I have a similar photo of Cinque-Terre, Italy as one of several hundred screensavers. That type of arrangement of houses is fairly common in the world in mountain & seaside topography where centuries of building left little choice. It is a tourist destination and is quaint and fascinating...(and Google Earth used bicycles and hand carried cameras to allow one to drive and walk thru the town all the way out to the end of the pedestrian paths on the cliffs...beautiful). I cannot imagine wanting to stroll thru the San Buenaventura complex. I understand why builders would resort to this system... and why people with few other choices would move there, but my soul wishes it were not necessary.

The original Little Boxes of song fame were at least distinguished by alternating colors.(sort of like this
The one I linked to is striking because of the very uniform color pattern. Yes, I'm sure that, from ground level, residents DO add things to separate them from everyone else... and perhaps in a Mexico City suburb, they are pleased to have a clean, usable neighborhood of any type. I just recoil at the idea that they can't be a bit more....ummm... creative when building "people hives".

If you go to Google Images and enter "little boxes", you will get dozens of amazing images of similar... or worse... areas. Enter "Levittown, New York" to see the prototype of American "planned communities".