Latin America suffers from a severe housing shortage, that governments try to tackle by providing housing neighborhoods (often under the “progressive housing” model), with projects that try to use the resources in a rational way, often based in a cost analysis that covers the project stage (and not the operational costs).

So, often the least costly land is acquired, without regard to its location. The resulting new neighborhood is far away from the city in which there are jobs and services. The recent economic growth has led to increased car ownership rates by families, so in the end you either have an increased car use or longer commute times in underperforming transit systems, or even an outright project failure (recent CEPAL reports document cases in which the housing has been outright abandoned).