![Sample our Geography journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5937/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Geography.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Following rapid urban growth over the past four decades, informal settlements originally located in peripheral areas of large Latin American cities are now occupying increasingly valuable land in the central city. As a result, these communities are facing intense redevelopment pressures with important implications for housing accessibility. Although this situation is common in the region, central city redevelopment assumes a variety of forms depending on shifting approaches to land titling under different urban governance regimes, resulting in variegated, formal, and informal land markets. This comparative historical case study of Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, suggests that urban redevelopment planning has drawn on two contrasting discourses of property rights: one privileging private market approaches based in the economic theory of Libertarianism; the other favouring state authority and redistribution building on the ethics of Utilitarianism. In both Bogotá and Buenos Aires, however, de facto land-titling policies have shifted between the principles of Libertarianism and Utilitarianism under different political regimes, and neither market- nor state-oriented approaches have served to safeguard low-income residents’ access to housing. Instead, the shifting influence of each discourse has structured formal and informal land markets in ways that complicate long-standing debates surrounding land titling in informal settlements.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Sophie Naue for her insights on Villa 31 in Buenos Aires; the Universidad Piloto and Colciencias in Bogotá for their support for this project; and the four anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Juan G. Yunda is a PhD student in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. He has an undergraduate degree in architecture and a joint master’s degree in urban studies from Bauhaus-Weimar University and Tongji University in Shanghai. He is a researcher in the school of architecture at the Piloto University in Bogota, and has worked as a consultant for both public and private entities on transportation, affordable housing and planning. He has been awarded distinctions for his academic work by the Colombian Ministry of Education, Colombian Science and Technology Department, the Colombian Architects Society, the Institute for European Urban Studies, and the Fulbright Commission. Juan’s research interests include social-spatial segregation and its implications for urban form, and the future of informal settlements in Latin American cities.
Dr Bjørn Sletto is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his doctorate in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and focuses on indigenous land rights, environmental and social justice, and alternative planning approaches in Latin America. As the director of the Institute of Latin American Studies’ (LLILAS) Research Initiative in Participatory Mapping, Bjørn works closely with partner institutions in South America to further international scholarship on representational politics, indigenous territoriality, and social justice. He is also engaged with research on informality and community development in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, focusing on the role of critical pedagogy for democratic and inclusive planning in low-income neighbourhoods that have long been excluded from formal development processes.
Notes
1 Turner, Housing by People; de Soto, The Other Path; and de Soto, The Mystery of Capital.
2 Varley, “Private or Public.”
3 Otto, “Rule of Law Promotion, Land Tenure and Poverty Alleviation.”
4 Varley, “Private or Public.”
5 Ferguson, Smets, and Mason, “The New Political Economy of Affordable Housing Finance and Urban Development.”
6 Waisman, “Latin American Studies.”
7 Robinson, “Cities in a World of Cities,” 18.
8 Janoschka, “Geografías Urbanas En La Era Del Neoliberalismo”; Janoschka, Sequera, and Salinas, “Gentrification in Spain and Latin America.”
9 Borsdorf and Hidalgo, “From Polarization to Fragmentation.”
10 Bromley and Mackie, “Displacement and the New Spaces for Informal Trade”; Crossa, “Resisting the Entrepreneurial City.”
11 Bromley and Mackie, “Displacement and the New Spaces for Informal Trade”; Crossa, “Resisting the Entrepreneurial City.”
12 Bentham, A Fragment on Government, 93.
13 Mill, (1863) Utilitarianism, 2.
14 Fox, “Origins, Nature, and Content of the Right to Property.”
15 Coarse, “The Problem of Social Cost.”
16 Demsetz, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.”
17 Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 209.
18 Otsuka, Libertarianism Without Inequality, 12.
19 Cozzens, “Distributive Justice in Science and Technology Policy,” 86.
20 Sigot, “Utility and Justice,” 759.
21 Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty.
22 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
23 Long, “Left-Libertarianism, Market Anarchism, Class Conflict and Historical Theories of Distributive Justice,” 414.
24 Montoya Pino, “El arquitecto moderno y las entidades estatales de vivienda en la construcción de las unidades vecinales latinoamericanas.”
25 Gilbert, “Power, Ideology and the Washington Consensus.”
26 All quotations from Spanish language sources were translated by the authors.
27 Montoya Pino, “El arquitecto moderno y las entidades estatales de vivienda en la construcción de las unidades vecinales latinoamericanas,” 56.
28 Ballén Zamora, Vivienda social en altura, 88, 102, 108, 120.
29 Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, 249.
30 Harris, “A Double Irony.”
31 Kool, Verboom, and Van der Linden, “Squatter Settlement Improvement and Displacement.”
32 Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, 252.
33 Harris, “A Double Irony.”
34 Burgess, “Petty Commodity Housing or Dweller Control?”
35 Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, chap. 8; Davis, Planet of Slums, chap. 5; and Harris, “A Double Irony.”
36 Burgess, “Petty Commodity Housing or Dweller Control?”
37 de Soto, The Other Path; de Soto, The Mystery of Capital.
38 Van der Molen, “After 10 Years of Criticism.”
39 Bayón and Saraví, “The Cultural Dimensions of Urban Fragmentation Segregation, Sociability, and Inequality in Mexico City”; Portes and Roberts, “The Free Market City”; Posner, “Targeted Assistance and Social Capital”; and Gilbert, “Power, Ideology and the Washington Consensus.”
40 Burgess, “Petty Commodity Housing or Dweller Control?”
41 Doebele, “Provision of Land for the Urban Poor.”
42 Bromley, “Formalizing Property Relations in the Developing World”; Cousins et al., “Will Formalizing Property Rights Reduce Poverty in South Africa’s Second Economy?”
43 Davis, Planet of Slums, 80.
44 Varley, “Private or Public.”
45 Gilbert, “On the Mystery of Capital and the Myths of Hernando de Soto.”
46 Varley, “Private or Public,” 459.
47 Ibid., 450.
48 Handzic, “Is Legalized Land Tenure Necessary in Slum Upgrading?”
49 Otto, “Rule of Law Promotion, Land Tenure and Poverty Alleviation.”
50 Clichevsky, Regularizando la informalidad del suelo en América Latina yel Caribe, 12.
51 El Concejo del Distrito Especial de Bogotá, Acuerdo 01 de 1961.
52 El Concejo del Distrito Especial de Bogotá, Acuerdo 68 de 1961.
53 El Concejo del Distrito Especial de Bogotá, Acuerdo 22 de 1963.
54 Ballén Zamora, Vivienda social en altura, 150; Fique Pinto, “La política pública de vivienda en Colombia,” 77.
55 Martinez Tocancipa, “Evolución Urbana Informal En Bogotá.”
56 Campo Albán, “Bogotá en la Década de 1970, El PIDUZOB como referente teórico de la Planeación Acción,” 58.
57 Converts to approximately 470 million US dollars in 2015.
58 Campo Albán, “Bogotá en la Década de 1970, El PIDUZOB como referente teórico de la Planeación Acción,” 67.
59 Vallejo, “Hoy, Dos Mil Familias Reciben Vivienda En Ciudad Bolivar.”
60 Torres Tovar, Ciudad Informal Colombiana, 88.
61 Caja de la Vivienda Popular, “Historia de La CVP.”
62 “Evictions and Human Rights,” 460–4.
63 Ibid., 463.
64 Téllez Oliveros, “La Apetecida Tierra En Los Cerros.”
65 Valenzuela, “Futuro de Los Olivos, En Manos de La Fiscalía.”
66 Vargas, “Los Olivos, El Barrio Que Apetece El Estrato Seis.”
67 Redacción Mi Zona, “‘Nos Arrasaron En El Barrio Los Olivos’: Comunidad.”
68 Vargas, “Los Olivos, El Barrio Que Apetece El Estrato Seis.”
69 Congreso de Colombia, Ley Orgánica de Ordenamiento Territorial, Chapter VII.
70 Valenzuela and Téllez Oliveros, “Petro Quiere Blindar El Barrio Los Olivos.”
71 Gómez, “La ‘Guerra’ Por El Suelo Que Se Libra En El Barrio Los Olivos.”
72 Outtes, “Disciplining Society Through the City.”
73 Payne, “Policy and Politics in Urban Land Market Management.”
74 El Senado y Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina, Ley 16.601 Plan de Vivienda Para Erradicar Villas de Emergencia.
75 Jauri, “Las villas de la ciudad de Buenos Aires.”
76 Mitchell, Right to the City, 48.
77 Consejo Deliberante de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Ordenanza Municipal 39.753/84. Programa de Radicación Y Solución Integral de Villas Y Núcleos Habitacionales Transitorios.
78 El Senado y Cámara de Diputados de la Nación Argentina, Ley 23.967 Transferencia de Tierras Fiscales a Provincias Y Municipalidad de La Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
79 Mitchell, Right to the City, 48.
80 Defensoria del Pueblo de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, “El Derecho Al Transporte Como Factor de Integración | Defensoria.org.ar.”
81 Cravino, Las Villas de La Ciudad.
82 Rocha, “La Imparable Villa 31.”
83 Paiva, “Trayectorias Habitacionales Y Modos de Producción Del Hábitat En Una Villa de La Ciudad de Buenos Aires,” 46.
84 Rocha, “La Imparable Villa 31”; Trujillo, “Spatial and Process Strategies,” 23.
85 Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Ley 3343 Se Dispone La Urbanización de Las Villas 31 Y 31 Bis, 3.
86 Payne, “Policy and Politics in Urban Land Market Management.”
87 “Villa 31: Más Cruces Por La Urbanización.”
88 Pérez, “Villa 31.”
89 Tomino, “En La Villa 31 Se Venden Casas a US$ 1000 El Metro Cuadrado.”
90 Tomino, “Villa 31: Ponen Semáforos Por El Tránsito.”
91 Gómez, “La Villa 31 Se Consolida Como Barrio, Pero Sigue Sin Integrarse a La Ciudad.”
92 Varley, “Private or Public.”