International Journal of Housing Policy A Review of " Housing policy in Latin American cities: a new generation of strategies and approaches for 2016 UN-HABITAT III " (original) (raw)
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The paper discusses: the evolution of the housing sector and the resulting housing conditions in Latin America in the last 50 years; the government policies that affected its performance; and the resulting urban impacts. Housing conditions improved due to a reduction in poverty and the effects of public housing policies that provided housing to a large section of the population that was otherwise unable to solve their housing problems in the formal housing sector. Governments used two approaches: supply-side policies including direct provision and demand-side policies including reforms aiming to improve the functioning of formal housing market. Several countries used both at different points in time and often in parallel. A constant in the region has been the lack of coordination with urban development policies and regulations. Large housing programs were implemented with little investment in transportation and urban services and amenities. The housing policies contributed to widespread urban sprawl without mitigating the subsequent urban problems: rapid consumption of valuable agricultural land, the need to extending urban infrastructure and services, and decreasing access to employment and service centers for the population of the new residential areas. This paper advocates that housing policies in LAC must be reformed to incorporate an urban-based approach focusing on the integrated improvement of living conditions for urban populations rather than on building more houses. Adoption of these recommendations can turn the housing sector and its related public policies into an effective instrument for building better cities.
Housing policy issues in contemporary South America: an introduction
International Journal of Housing Policy
In the introduction to this special issue on Latin American housing policies, we address the common elements evident in this collection of papers with the aim of enabling a better knowledge exchange between the 'global North' and the 'global South' on potentially common issues. These include the changing relationship between state and capital, with special emphasis on the new role adopted by the State as a facilitator for financial private capital in an increasingly privatised housing sector; the need to address precarious housing conditions among vast sectors of the population, including international migrants; and the various innovative roles played by civil society in housing provision. Notwithstanding these similarities between world regions, our editorial introduction highlights a number of particularities in housing research in the Latin American region, underscoring the need to reflect critically on the applicability of concepts and models created in different geographical contexts with different historical, social and political realities. Within this editorial, we also introduce the main themes discussed in the specific articles and attempt to place them within the more general scope of earlier research on housing policies in the region. We conclude by acknowledging that a solution to long lasting housing inequality in Latin America remains an unfulfilled promise.
Housing policies in Latin America: overview of the four largest economies
The aim of this paper is to examine the differences and similarities in housing policies in the four Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The article uses the welfare regime approach, modified by a recognition of path dependence, to identify a number of phases that each country has passed through. However, attention is drawn to the substantial differences in the circumstances in each country and the extent and duration of the different phases. It is concluded that it can be beneficial to use the concept of a Latin American housing regime, but that this general picture has to be used with an understanding of the path dependence caused by the different context in the individual countries.
Brazilian Journal of Development, 2021
Important factors of the capitalist accumulation activities are related with the housing production, having as result conflicts of urban spaces appropriation. From these statements, the present article aims to present an investigation about social housing policies and production in Brazil and Mexico, considering three major historical periods. This paper involves the comprehension of the transformations that occurred in the economic and urban social spheres of these countries, such as the understanding of the influence of neoliberalism's growth in the end of the XX century. In the article, the transformations are related with the modifications that occurred in the political and economic field of Brazil and Mexico. Therefore, the study sought to understand the historical periods and the alliance of public and private agents in the production of social housing.
To live in the city centre: housing and tenants in central neighbourhoods of Latin American cities
Environment and Urbanization, 1997
After reviewing structural changes in metropolitan areas of Latin America and the implications for housing, this paper describes five central neighbourhoods with a predominance of rental housing: three in Lima and one each in Havana and Rio de Janeiro. This includes the types of buildings, how, when and why they were built, who occupies them and who owns them. It also describes what influence government policy has had on them and what measures (if any) have been taken to maintain or improve them by owners and tenants. In some of the case study areas, it is the tenants, not the owners, who are committed to their neighbourhood and who are taking on most of the responsibility for their neighbourhood.
Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais
The production of housing is an important activity for capitalist accumulation and one of the foci of conflict around the appropriation of space. Historically, this required state regulation by various means, including, housing policies. Although it is something present in all socio-spatial formations, the way in which production and regulation of the sector take place in different spaces depends, at bottom, on the ongoing accumulation pattern. Based on this methodological assumption, this article seeks is, in the light of the critical theory of underdevelopment, to analyze the current characteristics and limitations of housing policies in the continent of Latin America. Given the variety of ongoing experiences, the discussion will be centered on the Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House My Life) (Brazil) and Gran Misión Vivienda (Venezuela) programs as being two paradigmatic models of the production of a city. It is said that there are three main differences between these two programs: t...
This paper discusses the evolution of housing conditions in urban areas of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from 1995 to 2006 based on data from household surveys done in 18 countries that comprise 95 percent of the urban population of the region. The results indicate that, on average, the proportion of urban households facing housing shortages is declining. This decline holds for households of all income levels, particularly those in the lower quintiles of the income distribution structure. Among the housing problems faced by the urban population of the region, the most pervasive is lack of infrastructure, followed by deficient building materials and overcrowding. The size of the problem is still large. The estimates made in this study indicate that in 2006 lack of infrastructure affected almost 19 million households. Further, about seven million households needed a new shelter and nine million needed significant improvements to their houses due to poor construction materials or overcrowding. Cross-country analysis shows that each country was facing a different combination of problems and was improving its housing conditions at a different pace, which indicates that it is highly unlikely that a "one-size-fits-all" solution exists. Future housing needs are estimated at three million units per year for the next two decades. Absent the capacity of the formal housing sector to supply these houses, households will be driven to informal solutions that contribute to the large qualitative shortages still afflicting the region.
Latin American gentrifications - Introduction
Urban Geography, Volume 37, Issue 8, 2016
Currently, Latin American cities are seeing simultaneous processes of reinvestment and redevelopment in their historic central areas. These are not just mega-scale interventions like Porto Maravilha in Rio or Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires or the luxury renovations seen in Santa Fé or Nueva Polanco in Mexico City, they also include state-led, piecemeal, high-rise interventions in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Panamá and Bogotá, all of which are causing the displacement of original populations and thus are forms of gentrification. Until very recently, these processes have been under-conceptualized and little critiqued in Latin America, but they deserve careful scrutiny, along with new forms of neighbourhood organization, activism and resistance. In this introduction, we begin that task, drawing on the work begun in an Urban Studies Foundation-funded workshop on Global Gentrification held in Santiago, Chile in 2012. Our aim is not just to understand these urban changes and conflicts as gentrification, but to empirically test the applicability of a generic understanding of gentrification beyond the usual narratives of/from the global North. From this investigation, we hope to nurture new critical narratives, to engage sensitively with indigenous theoretical narratives and to understand the dialectical interplay between state policies, financial markets, local politics and people. The papers in this special issue deal with the core issues of state power and urban policies (exerted at metropolitan and neighbourhood scales), the enormous influx of financial investment in derelict neighbourhoods that produces exclusion and segregation, the significant loss of urban heritage from rapidly “renewing” neighbourhoods and the institutional arrangements that can enable anti-displacement activism and self-managed social housing production.
Latin American gentrifications
2016
Currently Latin American cities are seeing simultaneous processes of reinvestment and redevelopment in their historic central areas. These are not just mega scale interventions like Porto Maravilha in Rio or Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires or the luxury renovations seen in Santa Fé or Nueva Polanco in Mexico City, they include state-led, piecemeal, high-rise interventions in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Panamá, and Bogotá, all of which are causing the displacement of original populations and thus are forms of gentrification. Until very recently, these processes have been under conceptualized and little critiqued in Latin America, but they deserve careful scrutiny, along with new forms of neighbourhood organisation, activism and resistance. In this introduction, we begin that task, drawing on the work begun in an Urban Studies Foundation-funded workshop on Global Gentrification held in Santiago, Chile in 2012. Our aim is not just to understand these urban changes and conflicts as gentrification, but to empirically test the applicability of a generic understanding of gentrification beyond the usual narratives of/from the global north. From this investigation we hope to nurture new critical narratives, be sensitive enough to engage with indigenous theoretical narratives, and understand the dialectical interplay between state policies, financial markets, local politics and people. The papers in this special issue deal with the core issues of state power, urban policies (exerted at metropolitan and neighbourhood levels), an enormous influx of financial investment in derelict neighbourhoods, which produces exclusion and segregation, significant loss of urban heritage from rapidly 'renewing' neighbourhoods, and even some institutional arrangements that make possible anti-displacement activism and self-managed social housing production.