Viviendo con SenZIHllez

Appreciate your daily updates Rob!

Is the burning part of the land invasion process? Is that “scar” on the hill above Villas KauKan (running from top of hill down towards the left) from people illegally clearing and invading that land? Not sure, but it seems like there are some shacks or small structures there.

That particular parcel was sold by ejidatarios, but it should not be zoned for dwellings. Many years ago some smart folks, who also wanted to preserve everything above the 70-meter mark as Zona Ecológica so we could have a better future, calculated the elevated costs of supplying services to those areas and determined they were not apt places for expanding the urban area. But then along comes Fibazi, a state paralegal trust and political trampoline, and they quickly figured out they could not only make a lot of money from poor people by charging fees for the promise of regularizing their land, but at the same time make them political clients who would vote for whatever political party they were told to. To make matters worse, foreigners got involved with the excuse of "helping the children" and helped squatters comply with one of the requisites for getting the zoning changed and the land regularized by building tiny schools on these lands. Some of those foreigners continue posing for photos and smiling with politicians who use those poor people for political fodder. And they get mad at me for pointing out what to locals is the obvious. Pues, ni modo. No soy monedita de oro para caerle bien a todos.

So locals can expect that in the coming political cycles those folks will be clamoring for services that cost multiple times to provide in those places than if they had settled lands NOT at that elevation, lands more apt for urban expansion. And unfortunately politicians of all parties jump to be the ones to make those poor people their political clients by promising them land regulation and titles. At the moment, a former mayor is in charge of Fibazi, and I believe he's switched political parties to improve his political chances of either a place in the elections or a political appointment for bringing in new clients and their votes. Almost every day in the local news there are photos of our mayor paving new streets in these neighborhoods, solving problems for the poor with cement because he owns the company and apparently can get away with awarding himself all the non-bid contracts he wants without any criticism from his supposed political adversaries.

Meanwhile, the problems we need solved the most, such as public security and an alternative economy besides tourism to fall back on, go unattended because it isn't convenient for the politicians to confront criminals or to make poor people prosperous, to put it politely.