Beside New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Brugada said nearly half a million people left housing poverty in Mexico City since 2018, and urged a global housing coalition.

This article by Darren García originally appeared in the September 21, 2026 edition of Contralínea, a Mexican investigative journalism magazine.

A democratic city is one where all people fit, not only those who have the most; where every individual can enjoy the right to affordable housing and cities are protagonists in the face of inequality, the climate crisis, and the weakening of international cooperation, argued the head of government of Mexico City, Clara Brugada Molina.

During her participation in the events of the Urban 20 (U20), a gathering of the 20 most influential cities in the world, held in New York alongside that city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Brugada Molina called for building a global coalition for affordable housing and shared the experience of the Mexican capital.

She explained that between 2018 and 2025 nearly half a million people rose out of housing poverty in the Mexican capital, thanks to a model based on the mass construction of social housing, regulation of the real estate market, and co-management with communities.

At that same conference, she detailed that her government’s goal for 2030 is to reach 200,000 housing actions, that new social housing can cost up to three times less than the market price —less than 50,000 dollars compared to between 150,000 and 200,000 dollars on the market— and that this year 40,000 improved homes will be reached. She added that over the past two years the city acquired 250,000 square meters of land for social housing, and that it is promoting a fair-rent law and a constitutional reform to recognize the right to community rootedness.

At that same event, the New York mayor highlighted the head of government’s work leading the Utopías and the Public Care System, and both agreed that the cities of the future must be affordable to remain livable, diverse to remain free, and supportive so as to leave no one behind.

In this regard, the capital’s leader recalled that she first came to New York nearly 40 years ago, in 1987, as a social activist, in the framework of the International Day of the Homeless, with a slogan that, she said, remains valid: “No housing, no peace.”

At the forum’s closing session, she expressed, on behalf of the cities of the Global South, her support for the U20 2026 Communiqué.

Cities are not spectators of the world; we are protagonists of its transformation.

Clara Brugada

There she also presented the Utopías as an example of feminist, sustainable, proximity-based, and social urbanism, and set the goal of essential services being less than 15 minutes from the population.

She also called on local governments to strengthen their ties in the face of the weakening of international cooperation: “in a world in which some national governments are moving away from international cooperation, we cities have to move closer together.”

She also backed the call by the Coalition of the Americas and the MMC to build cities that welcome migrants with dignity, and requested direct international financing mechanisms for local governments to address housing, climate action, and human mobility.

On September 21, at the closing-conclusions breakfast that ended the Urban 20’s work —also led by Mamdani— Brugada presented other Mexico City policies, such as the Mercomuna vouchers and the strengthening of the neighborhood economy, aimed at supporting families and, at the same time, boosting local commerce and consumption.

That closing came after two days of exchange among mayors on topics such as the working conditions of digital-platform workers, access to housing, and climate change.

During her stay in New York, Brugada also held bilateral meetings with mayors and representatives from Chicago, Barcelona, and Santiago de Chile, to exchange experiences and explore mechanisms for cooperation among cities.

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