Mexico

DUSP Lecturer Bruno Verdini PhD ’15 speaks with Jenn Williams of Foreign Policy’s “The Negotiators” podcast to discuss the 2012 Colorado River agreement between the United States and Mexico, and his book, “Winning Together: The Natural Resource Negotiation Playbook.” “If you are recognizing that the feedback loops in natural resource negotiations are going to be complex and unexpected as time goes by, you only have an ability to monitor, be flexible, and address new challenges if you’ve created a mechanism of trust, and in that mechanism implementation follows, even across different political perspectives,” says Verdini. “Because it is in your interest to keep complying.”

A new study conducted by Prof. Albert Saiz and his colleagues has found “for housing access to improve in Mexico, financial support such as mortgages or subsidies, along with greater buy-in from local governments and the private sector, is key,” writes Kylie Madry for Reuters.

MIT’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) has created an architectural installation for the Mextrópoli Architecture and City Festival in Mexico City, reports Josh Niland for Archinect. The installation titled Sueños con Fiber/Timber, Earth/Concrete utilizes “the school’s recent innovations in materials research to weave a narrative about the centuries-old capital through four materials: paper, wood, earth, and concrete,” writes Niland.

A new study by Prof. Albert Saiz has found that Mexican housing must become denser and better planned in order to provide adequate living options to lower-income parts of the population, reports Kylie Madry for Reuters. “According to Saiz, the prevalence of self-built, one-family homes is a bigger problem than growing numbers of ‘digital nomads’ – remote workers living in Mexico but earning disproportionately large salaries from abroad – which have been the focus of criticism since the coronavirus pandemic took many jobs online,” writes Madry.

A new study by Prof. Albert Saiz finds that Mexico needs to build 800,000 housing units a year over the next two decades and invest nearly 4% of its gross domestic product annually to keep up with housing demands, reports Kylie Madry for Reuters. "In 1990, there were five people per home in Mexico. By 2020, there were only 3.6 per home," said Saiz of how the demand for houses in Mexico is rising while the number of people living together is shrinking.

Boston Herald reporters Jack Encarnacao and Marie Szaniszlo write that students from the MIT Mexican Association have developed a website to help Mexicans impacted by last week’s earthquake. The students are mapping “the GPS coordinates of places where locals can report specific needs, so assistance can be targeted.”

President Reif spoke with Abraham González of El Financiero about the rapid advance of technology. “Machine learning will not replace us, on the contrary, it will help us. Just as computers help us get the job done today and just as cars help us get from one place to another,” explains Reif.   

MIT researchers have developed a self-sustaining water-purification system for a remote Mexican village, according to The Guardian. “The villagers are able to operate and maintain the water purification system themselves,” The Guardian reports.