riving cities. GEO's founder, Luis Orvananos (pictured right), has traditionally focused on building neighborhoods on land just outside of the cities in Mexico. This plan is not working anymore because they try to build affordable housing and since land prices are going up they are not able to build these homes at such a price anymore. This has led to the need for a new direction of development, which has come to light with the vision of Orvananos. These new cities that they are attempting to build would include a minimum of 100,000 new homes, industrial parks, retail districts with brand new malls, new schools, new hospitals and the other essentials of a full fledged city. One of the areas that they have already started to build in is a small town called Zumpango, which has a current population around 127,988 and within eight years it is expected to exceed 600,000. While they build these huge mega projects, they do stand to make a lot of money, but they have pledged to continue selling these new homes at a price of less than $40,000 each. Considering the average income in Mexico is around $7,000 a year, this would be a tremendous effort to put people into homes and create a place for them to attain jobs or find better paying ones.As Orvananos said, "This will be the launch of a new side of GEO," and as one would believe there is a lot of risk in making a large move of this size. Considering until now, the fact that big projects they have done in the past and ones that they currently are working on have only amounted to about 15% of their companies capacity. Now that these developments are taking over the majority of their time and business, Orvananos feels very confident that they should be a success, which he addressed in a press conference "With the infrastructure being put in by the government and us, plus the alliance between the industrial, commercial and housing segments, we've got potential to make the business successful". With everything going as planned and having the necessary backers for this project, the revenues for GEO are projected to be over $420 million in the fourth quarter. This would allow GEO to expand by about 14% this year and 20% annually after that, which would give them the ability to reach out to more areas in which to build and expand the development in Mexico. As a whole this project could help jump start a prolonged shortage of housing for Mexican citizens, while being very profitable from a developer's point of view.
Upon graduation I want to be a developer and from that stand point this is an amazing project if they can pull it off completely. Considering the shortage of homes in the country of Mexico and the current amount of poverty that surrounds it citizens, this could possibly begin a turn around for the country. As a developer it stands to potentially make a lot of money, as well as do something very important for the economy. These are projects that I like to see, because they give back to a country and no
t just continue to cater to the needs of the rich. Considering Mexico has a population of just over 103 million people, it is terrible to consider the number of people living in poverty (picture to the right is the type of homes most citizens live in). It is estimated that 14% to 35% of people depending on whether they are in cities or rural areas live below the poverty line. In addition to this it is estimated that around 12% of the population lives on less than $2 dollars a day. Think about the potential that these six mega projects could bring about and if they flourish what would stop GEO and other developers from starting more of these cities. To take land that has nothing on it and create brand new cities with amenities that some Mexican citizens have never seen is something that could help change the whole dynamic of Mexico and help reduce the poverty tremendously. As Orvananos put it "They'll have education, recreation, hospitals, shopping and jobs"; what more can the people ask for?
1 comment:
To begin, I believe this is a very well written post on an interesting topic. Of all the posts I have read in this class this is by far the most refreshing because the post informs the reader of the philanthropic side of the wealthy home developer Luis Orvananos. I really enjoyed this post because it gave me hope for the people I have been involved with in the past. When I was in high school I would make trips down to Mexico as a mission trip and build homes for underprivileged Mexican citizens and this post reassured me that people do care about the wellbeing of others. I think you put it best when you stated, “These are projects that you like to see where you can give back to a country and not just continue to cater to the needs of the rich”. The one thing I would have liked to see in this post is a map showing the location of the city of Zumpango to get an idea of what major cities are near and just how far away it is from those cities. I was also wondering what the size of these homes would be, but I’m sure that statistic would be difficult to come by. As far as the graphics, I thought it was wise to have a picture of Luis Orvananos to give the reader an image of the man who is giving back to the country and the picture of the run down city really shows the reader how poor the living situations in parts of Mexico are. That being said, I thought this was an awesome post and look forward to reading your work in the future.
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