Architects As Developers In Mexico City

"A group of young architects in Mexico City has taken the adage 'if you build it, they will come' to a new level. Instead of spending years drawing up plans for homes that will probably never get built, they are finding and buying land, negotiating ambiguous zoning laws, developing their own designs and finally selling the properties, often for much more than they expected.

...These architects aren't cynical and just operating in the public realm. ...They're achieving civic quality. In the absence of strong institutions that make laws about how to use space, these architects are making decisions that in a more developed society the government would make. "