From Rural Poor to Urban Poor

In the last 50 years, Mexico, like many other countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, has experienced accelerated urban growth. Urban growth has been accompanied by an increase in urban poverty. While the spatial distribution of poverty in urban areas in Mexico is varied, new settlements that tend to grow in the peri-urban hinterland of cities are largely associated with poverty. The focus of this study lay in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City (MAMC), which is the habitat of diverse low-income groups. Among those groups are the campesinos (people with rural background engaged totally or partially in agricultural livelihoods). Some studies have suggested that campesinos are very vulnerable to urban growth, since population expansion has put severe pressure on their agricultural land, which, despite its marginal value, is used to produce crops for either semi-commercialisation or subsistence. This book aims to understand how the growth of the MAMC affects poverty in campesinos' households, in order to recommend directions for poverty reduction.