Galvanized by the arguments of Hernando De Soto (1980 and 2000), the international development community and many academics have pushed land titling as an essential way to help the people of low-income settlements around the world. However, research has demonstrated that the act of defining property rights is problematic: there are often multiple property rights systems operating in any given place (Payne 2002) and the act of defining rights can generate conflict and violence (Alston et al. 1999). Thus, studying the process of land titling is especially important at the present time. Mexico has one of the longest running and most ambitious land regularization programs, making it an obvious place for research. In Legalizando la Ciudad, Tito Alegria and Gerardo Ordonez present an exemplary case study of land regularization in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. It is unfortunate that the book is only available in Spanish, as it is rich in data and historical analysis of the institutions of land regularization.

In Fifty years of Change on the US-Mexico Border: Growth, Development and Quality of Life, Anderson and Gerber have carried out a fascinating quantitative exercise - the comparison of Mex•can border municipios and US border counties based on the standardization of various economic and social indicators - and integrated it into a book that gives an excellent overview of life along the U.5.-Mexico border and various trends during the last five decades.

La mitologia popular de California, Ia cual nacio junto con su nombre en una novela romantica de caballeria del siglo XVI, sigue vigente. Alternando el paraiso terrenal pletorico de oro y naranjales con Ia pesadilla urbana de desastres ecologicos y violencia, los dos extremos son metaforas adecuadas para Ia region. Y no solo en Alta California, dado que Baja California juega un papel en Mexico parecido al de su vecino en el norte - el de una economia en creciente desarrollo paralela a condiciones de vida bastante desfavorables para muchos de sus pobladores, soberbios escenarios naturales a! frente a un medio ambiente devastado, y una presencia cultural importante en todo el pais.

The popular mythology about California that began with its name, in a 16'h century·chivalric romance novel, continues today. Alternating between an earthly parad.ie of gold and orange groves, and an urban nightmare of environmental disaster and violence, both extremes are appropriate metaphors for the region. And not only Alta California, as Baja California now holds a place in Mexico similar to that of its neighbor to the north - a rapidly growing economic engine with remarkably poor living conditions for many residents, breathtaking natural landscapes alongside environmental devastation, and an important cultural presence in the country.

Changing patterns of urban development in Latin America have drawn increasing attention to residential segregation, yet systematic quantitative analysis remains limited. Using data from the Mexican census of 2000, this paper describes spatial patterns and levels of segregation by ethnicity and socioeconomic status in over 100 cities. Findings confirm many recognized patterns; low-income and informally employed households tend to live in peripheral areas of the city, while high-income and formally employed households are more centrally concentrated. High-income areas are more socioeconomically diverse and densely developed than low-income areas. Indigenous people experience similar patterns of segregation at higher levels than do low- income households. The difference in levels of segregation by income in cities of different sizes is statistically significant; larger cities are more segregated. Regional differences in patterns of segregation are also statistically significant and large, demonstrating the importance of both historical periods of urban development and levels of regional economic development.

The impact of living in public rental housing on employment has been the subject of debate internationally. Theory suggests that restrictions on residential mobility, neighborhood effects, and the place-based housing subsidy itself contribute to the higher rates of unemployment often observed among public housing tenants. However, recent evidence from Europe and Australia show that when proper consideration is given to the endogeneity of housing tenure and employment, the effect of living in public housing on employment loses significance. This paper examines the employment outcomes of Hong Kong’s public housing tenants. Hypothesis tests using simultaneous probit models find that it continues to have a statistically significant and large positive impact on the probability of being unemployed. Yet, a high rate of unemployment among public housing residents in Hong Kong is a relatively recent phenomenon, thus the paper also examines changes in the characteristics of public housing residents and the spatial connection between housing and employment in the city, using one percent sample datasets of Hong Kong population censuses from 1986 to 2006. The location of public rental housing is found to have a strong influence on the employment outcomes of residents.