People living in poverty inhabit the outskirts of Mexican cities. They struggle and survive but cannot overcome poverty. The present article seeks to understand how the survival tactics of the urban poor keep them in poverty and, with this understanding, inform future interventions. A study based on qualitative grounded theory was conducted in 10 impoverished neighbourhoods in three main regions and cities in Mexico. Observational accounts and in-depth individual and group interviews were conducted with diverse social actors for 115 participants (75 women and 40 men) aged between 12 and 76 years. The data were analysed using an interpretative thematic analysis. Research findings revealed that the urban poor tackle adversities, such as a lack of basic services, health, education, environment, and nutrition. The strength, patience, and hard work employed by these individuals to survive were evident, but their actions to tackle these threats were costly. Ultimately, the urban poor remain in a cycle of poverty, or poverty traps. Interventions to fight poverty, improve life conditions, and general development must include integrated and participatory plans that consider the knowledge and strengths of the urban poor.
Between the homeless and middle classes, the urban poor in Mexico are constantly increasing in size and expanding in the unplanned settlements on the outskirts of nearly all major cities in the country. These neighbourhoods are considered unlawful by local governments, and these families usually live on land they aspire to own one day (Tellman, 2019). Although they retained certain rural practices, such as raising chicken in their yard or cooking with firewood, the majority did not come from the country, as they did a few decades ago, but from a place in the city where they could no longer afford rent. These places fit the current definitions of slums, but they are neither old nor densely populated nor surrounded by other parts of the cities. They are constantly sprouting out in the outskirts and, in the stages that this research visited, not yet crowded. However, their inhabitants occupy underserviced and irregular land but still expect their current situation to improve (Iracheta Cenecorta and Smolka, 2000). This new urban migration has yielded an estimated six million irregular plots that exist on the outskirts of Mexican cities with nearly one hundred thousand new ones popping up every year (Avalos, 2020). The present study shows that although people living in poverty do not have a choice now, they often move into these irregular spaces in the hope of a better life that may not come. Eventually, local governments try to regulate the unregulated, yet do not try to solve the problem of poverty (Iracheta Cenecorta and Smolka, 2000).
In 2020, 50.8% of the total Mexican population had income below the poverty line and 17.2% below the extreme poverty line (CONEVAL, 2021). Furthermore, 50.2% had no access to social security and 22.5% had low nutrition (CONEVAL, 2021).
In Mexico, a neighbourhood or a land development is called a ‘colonia’ Footnote 1 in Spanish. There is no documented historical explanation for this term, but it is the legal name of urban subdivisions (Real Academia Española, 2023) and is distinguished by a name and not by a number or organised classification. The term ‘colonia’ is used to refer to irregular and poor settlements on the American side of the US border (Chahin, 2005), but in Mexican cities, it has been used for as long as people remember. The places where poor urban life may be, officially, a colonia now, but they were not when people first moved in and began building shelters and homes. The people who live there have been calling it a ‘colonia’ long before the authorities did. The main reason these neighbourhoods do not have running water, electricity, sewerage, and other services is that they are not legally part of the cities they surround, and no government entity wants to accept responsibility for them. The process of becoming a colonia is a daily struggle for these inhabitants, and their interactions with powerful external actors partly motivate the present study.
The varied and brave strategies of the urban poor to survive under these conditions have been documented for some time, both by academic research and by the media (Hernández et al., 2022). However, our data show that the survival actions of the urban poor resemble tactics rather than strategies because they cannot afford the luxury of a planned course or the information on obstacles and availability of resources that a strategy would demand. Instead, they improvise and develop a varied set of skills and actions they may not be aware of (Berardi, 2021). They learn and practice new skills to navigate through changing conditions, but their circumstances do not allow for strategic planning, which is one of the many luxuries they cannot afford.
In this article, we examine our data in terms of of the concept of ´relational poverty, which does not consider poverty a category people fall in and out of, but the result of social, economic, and political influences between people in poverty and others (Feldman, 2019). As Feldman (2019, p. 1710) states, “Under the relational microscope, then, poverty is defined as a problem of power, as privileged state and non-state actors exert power to the disadvantage of the poor”. We will consider this approach to poverty, and our data suggest that it is not a self-contained phenomenon as a concept of the culture of poverty hints at (Gorski, 2008). When the urban poor are kept in poverty by their actions to survive, they are caught in what theorists call a poverty trap (Haushofer and Fehr, 2014; Frankenhuis and Nettle, 2020). This refers to self-reinforcing mechanisms that act at different levels of a social-ecological system. Adaptive behaviour incurs a variety of resources from people in poverty and robs them of the opportunity to improve their future or escape poverty (Dercon, 2005; Barrett and Swallow, 2006).
Given the increasing number of people living in urban poverty and unplanned settlements or colonias in Mexico, our research sought to study this multidimensional poverty, including not only the lack of income or satisfaction of basic needs but also disadvantages in education, health, safety, opportunities, and power (Sánchez et al., 2020). We want to see how the survival actions of the urban poor in Mexico keep them stuck in poverty traps (Auyero and Benzecry, 2017; Hernández et al., 2022). By analysing over 120 interviews conducted on the outskirts of 10 cities in three regions in Mexico, we describe the tactics that the urban poor use to survive. We highlight the trade-offs that the urban poor experience to reveal the poverty traps concealed at the source of the problem. We argue that these strategies do not help the urban poor rise above the poverty line and only deplete their resources, so their progress falls below expectations. We show how their best efforts contribute to keeping them in a cycle of poverty because they cannot invest in generic capacities that could break them out of the trap (Eakin et al., 2016). We seek answers to the question: How do the actions that the urban poor take to drive themselves out of poverty contribute to keeping them poor? Ultimately, we believe that understanding urban poverty from the perspective of the urban poor will inform future research and interventions aimed at poverty reduction.
The authors chose Grounded Theory to base our understanding of the situation on the interactions and relations of the urban poor with each other and other social actors, as described by themselves. We also considered it necessary to examine the change over time in these families and finally to place them within the surrounding social structures that contribute to shaping their lives (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). We intended to understand as much as possible from the perspective of the urban poor and how they deal with the poverty trap, their surroundings, and the many social actors they interact with. We hope that an emic perspective will draw on the knowledge of the urban poor, and thus avoid the failure of many interventions aimed at reducing poverty. Most of our participants were individuals, but our unit of analysis was the household, normally composed of more than two generations and often recomposed after a change in spouse.
We recruited people from 11 marginalised neighbourhoods on the outskirts of 10 cities in three regions (North, Centre, and South) of Mexico, which included mostly heads of 36 households and key informants for each of the dimensions of poverty: education, health, nutrition, income, environment, and safety (see Table 1 for participants included in the analysis). Household heads were mainly mothers, grandmothers, and in four cases fathers. The health personnel and health providers consisted of nine doctors and nurses. Households include more than two generations and are seldom nuclear. These households did not pay rent and were in an unpredictable, informal process of owning a piece of land where they lived. They also had been gradually building their housing using labour and materials. The key participants in the education sector were teachers, school staff, and students. The key participants in the health sector were doctors and nurses from nearby government clinics. Key participants included employers, police officers, people on the streets, and heads of households.
Table 1 Number of coded interviews by topic and type of participant.Seven participants were school teachers and were in a better financial situation than the families of their students; however, teachers also struggled with low-income and substandard living conditions. Eight students (four girls and four boys) were interviewed about their school, family life, and teachers, but any information they provided about other themes was recorded and coded. Seven of the participants were mployers and included people with small businesses functioning inside the colonias and, in general, their houses were bigger and better, or outside the settlement. Three participants were police officers and security personnel and lived in a slightly better neighbourhood because of their steady income; however, they consider themselves relatively poor. The nurses and doctors we interviewed did not live in the settlements on the outskirts of the cities, and their clinics or hospitals were outside these areas. However, their patients came from impoverished settlements. The most well-educated participants were those working in the health sector.
Cities and colonias were selected based on their degree of underdevelopment and socioeconomic status from the official maps. After the initial inspection, two cities were excluded to guarantee the safety of the team. Our field researchers observed and interviewed key people in these colonias or neighbourhoods. To represent the dimensions of urban poverty, our semi-structured interview guides included themes of income, nutrition, education, health, safety, and environment.
After one day of field observation and familiarisation in the colonia, individuals were approached face-to-face at the institutions they worked for, on the streets, while doing something outside their homes or selling something through their windows. The initial approach consisted of introducing the project, the interview process, and the informed consent process. If a person agreed to participate, they were invited to participate in one of the two group interviews in the neighbourhood. The participants and guardians of the children read and signed informed consent forms, agreeing to be interviewed and photographed. Before starting the interviews, the participants provided additional verbal consent to be interviewed and recorded. Since participants constituted a vulnerable population, as highlighted by Liamputtong (2007), the field team did not knock on doors to get interviews but approached participants in public spaces. Since the research sites had poor or no streetlights and there were normally no police personnel around them, the interviewers always left the colonia before dark for their safety.
People who did not accept the interview did so because of lack of time or suspicion. In one place, some inhabitants were uncomfortable speaking Spanish. University groups are usually welcome, even in these places, and the interviewers were trained not to instil false hope in the participants; no compensation or incentive was offered or given. The field team did not try to gain access to the caciques or other social gatekeepers involved in the settlement process because approaching them could have discouraged or influenced the responses of our main participants (Long and Villarreal, 1994). Families or household members who managed to leave these colonias to find a better place elsewhere were also not included in our sample.
Interviews started with general questions, like “How long have you lived here?” or “How many people live with you?”. The interviewers did not read the written questions but, along with the conversation, introduced the topics in the semi-structured interview guide. When possible, the interviewers followed the lead of the participants and asked questions about what seemed to be their interests, such as ‘How did you manage to get electricity in your house?’. As the interviews developed, the interviewers would sometimes ask the participants to elaborate on a specific topic, such as “Is your child’s education important to you?” There was no fixed format for the questions, but during the transcription process, the interviewers worked to improve their technique through self-observation and critique.
Two semi-structured group interviews were conducted with a group of trained 14 participants: six women and eight men. Conversations were audio-recorded and transcribed by trained researchers. All interviews began with the explicit permission of the participants to perform and record the interviews. All interviews and observations were conducted between February 11 th and 11 April 2019. The interviews were, on average, 38 min long, but as the respondents were free to finish when they wanted or to continue if they wished, a few lasted only 10 min and some lasted longer than one hour.
The total number of interviews and observations was determined by the resources of the project, mainly time and money. In the analysis, we reached theoretical saturation in time to show that the number of interviews was sufficient to answer our research questions. The analysis process was guided by the themes and categories found in the sources (Morse and Richards, 2002).
The interviews were transcribed by interviewers and other trained personnel. The coding sampling process was intended to balance the interview topics, types of interviewees, and places where the data were collected. Therefore, the coding order was determined to maximise the variety of these characteristics as well as their combinations. Coding was stopped when theoretical saturation was reached, as no new themes were constructed from the data. The total number and distribution of the coded interviews are presented in Table 1. The general population and heads of households were the most frequent respondents across topics. Other participants appeared only on their respective topics of interest.
Initial coding was carried out by the first author of this article, and later, it was discussed, modified, or confirmed by all authors. As it was not possible to validate our interpretations with the participants themselves, triangulation was performed between different participants and observations and interview data. We also triangulated the information provided by the participants with interacting roles, such as students and teachers.
Although the interview guide only included questions about the specific topics of education, health, nutrition, etc., the interviewers were trained to let the participants speak about other issues if they chose to do so. Therefore, we coded and analysed all transcriptions under both expected and emergent themes, regardless of the initial topic of the interview. We coded the transcripts under such labels as housing conditions and the surrounding areas, adversities experienced by the participants, their actions, and those of other members of their households.
Additionally, interviewers registered their direct observations of the field in a pre-designed form along with their diaries. These observations were included in the analysis and compared with the verification interviews. Both the interview transcriptions and observation sheets were classified and coded using QSR NVivo 11 (QSR International Pty Ltd. 2015). We used thematic analysis (Vaismoradi and Snelgrove, 2019; Braun and Clarke, 2021) to classify and reflect on the data to theorise and integrate interview content and observations. The relationships between themes and how they relate to the overall meaning of the text were also explored.
By enlisting grounded theory in a contemporary and reflexive way, researchers were able to continue interacting with their data and emerging ideas. This process meant that the analysis led to the adoption of multiple methods of data collection as the data led the research. Furthermore, the thematic analysis process was guided by how researchers interacted with and interpreted their comparisons and emerging analyses rather than by external prescriptions of the data (Charmaz, 2006).
The data revealed the range of individual forms that our concepts could adopt, as well as their characteristics and dimensions. All of these are integrated into our results and discussion. The possibility of dialectical concepts was always considered, so if, for example, one participant reported acceptance or approval of health services, the respective category was created to include the rejection of such services by potential participants. If such data were found, they were incorporated into the analysis model as opposite points on a continuum, and not as separate concepts. All these concepts were examined by the authors to produce the final integrated model.
To verify the accuracy of our data and analysis, we developed a series of preliminary models using different core categories, until we achieved a model that integrated all partial models and showed the best possible fit between the concepts constructed from the data. This model is presented in the Results and Discussion section.
Our interview participants covered many different topics. These findings do not cover all of them, but only those that contribute to answering our research questions.
Our participants and informants lived on underserviced and unregulated land (Iracheta Cenecorta and Smolka, 2000) on the outskirts of the city. There are also regular developments that share similar problems in urban areas in Mexico (Reyes, 2020, 2021), but the plots where our participants have lived have not been formally zoned for housing by the government.
The absence of an authority with formal responsibility for land creates a patchwork of structures and services. In these colonias, there may be one or two paved roads, but there are mostly dirt streets and no formal drainage system. If there is a sewer, wastewater is normally dumped in the nearest already polluted stream. The lack of paved roads also means no transport, waste management services, gas distribution, and formal security services because the drivers of the vehicles that carry these functions do not want to risk their trucks in potholes, dirt, and rocks, thus avoiding these areas. At night, if there are any streetlights at all, they are insufficient or unreliable. Most streets may be completely dark at night, except for houses that have lamps outside, if the power has not failed.
Houses are usually small, with few windows, incompletely constructed with cheap materials such as cinder blocks and tin roofs, and usually have no structural foundations. Besides the discomfort of improvised shelters, there is a threat of losing it all. Some houses may have running water, but this water is often not clean, cheap, or accessible. Circumstances are often very similar to electricity, with the added risk of electrocution owing to improvised connections.
There are no schools or hospitals in these colonias. The nearest is usually beyond a reasonable walking distance and, although situated in regulated areas, these facilities are usually understaffed and underfunded.
The residents in these circumstances face a constant struggle involving a variety of strategies, some individual, most familial, a few in the community, and many involving interactions with not very visible actors from higher social and power scales. However, throughout the process, the urban poor develop new skills and strengthen themselves and their families in several ways.
The families that move to these places do not come directly from the countryside but from another urban neighbourhood in the hope that owning a piece of land and a house will help them improve their standard of living. They have faced cycles of unemployment and under-employment, but always with a low income. Through a variety of processes, most of them move to these areas outside of the law (Tellman, 2019) because they are motivated by the opportunity to own a piece of land, even if they are denied formal services. They are usually unable to pay rent and do not seek a regular piece of land because they know that payments will be much higher than the rent that they already cannot afford.
The circumstances are not the same for all, and the way a particular family approaches these problems differs. However, there are some similarities and trends. There is no unique or culturally competent way of doing things (Bernard et al., 2016), and not all households take the same steps with a specific problem. However, our participants shared some continuities, as they tell us in the following paragraphs.
Hard work and entrepreneurship are common in these colonias. Employees will work extra hours, those who clean houses for a living will try to find more work, one mother sells goods door-to-door, and another runs a food business in their yard. However, their income will not improve substantially, and they still face the same adversities equipped with the meagre resources that under-employment and out-of-the-window shop work bring.
To access water, residents buy and set up large drums in the yard, plastic jerrycans, basins, and buckets, and wait for a water lorry to show up and fill their containers at a reasonable price. Eventually, someone may offer to connect them to a source if they can buy several hundred metres of hose and find a way to lay it on the backstreets. Neither the connection to the water source nor the intermittent service will be free (Kumar et al., 2022), and they may still have to keep using the drums and the truck, which incurs costs of time and money. Pedro, a male household head (P) in his early forties, said to the interviewer (I):
I: And… how did you arrange things to have water?
P: Oh, the same local leader was here… we were all involved in that… I kept telling her… well… I would say… we just took the water, just drilling and tapping [into] the pipes anyway we could… by force. They didn’t want to… the [water] company didn’t want to, and they never did. (05.D18)
A similar story has emerged regarding informal access to electricity. This strategy included a long wire and a chance to hook it up to a cable a few hundred metres from home. Maritza, a 50-year-old mother (M), said,
M: Then… well, later on, bit by bit, it got better. But, for example, some twenty years ago, for example, we had no electricity… we arrived… three of us arrived and, right after, others came where we lived and, back then, whoever could afford it would buy their power cable, [hook it up] and pull it all the way from down there up to here. (01.G02.)
This informal and often unreliable service will cost them money and put them at risk of both electrocution and possible legal action. However, individuals living in urban poverty in these contexts do not have a choice but to resort to these informal or ‘pirate’ practices, which can be costly and pose risks to their health. These individuals are in no position to appeal to the law if they are extorted by clandestine providers.
There is no “do-it-yourself” substitute for paved roads, as there is for water and electricity. The urban poor may try to smooth their dirt streets with a shovel, and some try to fix potholes; however, communities must wait for asphalt if they want an adequate solution. No paved roads mean doing without cooking gas because the gas delivery trucks cannot access their homes. For the same reason, there will be no regular rubbish collection services, and because of these practices, burning rubbish, which pollutes the air and soil, is common. Police cars will not drive through these streets because of a lack of paving. Jaime, a male police officer (J) serving a colonia with some recently paved streets, told our researcher in an interview:
J: Now… as they have finally paved the streets… they [the thieves] would see us from afar and make a run for it, while the patrol car got there; it would go very slow. Now we get there faster and they don’t get away; we can be more dissuasive. We can reach places where we could not go before. (03.E14.)
The lack of paved roads also increases the cost of education and the chances of students dropping out because transportation is scarce. As a result, going to work and accessing public transportation is also more expensive. Public health services are also located far from these settlements, and access to food in these colonias is limited. All of this takes a daily toll on participants’ money and time, ultimately draining their resources.
Paved streets may come, one street at a time and not everyone. Sometimes, local governments pave the streets; however, due to political motivation and self-interest, the quality will be low and the paved road will not last long. In a few years or even months, potholes, mud ditches, and flooding will occur on these roads.
Paved roads may include sewage. Again, the low quality of paved roads often means that they are not long-lasting and collapse due to pollution and flooding. Damage caused by floods can range from mild discomfort to health risks to a significant threat to life. Belinda, a 50-year-old female head of the household, said to the interviewer:
B: … it was very hard for us here, very very hard. For example, later, more people came by and got to work to fix things, but when we put the drainage in, even someone died. (01.G02)
The urban poor in these communities still count on each other for their help and support. As has been documented in previous research (Lomnitz, 1973, 1993), local support based on family networks and proximity helps the urban poor survive adverse conditions. However, these networks have been fragmented by migration and have gradually weakened through resource scarcity among their members. Although they are still at work, solidarity, and kinship are just enough to survive.
As mentioned before, schools and health services will be harder to reach from these colonias. The quality of school and health services near these communities is also not of the same standard as in wealthier neighbourhoods in Mexico. Families may need to contribute cash, materials, and labour to make their school operational, while clinics and hospitals are likely to have less, older, and worse equipment and fewer personnel; queues are longer, drugs and materials are scarce, and the urban poor will have to pay for their drugs or even opt for private care to solve a health crisis. Norma, a 39-year-old head of household (M) said:
I: In terms of money, did you have a problem with the medical attention that you required?
M: Mhh, in expenses?
