Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Mexico City has recently experienced an earthquake-related disaster which casts doubts on the quality of existing urban regulations and the implementation of disaster and emergency measures that were previously taken as an international example of a successful Disaster Risk Reduction scheme. Although the number of casualties was significantly smaller than in previous events, several months after the event there still are thousands of homeless people and several hundreds of damaged properties throughout the city. The Law for Recovery, Reconstruction of Transformation of Mexico City into a Progressively Resilient City, and the set of programs and procedures designed for housing and infrastructure reconstruction have been heavily challenged by affected populations due to the lack of clarity in terms of the funding and procedures, and have exposed the coordination problems between town councils (delegaciones) and Mexico City council regarding building assessments and safety supervision, as well as the reconstruction funding and the authority to define future land uses. This paper addresses government coordination issues exposed by the 19S earthquake recovery; we focus on risk management measures in Mexico City, as well as an analysis of the resilience policies proposed by the local government during the process of recovery and reconstruction. The analysis will be based on the principles contained in SDG Goals 11 and 17, from a multi-scale perspective.