New Publication: Access to Land by the Urban Poor (Land Lines Article)

Publication Date: July 2002

Inventory ID LLA020710; English

Article

The Lincoln Institute’s 2002 Annual Roundtable is the fifth such publication to address themes that form the heart of the Institute’s work. This series of roundtable programs is an opportunity for the Institute to bring together a diverse group of scholars, policy makers and critics to identify and debate timely land use and taxation issues.

This year’s roundtable, Access to Land by the Urban Poor, was organized by Martim Smolka, director of the Institute’s Latin America Program, and was held at Lincoln House on November 5, 2001. Seven scholars and practitioners who are deeply involved in the field of land and housing policy in the third world joined the Institute’s senior staff to discuss their perspectives on the causes and characteristics of informal settlements and to explore possible solutions to this critical international issue.

Cities in developing nations vividly epitomize Henry George's concerns about progress engendering poverty because of constraints on the access to land. Latin American cities offer clear evidence that pervasive and persistent informality in land markets is both an effect of and a major contributing factor to urban poverty.

Access to land should be understood as meaning access to serviced land, including not only utilities (water, sewage, telephone, street lights, and so forth) but also access to a good quality environment, schools, transportation, food suppliers and even leisure, at a reasonable cost and distance. In urban areas, to be able to access services, employment and other urban benefits, one must have legitimate access to land and a formal address. Lack of secure tenure prevents one from using the potential value of one’s own properties as collateral for borrowing money to make improvements.

In the context of rampant urban poverty, weak public agencies and inaccessible finance institutions, access to land becomes a surrogate for access to housing, and more than two-thirds of new housing is built outside the formal housing market. Private agents are neither capable nor willing to deal with low-income families because they simply do not constitute a viable housing market. Even the handsome mark-ups associated with servicing raw land for development are not enough to encourage many private developers to build legal subdivisions.

In this report we are concerned primarily with informal land occupations that evolve progressively over time into consolidated irregular settlements that so typical of third world cities. The predominate form of access to (serviced) land by the urban poor is no longer through squatting or invading but through informal market transactions. According to the UNCHS/Habitat State of the World's Cities report, about 70 percent of land parcels in Latin American countries are undocumented and a similar percentage of new housing is self-produced, most of it through informal means.

Experience has shown that this widespread informality cannot be explained by poverty alone, but also as a consequence of the functioning of urban land markets. As a result the urban poor in informal settlements often pay more, in relative and sometimes even in absolute terms, than residents in the formal city for services of much lower quality. Contrary to common sense, informality is not necessarily a cheaper or an opportunistic way to beat the system. It is simply the only way for many poor and middle-class families who are struggling to access the city.

This publication presents an edited version of the transcribed roundtable discussion of these issues, with additional closing remarks by the participants.

Roundtable Participants

Shlomo Angel
Housing Policy and Urban Development Advisor, Libra, Inc., New York

Josefina Baldó
Professor and Researcher, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas

Priscilla Connolly
Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Azcapotzalco, México

Maria Mercedes Cuellar
President, Colombian Institute of Housing and Savings, Bogota

Patrick McAuslan
Professor of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, England

Bishwapriya Sanyal
Professor and Chairman, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

M. Vitor Serra
Urban Development Specialist, The World Bank, Washington, DC

2002. 48 pages, paper. $15.00
ISBN 1-55844-152-2

Other Volumes in the Roundtable Series

The Value of Land: 1998 Annual Roundtable
The first Chairman’s Roundtable report explores wide-ranging land use and taxation issues with a small group of internationally respected scholars and policy makers. Five short essays supplement edited excerpts from the discussion and highlight current thinking about the social and economic impacts of sprawling urban development, recent experiences with regional governance systems, the controversial issue of metropolitan tax base sharing, and the role of informal land and housing markets in developing countries.
1998. 36 pages, paper. $10.00
ISBN 1-55844-132-8

Land Values and Property Taxation: 1999 Annual Roundtable
The Institute’s second roundtable focused on the property tax. Seven scholars and specialists in public finance and property tax policy considered the property tax from perspectives of economic theory, political experience and governmental structure. This publication includes each formal paper followed by the author’s summary at the roundtable and the ensuing informal discussion.
1999. 64 pages, paper. $15.00
ISBN 1-55844-136-0

Metropolitan Development Patterns: 2000 Annual Roundtable
The third roundtable examined the interaction of public policy and private preferences in shaping metropolitan development patterns. Nine scholars and practitioners in urban economics, planning and public policy prepared papers in advance of the roundtable. Their discussion touched on public interests vs. private interests; individual preferences vs. community preferences; what is cause and what is consequence. Many of the roundtable participants conduct research designed to have a direct effect on public policy, so political realities and policy constraints permeated the conversation.
2000. 88 pages, paper. $15.00
ISBN 1-55844-143-3

The New Spatial Order? Technology and Urban Development: 2001 Annual Roundtable
The main question addressed in the Institute’s fourth annual roundtable is, How will the widespread adoption of advanced information and telecommunications technology affect urban development? Seven panelists discussed and debated their views along a spectrum from sprawling deconcentration to localization imperatives that favor more centralization in established cities and metropolitan regions. They also explored the social, economic and environmental consequences of the new economy and the implications for planners and policy makers.
2001. 48 pages, paper. $15.00
ISBN 1-55844-146-8

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