This study compares housing in two lower-income self help settlement types -- community-based and individualistic -- in two contemporary Mexican urban settings: Mexico City and Tlalnepantla. The research investigates differences in housing design preferences of occupant-builders, reflections of these preferences in built environments, and resulting housing consolidation levels. Of seven elicited housing design preferences investigated, only one suggests statistically significant differences between settlement types in both cities. Community- based settlement respondents tend to prefer an ideology for minimal and equal housing for alIi while individualistic settlement respondents, in contrast, focus on individuals' economic problems in securing private housing. Analyses of the two built environment types show design preference differences reflected in built housing. / Ph. D.