agrarian law
on this matter, nor (with very few exceptions) taken action against the con?
sequences. In contrast, exchange led to the advantage of private individuals,
and it could eventually be suppressed (except between ejidos) as a gesture of
official support for the ejido, although no action would be taken against the
results of earlier exchanges. It is not clear why the urban zone, the object of
much criticism, has remained in the statutes, but one possible explanation for
the regularization programme is that, to a far greater extent than the other two
procedures, the urban zone has been associated with informal practices by
ejidatarios and settlers that have left intervention by state agencies far behind.

CONCLUSIONS
The main points of this paper can be summarized as follows. The social utility
invested in the ejido by the Constitution of 1917 and agrarian reform legisla?
tion has been systematically undermined in Mexico City to the benefit of
private interests. This has often been expressed in a change of tenure in former
ejido property that passes into private ownership, by a variety of informal
means, but also in the context of three procedures established in agrarian law
as legitimate exceptions to the inalienability of ejido lands. Examination ofthe
alienation practices that have developed in Mexico City reveals, first, that
different social sectors have used different procedures to gain access to ejido
land; second, that improper or illegal practices have occurred in each case;
and third, that the state recognizes as illegal only those settlements that have
developed in the context of the urban zone, which are mostly occupied by the
poor. Middle-class, industrial and state agency users of former ejido lands are
allowed to enjoy their property in peace, however shaky its legal foundations,
whilst low-income settlers on ejido lands have been subjected to a process of
land tenure regularization.
Official definitionsofillegality are therefore partial. They also serve a political
function. For example, low-income residents of ejido lands pressing state
agencies for the installation of services have been rebuffed on the grounds that
their land tenure is illegal.
In the introduction to this paper, it was noted that the ejido is an example
of community land, and that one issue of concern to those studying the use of
such lands for housing the poor has been the difficulty of gaining official access
to them for purposes of housing development or improvement. It is interesting
in conclusion, to consider what the Mexican example may contribute to our
understanding of certain legal techniques allowing the alienation of community
land.
Although some of the procedures discussed might appear to be unique to
Mexico, they can be translated, in outline if not in detail, to suit other national
contexts. Expropriation is easily identifiable as compulsory purchase by order
of the state. Exchange, on the contrary, is a voluntary agreement reached by
the community and another party (which could be a housing agency), and
whereas compensation for expropriation can be in either land or cash, in an
exchange the community must receive land elsewhere The urban zone may find
14 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

an equivalent in the development of community lands with state supervision but

a large measure of decentralized control in the hands of the community itself
Logistically the most complex procedure is probably exchange. Evidence
from Mexico City shows that it is not an easy matter to ensure that the land
offered in compensation will suit the needs of the community, or that its
members will be willing to move to the new area. Particular difficulties arise
when the community land is no longer fulfillings its original functions as agri
cultural land. In such cases financial compensation may be needed to win the
community s agreement to exchange Alternatively the new lands can be exempted
from the regulations concerning the use of community land, although they must
still be chosen so as to be sufficiently attractive, for agriculture, development or
residence to the community. Extended bargaining may be necessary.
The principal attraction of procedures similar to the urban zone is that they
are likely to enjoy the support of the community. Low prices may result from
decentralized control of development, and these are critical for low-income
house builders; but in Mexico City relatively low land prices in ejido property
have been associated with the illegality of development and the lack of profes?
sional acumen of many vendors. Were the state to sponsor and approve extensive
land development by the community, in the interest of better settlement plan?
ning, the advantage of low prices could be lost. Also, community control of
development can lead to a concentration of power in the hands of community
leaders, some of whom are apt to abuse their position to alienate lands in a
corrupt and exploitative manner.
Initially, expropriation appears to be the most attractive proposition. How?
ever, a major problem can arise if the political interests behind community land
are sufficiently powerful to present a serious obstacle to use of expropriation.
Opposition may be aroused by any scheme in which the compensation offered
is considered inadequate by community members who want it to be com-
patible with market values. Compensation at market rates would, however,
cancel out the virtues of community land acquisition for low-income housing
projects.
One way to avert effective community opposition to expropriation is to
ensure that the legal procedure is followed to the letter. For this reason, and
given the tendency for agency activities to divert expropriated lands from
their stated purpose, it is essential to define concepts such as public utility and
the function of an expropriation in exact terms. It might also help to with-
hold land titles until the agency can demonstrate that it has carried out its
stated intentions in full. This could act as a disincentive to the development
of middle-class housing, for example, whilst it should not affect collective
infrastructure or low-income housing schemes.
However, an expropriation to provide lands for low-income housing is only
as effective as the agency involved allows it to be. Ultimately, this depends
on the determination of the state to put social utility first, and resist corruption
and the diversion of lands to serve the private interests of economically powerful
groups. Until now, in Mexico, this determination seems to have been lacking.
Nevertheless, in Article 27 of the Constitution and agrarian law, the Mexican
state has the legal means at its disposal for realising the ideal of social utility
in relation to urban land use. It is the dominance of private benefit over social
URBANIZATION AND AGRARIAN LAW 15

utility in the social system as a whole, and the motivation of the state, that
must remain open to question.

NOTES
1. The research on which this paper is based was sponsored by a Social Science Research
Council Studentship linked with the project on 'Public intervention, housing and
land use in Latin American cities' directed for the Overseas Development Administra-
tion by Drs. Peter Ward and Alan Gilbert. Fieldwork was carried out in Mexico City
from June 1981 to October 1982.
2. Ejidos are not the only form of community land to be found in Mexico. Some vUlages
retain communal lands held by them from as early as pre-colonial times. Since the
Revolution these have been included and sometimes confused with the ejido in the
agrarian legislation, but this paper considers only ejido lands.
3. Information supplied by the Agrarian Reform Ministry, from a summary of statistics
produced by the National Centre for Agrarian Research (CNIA), dated December
1980.
4. References to the 1971 Federal Agrarian Reform Law (Ley Federal de Reforma
Agraria) are given in this form for the sake of brevity. This law is the latest in a long
series of major agrarian legislation. Its immediate predecessor was the Agrarian Code
(Codigo Agrario) of 1942. Mexican agrarian legislation also includes various Regula-
tions and Agreements supplementing the major statutes. Unless no equivalent can be
found in the 1971 Law, references to earlier or minor legislation is omitted for the
purposes of this paper.
5. Unless stated otherwise, data on land alienation were collected by the author from an
Agrarian Reform Ministry listing of Presidential Resolutions and Decrees published in
relation to Mexico City ejidos, cross-checked with individual publications and Agrarian
Reform Ministry archives. The Metropolitan Zone of Mexico City includes built-up
and as yet unoccupied lands in the Federal District and a number of municipalities of
the State of Mexico, fringing the Federal District except to the south (see Fig. 1).
6. Some lands in, for example, industrial zones, may be the private property of state
enterprises, such as PEMEX.
7. One example is the loss by the Department of the Federal District of an area of ejido
land expropriated in 1950, because the Department had failed to carry out its inten-
tion to build a fire station on the land.
8. The stimulus to informal land alienation by expropriation may extend beyond the
area directly affected. For example, ejidatarios of Cuautepec in the north of the
Federal District were reported to have sold their land in response to a series of expro-
priations from their ejido, because they resented what they saw as the low amounts
of compensation paid, and wanted to make sure they did not lose all their lands for
such poor returns.
9. Undated report by the General Directorate of Legal Affairs of the Agrarian Reform
Ministry. In Agrarian Reform Ministry archive on San Jeronimo Aculco urban plots,
No. 271.72/397.
10. More than 34 urban zones have been created, since two zones (and in one case, three)
have been granted to a number of ejidos. The later actions were termed extensions
to the original urban zone. These data do not take into account the urban zones
supposedly resulting from the 1950 division of the Culhuacan ejido into several smaller
ejidos, unless these were later confirmed in a separate Presidential Resolution.

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