This article is part of the FA special series Everywhere Walls, Borders, Prisons.

Francisco drives 80 kilometers daily to and from his job in the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico. With over 15 years of experience in operating and maintaining computerized numerical control machinery, this position at a metal production company presented the best opportunity for him, despite the considerable commute.

Francisco resides in a rented house in the municipality of Ciénega de Flores, located north of the state of Nuevo León, a couple of hours from the U.S.-Mexico border. He relocated there three years ago to pursue a job opportunity but resigned a year and a half later due to a lack of professional growth prospects. Ciénega de Flores is one of the municipalities actively promoted by the Nuevo León government to attract foreign investment as part of its ‘nearshoring’ initiatives. Francisco explained that the majority of available vacancies in the area were entry-level positions on assembly lines within the automotive sector. Consequently, he accepted the job in Monterrey.

“I’m more interested in opportunities for growth,” Francisco, who withheld his last name out of fear of labor reprisals, said.  “I’ve never looked for something close to home because there really isn’t one. Here you have to go to another municipality. Sometimes I travel up to two hours by car.”

Nuevo León’s status as an industrial powerhouse is deeply intertwined with its close proximity to the United States. Its strategic location makes it an attractive destination for manufacturing and distribution, particularly in sectors like automotive manufacturing, aerospace, and information technology. Nuevo León also boasts a skilled workforce, significantly bolstered by domestic migrants from primarily impoverished states within Mexico, to meet the demands of these industries. 

Since its beginnings, industrial growth focused on the city center. To satisfy the high demand for labor, companies once provided housing, even creating neighborhoods named after the company. Architect Elided Hernández explained that Colonia Cuauhtémoc, for example, was named after the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery. But now, soaring land prices in the metropolitan area are driving working-class residents to the city’s margins.

“Land in the city center is much more expensive because you have access to all services,” Hernández added. “So, in the peripheries, not having access to as many services, land is much cheaper.”

The influx of individuals from central and southern Mexico seeking better job opportunities, coupled with stricter border enforcement in the past decades deterring migration to the United States, has made Monterrey, Nuevo León’s capital city, a major employment hub. As the city was unprepared for vertical growth, it expanded horizontally to meet housing demands, causing peripheral municipalities to double their population within a decade. These developments, situated in the periphery of the Monterrey Metropolitan Area (MMA), often lack essential services, adequate access to public transportation, and experience increasing violence. 

“As a government, we perhaps lacked greater planning, regulation, and land management,” said Eugenio Montiel, director of the Nuevo León Housing Institute, recognizing mistakes from past administrations. “We fell short in having a more urban policy towards vertical development, and one that kept pace with services, transportation, and everything that urban development entails.”

Affordable housing in Mexico is primarily facilitated by government programs such as the National Housing Commission (Conavi) and the Institute of the National Housing Fund for Workers (Infonavit). In the early 2000s, social housing construction increased nationwide through the Infonavit, which offers a credit system allowing workers to buy, remodel, or build homes on their land, with wage-deducted payments. Yet, according to Hernández, these houses were built on cheap land outside Monterrey, using low-cost materials and a mass-production approach. “Obviously, this was to ensure a return for the companies,” she said.

Montiel explains that Nuevo León has the highest number of formal workers contributing to Infonavit. This allows the state, despite a downward trend after the boom, to maintain the highest level of housing construction and demand. 

Carlota Vargas, a former politician and president of the Urban Planning Society (SURMAC) in Monterrey, explained that urban growth has been chaotic due to the lack of oversight in ensuring that new developments had adequate transportation and essential services.

“For a long time, 50,000 homes were built per year in very remote places. That is why many are abandoned because transportation does not reach them. Others built homes where they did not have water services. They solved it only in the short term, with wells,” Vargas said.

The lack of oversight in developing ‘fraccionamientos’ (housing subdivisions) and corruption in the permitting process are blamed for Nuevo León having the highest number of municipalities in Mexico where residents commute for work. According to a 2024 survey by the civil organization Como Vamos, public transport users spend an average of two hours and 56 minutes on a round trip. For residents of peripheral municipalities like García, Juárez, and El Carmen, travel time can exceed three hours due to poor urban accessibility.

The Mobility Law includes a requirement for transportation feasibility, forcing developers to demonstrate the feasibility of public passenger transportation service before obtaining approval for new housing developments. However, the high levels of corruption that still persist, and political influence, allow developers to circumvent regulations and obtain permits.

Vargas explained that legislative changes introduced the concept of “autonomous services,” a caveat in the law that allowed developers to demonstrate building feasibility by simply providing access to essential services. Under this provision, ‘autonomous service’ meant that as long as, for instance, a pump was installed, the drainage problem was considered solved, bypassing traditional municipal services and providing only a short-term solution. 

As the region experienced years of drought, these neighborhoods were the most severely impacted, facing days or even weeks without water access. This situation is even worse in García, which houses numerous factories and industrial warehouses, where residents frequently struggle with drainage and water network issues. Many of them are forced to store water in buckets or fetch water from a community tank. 

Many new developments resemble mass-produced projects, featuring rows of one or two-story houses built with concrete blocks. These homes often share a uniform facade, creating homogenous suburbs. This monotonous landscape contrasts starkly with the backdrop of Monterrey’s majestic mountains.

Despite this, in the past 20 years, Nuevo León has emerged as a leader in offering state-subsidized housing for workers (Infonavit). This has fueled the state’s industrial growth and the rise of a peripheral class, many of whom are internal migrants.

Araceli Santiago moved to Monterrey from the town of Ixcatepec, Veracruz, 23 years ago at the age of 15 to help her parents and younger siblings. Job opportunities in Ixcatepec were scarce, and the few available offered very low wages. She currently works as a domestic worker in San Pedro Garza García, one of the wealthiest municipalities in Latin America. Through Infonavit, she was able to obtain a 30-year credit to purchase a house in the municipality of Escobedo. Her daily commute to work by bus takes approximately two hours one way.

“There are more people who work in San Pedro because they pay a little more. There are also people who are quitting because it is very stressful to wait for the bus. Sometimes there are like 200 people waiting for a bus to go downtown,” Santiago said.

Public transportation in the MMA ranks as the second worst in the country, according to a survey by the civil organization Centro Mario Molina. Deficiencies in the number of public transport units, poor service quality, and traffic congestion contribute to increased waiting and travel times for passengers. Long commutes significantly impact quality of life. As Francisco stated, weekdays are consumed by work and commuting, leaving him exhausted on his days off. Limited mobility can also trap people with limited job options or confine them to low-skill positions. For example, young people in Ciénega de Flores are increasingly less attracted to line factory jobs, sometimes leading to unemployment or, in the worst-case scenario, making them vulnerable to recruitment by organized crime.  

Vargas explained that many houses have been abandoned because “it was cheaper to leave them” than to pay for transportation. Estimates of the number of abandoned houses range from 100,000 to 400,000.

“It’s necessary to see how many of these homes are still in that same situation, which are far from transportation and services. And if it is far from transportation, it is far from schools. Many did not have schools either,” Vargas added.

Hernández sees here a clear power dynamic at play, arguing, “For there to be winning spaces, there must always be losing spaces.” She defines winning spaces as those with access to the city’s amenities, including leisure, shopping centers, and parks. In stark contrast, working-class neighborhoods often feature cramped housing with almost no public spaces.

“For these spaces to exist, other spaces must also exist,” Hernández added. “Those that are precarious, those that do not have access to transportation, those that have housing in poor condition or housing with very small spaces. You see who is perhaps deemed worthy of the city and who is not.”

Montiel acknowledges that the city continues pushing low-income residents to the edges, partly blaming it on gentrification. “We send the poor and vulnerable people to live on the outskirts, and those who have access to resources to the privileged central areas,” he added.

Prior to Ciénega, Francisco spent five years at a company in Guadalupe, located 45 kilometers east of Ciénega. During this time, he was able to secure a credit from Infonavit in the neighboring municipality of Juárez, a mere 15 minutes from his workplace. However, he is still paying for this property,  as he ultimately decided that renting a house in Ciénega was more feasible than commuting from Juárez.

“I saw that work as a very good opportunity and I idealized it. I got a house just 15 minutes away. But then, like with all companies, things changed, and I didn’t want to settle,” he said.

The high job turnover rate and the need to move within municipalities make it difficult for workers to remain in their state-subsidized homes. According to the Como Vamos survey, the majority of the population in Escobedo, Juárez, and García for instance, has to move outside their locality for work. While the mobility pattern may vary within each municipality, some factors include limited job opportunities in certain sectors within these municipalities, or that major employment centers are often located in the city center or in industrial parks in municipalities like Apodaca or Ciénega. Residents on the periphery – 47.9%– commute to the MMA, representing a significant migration to the metropolis.

Santiago chose Escobedo for her house because it was one of the more affordable municipalities. “If I had wanted a house closer to San Pedro, it would have been much more expensive. Currently, the cheapest houses are in Juárez or in Ciénega, but there is no reliable public transportation to those areas,” she added.

A BBVA analysis revealed that, between 2016 and 2022, housing prices in Nuevo León skyrocketed by 65% while wages, according to INEGI data, decreased by 1%. This shows a growing affordability gap in the region.

Vargas explained that Infonavit should be more flexible, offering the option for a second loan. “Mobility and worker turnover rates are high. After a while, that worker finds a better job somewhere else, but it will take three hours to get there,” she said.

As working-class residents live in a precarious situation on the margins of Nuevo León’s economic growth, they are increasingly vulnerable to violence, including homicides and disappearances. For Francisco the only way out of Ciénega is the highway to Laredo, Texas, which has been the site of violent events for several years as drug cartels vie for control of  routes to the U.S.

“I’ve seen too many things on that road. No one can imagine…Dead bodies, dismembered, arms, legs, everything lying on the floor. People who are just dying inside the car and no one can do anything. I mean, it’s a mix of car accidents and the violence of organized crime,” Francisco said.

Despite the challenges, workers agree that Monterrey is one of the best options in the country for better job opportunities and growth. Francisco is aware that in order to keep finding better opportunities, he has to commit to moving around despite the long hours of commute. He added,  “One takes the risk and commits because, well, things are going well for us, right? Thank God.”

The “build it first, figure it out later” approach has left residents of Monterrey and its peripheral area grappling with severe consequences. The prioritization of rapid economic growth and the creation of medium- and high-density housing, rather than focusing on sustainable and livable affordable housing, has jeopardized the well-being of peripheral communities.

Rather than caring for its labor force, the system often seems punitive. Hernández, for example, describes housing credit as a “perverse tactic.”  An Infonavit loan for a home on the periphery can take up to 30 years to repay, trapping the family in debt and regulating their lives.

“Maybe you are no longer allowed to go to the movies, or see where you enroll your children in school, or you can no longer even misbehave at work for fear of losing your job and not being able to pay that loan,” Hernández explained.  “That is one of the techniques that the State uses to keep workers working.”