Locals say the real estate industry is using organized crime, intimidation and even arson to clear the way for profits.
Like a 68-story glass-clad monument to imperialism, the Mítikah tower is now the tallest building in Mexico City. Operating since 2022, it was designed and built by U.S. and Mexican real estate and architecture companies, including Fibra Uno, Parks Hospitality Holdings and Pelli Clarke & Partners. It is the biggest shopping complex in the city and also features residential and office spaces. By not recognizing locals as original peoples with Teotihuacan descendancy, authorities were able to avoid the legally required consultation before approving its construction. Now, water — a scarce resource in Mexico City — is being redirected to the luxury building, while locals are left without.
Avoiding community consultation is just one of the strategies real estate companies are using to build and profit, while displacing people and destroying environments throughout Mexico. These corporations are using a combination of corruption, ties with organized crime, intimidation tactics, forced evictions and some allege arson, to clear the way for them to build their empires.
Companies also “look for legal loopholes,” said Mexican researcher and doctor of urban land management Melissa Schumacher Gonzalez, in an interview with Truthout. She said a core tactic was divide and conquer, in which developers, “buy land, and if someone doesn’t want to sell, they isolate them, cut off their access to the street, to force them to sell.”
“Real estate spending has a lot of freedom because it is one of the only ways to finance city growth, while authorities often aren’t concerned about coherent, sustainable development,” she said, alluding to the low public budgets that are common in poorer Global South countries.
Real estate has “become an easy way to get rich,” she said. The value of property per square meters has multiplied around tenfold in a decade, making speculation very profitable, and affording those companies the power and means to buy off authorities.
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