Reflecting on the future of precarious settlements in Latin America is a great and admirable intellectual challenge proposed by the “Oculum Ensaios” for this annual report. Based on the characterization and on a position in face of the problem, this challenge forces us to make a critical revision of how the problem has been treated to this date, so that we can then infer its probable evolution and - especially -, the paths to be followed in order to ensure a desirable evolution.

WHAT IS DISCUSSED HERE?

The precarious urban settlements found in Latin America share a common origin as the result of an informal, individual or collective occupation of the land, very often not appropriate for urbanization, for self-construction, or self-provision of precarious dwelling for subsistence, forming neighborhoods that are deprived of basic utilities and not in accordance with the urban regulations¹ . They constitute the main form through which poor families have solved their housing needs, however inappropriately, in the cities of the region² , either for being unable to afford buying or renting real estate market in the formal city, or for not having obtained any governmental support to do so. The lack of sufficient financial resources, the scarce support, and the ineffective public regulation on the access to land and housing have historically led lower-income sectors to solve their housing needs in this manner.

Precarious settlements have existed since the early stages of growth of Latin American cities, but have intensified as a result of the accelerated migration from the countryside to large cities; a fact that led to the phase of industrialization as a substitute to imports in Latin America as of the first quarter of the 20th century. As of the 70’s, this phenomenon started to affect medium-size cities as well. In 2010, there were 111,000,000 people living in precarious settlements in Latin America (ORGANIZACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS, 2012).

However, the housing precariousness goes beyond the limits of these settlements, reaching other areas in the urban outskirts, which may not present these housing indicators but are deprived of other elements (paved streets and appropriate sidewalks, proper public transportation, basic education, recreation, safety, sanitary utilities and other equipment)³ .

Although this problem may have a higher impact on large urban conglomerates in Latin America, it also affects the entire territory and - very often -, medium and small-size centers at a higher percentage of their populations and with much deeper deprivation. Nevertheless, this becomes more significant in large macrocephalic cities as a result of the large dimensions of their settlements. Finally, this occurs because the root of the problem is on the type of peripheral, subordinated development occurred that followed historically in Latin America, which delayed the full development of its productive force and had its consequences in the persistence of an informal economy that maintained an important mass of the population out of the labor market, or precariously inserted in it, without the social protections and possibilities of access to proper housing and urbanization. In historical terms, this situation was aggravated by the neoliberal restructuring of the global capitalism started in the 70’s, as it promoted the dismantling of the Welfare State and the commoditization of the social reproduction, including urbanization⁴ .

This fact also forces us to emphasize that such problems are not exclusively urbanistic, but multidimensional and systemic, demanding habitat policies to be integral⁵ to and included in universal policies to combat informality by expanding the reach of rights as the only way to support sustainable actions, instead of a temporary mitigation⁶ . In these sense, the pros include the deceleration of demographic and urban growth and the reorientation of such growth to middle-size cities (ORGANIZACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS, 2012), while the cons include the advance of neoliberalism throughout almost the entire region and the mercantilist approach that it uses when it comes to social housing⁷ .

Finally, in this characterization, it is important to point out that, in addition to the indicators proposed to define precarious settlements, there are also differences between them in from a country to another and in their countryside that result from particular characteristics of the processes of development, urbanization, legal frameworks, and cultural and geographic conditions in such a huge continental region. The large variety of socio-environmental configurations found in precarious settlements in Latin-American cities requires a case-by-case study on how the different dimensions of the problem play a part in each local reality. Investigation and diagnosis are fundamental before solutions can be formulated when the intention is to reapply experiences and policies in realities that are quite different from each other at times.

HOW HAS THE PROBLEM BEEN HANDLED TO THIS DATE?

In terms of paradigms, policies have changed with time, although the oldest ones have lingered and overlapped or even complemented newer ones⁸ .

Between the 60’s and the 70’s, still in the phase of “industrialization” or “replacement of exports,” with higher intervention by the State and growth of the industrial working class, legally protected (PORTES & ROBERTS, 2008) by Social Welfare policies, housing policies were based on the direct extrapolation of the European post-war experience and proposed the eradication of settlements through the construction of large housing developments in the outskirts of cities to re-accommodate its residents, with the use of public funds to afford the massive offer of new housing. The limitations of this proposal, in view of the magnitude of the problem and the social and urban unfeasibility of massive relocations, have led to their slow reformulation⁹ .

As of the 70’s, and particularly after the “Habitat I” of 1976, unconventional policies appeared and promoted the progressive recognition and consolidation of settlements by means of the initial provision - financed by the State -, of some minimum elements, such as land property regularization, the provision of basic infrastructure, and housing nuclei (land lots with an “embryo-type” construction), under the assumption that they would evolve satisfactorily. The improvements were proposed to be carried out by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) and labor by the residents themselves as an offset for the financial aid. This paradigm was in force until the 90’s, promoted by international entities such as the World Bank, and accompanied the initial advancement of neoliberal policies and the dismantling of the Social Welfare State occurred in Latin America with the aid of military dictatorships. However, it did not get significant acceptance and remained secondary to the previous paradigm, which continued in force because, among other reasons, the interests of the construction industry were contrary to the institutional reforms required, since the advancement of poverty that brought the deindustrialization marked the unfeasibility of these solutions and failed to produce the evolutive improvements expected in the neighborhoods where they were applied. Its legacy was the recognition of settlements as parts of the cities, still to be improved, including the participation of their residents.

As of the 90’s, with the growing poverty in the region and the increase in the number of precarious settlements, international development entities, such as Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), World Bank, and European agencies, fostered a new generation of policies by means of credits to States to subsidize better integrated urban improvements and then incorporate them to the cities, both physically and socially. Differently from the previous period, they were designed to be carried out by construction companies (as conventional housing policies). However, they allowed the formulation of projects to be assigned to specialized, independent technical teams, including levels of social participation. They combined legal directives (land property regularization), physical and environmental directives (basic infrastructure, improvement of the public space, construction of community equipment), and social directives (professional qualification). In this new approach, the improvement and construction of houses (in the same urban nucleus, whenever possible) were severed from the urban improvement and this led to a trend to leave these tasks in the hands of the residents themselves, with provisions made for a scheme of subsidies by demand and by means of easy public-private funding credits, which then led to a trend that turned social housing into merchandize.

These programs allowed the physical and environmental improvement of urbanized settlements, but such improvements often caused them to be re-occupied by a higher-income population, while the poorer population had to move and restart the production of new precarious settlements elsewhere. These programs emphasized the need for broader social protection laws and policies, as well as the need for higher budget resources to cover for a larger number of families. During such periods, and in many countries, specific housing entities continued to build housing projects in urban outskirts in more conventional manners and - some more than others -, moved ahead into the mercantile systems of subsidies to the offer.

At the same time, as of the 70’s, an alternative paradigm took shape at the base of social organizations - the Social Production of the Habitat -, bound to the political ideals of anarchism and the progressive ideals of the catholic church, which - in opposition to the Social Welfare State and market policies -, demanded the organized and self-managed production of the urban space by the very residents in response to their needs and as a non-profit initiative. This paradigm is primarily interested on triggering collective organization processes to improve the habitat and promote values of democracy, participation, citizenship organization, equality, and solidarity, as well as influencing policies through their civil organizations. For its very nature, it took long for this paradigm to be defined. The “Letter of the Right to the City” of 2005 (CARTA…, 2012) was able to stake its claims. The Habitat International Coalition (HIC) then disseminated such claims in Latin America (ORTIZ, 2002). In the last few decades, national habitat organizations connected to this chain of thought have managed to make important advancements in the normative spheres of different countries.

Moreover, as of the last decade of the 20th century, and perhaps without fully forming a new paradigm, several anti-neoliberal governments got to power in Latin America and this allowed for important increments in national budgets dedicated to reinforcing conventional policies of massive construction of social housing, focused on subsidies to the offer in a developmental and popular mindset, so as to leverage the economic recovery, create jobs, and ensure social rights. These policies were created in an alliance with traditional sectors of the construction industry connected to the States, but have also enabled the participation of baseline social organizations that got involved in the production of the habitat as a way to attain social inclusion.

In general, due to their independentista¹⁰ and anti-neoliberal roots, these policies were not well received or supported by international development entities. Such an increased housing production allowed for a reduction of 5,000,000 people from precarious settlements in Latin America between 2000 and 2010. These policies left the lesson that a considerable increase in the public budget is required to support the housing production on a permanent basis as a way to revert the problem within a considerable period.

Although this editorial may not be the appropriate space to summarize particular cases, some cases from the last two decades are mentioned below for the sake of illustration:

- Chile, in the 90’s, and Mexico, as of the 2000’s, were outstanding for having fostered national policies of massive construction of social housing projects in urban outskirts to eliminate precarious settlements and were supported by the mercantile vision of offer through public-private partnerships, with the convergence of investments from both sectors via long-term credits for low-income families, so as to allow them to acquire housing in the neighborhoods built by private incorporators. Chile was a pioneer in this policy and the recent Mexican experience was the largest in Latin America: within 15 years, Mexico produced approximately 7,000,000 new houses in gigantic developments out in its urban outskirts, and almost 5,000,000 improvements made to precarious houses. Both experiences were absolutely effective in the massive production of social-interest housing to reduce the housing deficit. However, the quality of the new residences they generated failed to be favorable and ended up confining millions of people to urban spaces of low quality, houses with very small floor space (up to 30 m²), and serious social problems of isolation, segregation, fragmentation, insecurity, and excessive populational density¹¹ .

The Mexican case was even more serious because of the gigantic size of its ventures produced in series, isolated from their surroundings, with complex social situations, problems in infrastructure and connectivity, limited equipment, and no job-generating opportunities¹² . Moreover, constructive deficiencies and financial negotiations led to the bankruptcy of construction companies and the unsustainable indebtedness of many families¹³ (LOS ÁNGELES TIMES, 2017).

- In the 90’s, also with a market perspective, Peru implemented a policy based on a single indicator, which was considered to be synergetic to trigger a virtuous circle of development: the land regularization through the subsidized delivery of individual land property deeds under the assumption that these would operate as the initial capitalization of inhabitants (warranty) to obtain credits to improve their dwellings, according to the theories of De Soto (2000). More than one million and a half property deeds were granted, a third of which only in Lima. This policy did not get to be favorable either. No substantial change was found in the quality of those neighborhoods.

- Brazil and Colombia, due to different circumstances, achieved significant legal advances. The Colombian Law 388 of Territorial Development, passed in 1997, and Decree 564, of 2006, along with the Brazilian Statute of Cities, in 2001, established the social function of the land, the public purpose of urbanism, the equalitarian distribution of charges and benefits, and the incorporation of concepts such as the right of housing, aiming at the improvement, relocation, and prevention of precarious settlements, the municipal obligation to elaborate land organization plans, decentralization, and social participation in urban and housing policies. This new legal ground paved the way to opportunities for the application of more integral approaches and enabled the implementation of federal policies on the urbanization of precarious settlements in both countries, which profited from significant local experiences.

- In Brazil and Argentina, with the ascension of neoliberal governments to power in 2003, new Ministries were created and provided with significant budget to subsidize policies for the massive construction of social housing following a developmental approach, and also to expand social rights. In Argentina, the new Ministry of Planning implemented the Federal Housing Policy (Política Federal de Vivienda - PFV), which further subsidized the National Housing Fund (Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda - Fonavi) through several programs, as an ambitious plan for the construction of housing projects and the improvement of neighborhoods for low-income sectors. This had the merit of reaching record numbers in the production of houses, decreasing the relative deficit, and enabling the participation of social neighborhood organizations in the production of houses (work cooperatives). However, the decentralization the policy led to conflicts with state governments. The increased construction of new housing projects in urban outskirts by construction companies without instruments for the regulation of the land and urban planning policies have all triggered a strong real estate speculation that made the land inaccessible to the middle sectors of the population¹⁴ . Moreover, the private capital channeled the profitability of the economic prosperity to the construction of private residential buildings in urbanized areas, which then became inaccessible to wage-earner workers and rose the number of uninhabited housing units to 2.5 million in 2010, while the housing deficit was then affecting 3 million people.

In Brazil, more favorably, the Ministry of Cities managed to coordinate the social policies on housing, sanitation, transportation and urban planning, assisted by the Federal Government, oriented the pre-existing state and municipal policies in order to foster a National Housing Policy of scale - unprecedented in Brazil -, which relied on the National System for Housing, Market (SNHM), and Social Interest (SNHIS) for lower income sectors, by funding land property regulation and the urbanization of precarious settlements. Later, as of 2007, the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) and the 2008’s “My House My Life” Program (PMCMV) increased that funding, although the latter showed to have inconveniences similar to those of the Argentinean PFV due to its alliance with the private construction industry¹⁵ . The valuable aspects of both experiences include the fact that the federal governments dedicated substantial resources to social interest housing and implemented economic development policies along with the expansion of social rights.

- São Paulo and Bogotá, based on the new laws passed in both countries, mentioned above, were able to implement local programs for the recovery of added value for social purposes, aiming at the construction of urban infrastructure and the improvement and construction of housing in precarious settlements (ORGANIZACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS, 2012), fostered by the contributions of federal policies, such as the “Programas Bairro Legal” and the Land Property Regulation in São Paulo, as well as the Southern Project (Projeto Sul) in Bogotá. However, as these operations were primarily centered on the urbanistic sphere, the improvements that took place generated, in many cases, the expulsion of poor families from improved zones and the appropriation of those zones by real estate sectors and higher-income families, as well as new informal occupations of recovered public spaces (ZUQUIM & SANCHEZ-MAZO, 2017).

- Rio de Janeiro and Medellin have usually been considered as the best examples of the application of local programs for the integral improvement of precarious settlements, perhaps because both relied on an important support by international development entities.

In the case of Rio de Janeiro, the program named ‘Favela Bairro’, implemented in the 90’s and supported by the IDB, was considered to be an example of the new generation of housing and environmental improvement programs, with significant investments in structural works for the urban integration of shanty towns in Rio. However, the social aspects of a sustainable reduction of poverty, control of the organized crime, and citizen inclusion have fallen short and failed to be satisfactory (FIORI et al., 2002). Later, the Brazilian National Housing Policy brought new life to this process, based on an approach that considered a boarder social inclusion.

In the case of Medellin, the Integral Urbanistic Projects outstand for its focus on the components of urban accessibility and mobility, the provision of public spaces and equipment as collective goods and services to improve the quality of life of the population in precarious settlements, and to integrate them into the structure of the city. In this case, valuable were the results obtained in the improvement of the public space, urban mobility, provision of collective equipment, environmental recovery, community participation, and inter-institutional coordination. On the other hand, the fragile aspects involve the mercantile approach to social housing and, as occurred in São Paulo, the appropriation of many improvements by the real estate capital (LOPERA PÉREZ et al., 2017; LOPERA PÉREZ & GONZÁLEZ AVENDAÑO, 2017).

Obviously, these experiences are not the only ones and many others deserve further analysis: in the national level, such as in Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, etc., and in the local level, such as in Rosário (Argentina), La Habana (Cuba), La Paz (Bolivia) etc., which have also left important lessons.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF PRECARIOUS SETTLEMENTS?

The probable future of precarious settlements is not optimistic in the short term given the political outlook of Latin America today, as the region has been marked by an almost hegemonic return of neoliberalism. Major investments in developmental policies have been suspended and most national States - now aligned with international entities of credit for development -, insist on the mercantilist vision of social housing, aimed at leading lower-income sectors to indebtedness in the long run, requiring their scarce goods in escrow. For that purpose, regressive reforms in the national laws have been made, dismantling the advances obtained in the last decades in terms of the rights to housing and the city. It is not very likely that the public-private association - based on a corporate perspective -, could improve the precarious settlements in the next years with a massive reach, so as to produce more equalitarian and inclusive cities. It is possible that neighborhood improvement programs could mitigate the urban precariousness in localized cases of interest for the real estate sector, but such precariousness will surely keep reproducing in a similar way in other areas of the city.

On the other hand, the desired future would require housing and habitat policies aimed at precarious settlements to make use of the good lessons, so as to avoid repeating the bad lessons of previous policies. And what are they? Undoubtedly, the policies for the integral improvement of neighborhoods, but aimed at the physical and social integration of the city with an environmental approach and capable of settling most of the inhabitants in relocations to nearby areas that do not affect their social networks, ensuring the improvement of dwellings to appropriate levels, eliminating environmental risks, the provision of basic sanitation utilities (potable water, sewer utilities and rainwater drainage), electric power, telecommunications (telephone and internet utilities), and mobility (roads, bicycle lanes, streets, avenues), the provision of social equipment in the surroundings (health, education, recreation, police), at levels that would facilitate the social integration with other social sectors to favor the social mixture and prevent segregation. More than that, the improvement of settlements should be integrated to the urban and municipal planning, and the local government should be the one to establish that. Yet, these policies must be implemented through national housing policies dedicated to ensuring the right to housing and to the city beyond rhetoric. Doing so means abandoning the neoliberal postulates and achieving the decommodification of the access to and production of goods and services in the social urbanization.

It is paradoxical and even contradictory that global policies do foster policies of that nature based on fundaments such as ensuring the Right to Housing or the City when, during their actual implementation, they foster the commodification of the indicators and the general market system as a way to fund them. Rights - particularly social rights -, have been the cornerstone used to build the Social Welfare State after the European post-war, based precisely on the opposite. That is, de-commoditizing basic social goods and services required for the reproduction of workers. It was necessary to build systems that were capable of isolating the market relationships from these social goods and services in order to ensure that they could be universal and reach most part of the population¹⁶ .

The decommodification intervention of the State in the housing sphere involves two aspects: housing production and the access of the population to such housing. Although the first may thrive under capitalist mercantile relations - for instance, by contracting private companies to build social housing -, the decommodification must take place in the access to such housing by means of different types of subsidies to lower-income segments through collective contribution funds. This means that lower-income segments would have access to appropriate housing and urban services by means of the investment of resources in collective funds at a proportion that were adequate to their income, so as to promote cooperative systems of social production of the habitat, generate jobs, promote production with limited profits, and incorporate social and civil organizations as active players in the production of that habitat.

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