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Is urban spatial segregation a consequence of the normal functioning of urban land markets, reflecting cumulative individual choices? Or, is it a result of the malfunctioning of urban land markets that privatize social benefits and socialize private costs? Is it the result of class bias, or racial bias, or both? Does public housing policy create ghettos? Or, do real estate agents and lending officers substitute personal bias for objective data, thereby creating and reinforcing stereotypes about fellow citizens and neighborhoods? Can changes in land policy lead to changes in intra-metropolitan settlement patterns? Or, do such changes come about only from deep social changes having to do with values such as tolerance, opportunity and human rights?
Thirty-seven practitioners and academics from thirteen countries struggled with these and other related questions at the Lincoln Institute’s “International Seminar on Segregation in the City” in Cambridge last July. The seminar organizers, Francisco Sabatini of the Catholic University of Chile and Martim Smolka and Rosalind Greenstein of the Lincoln Institute, cast a wide net to explore the theoretical, historical and practical dimensions of segregation. Participants came from countries as diverse as Brazil, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland and the U.S., and they brought to the discussion their training as lawyers, sociologists, economists, urban planners, regional scientists and geographers. As they attempted to come to terms with the meaning of segregation, the various forces that create and reinforce it, and possible policy responses, it became apparent that there are no simple answers and that many viewpoints contribute to the ongoing debate. This brief report on the seminar offers a taste of the far-reaching discussion.
The papers presented by all participants in this seminar are posted on the Lincoln Institute website.
What is Segregation and Why Is It Important?
Frederick Boal’s (School of Geography, Queen’s University, Belfast) work is informed by both the rich sociological literature on segregation and his own experience of living in the midst of the troubles between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Boal suggested that segregation was best understood as part of a spectrum that ranged from the extreme approach of ethnic cleansing to the more idealistic one of assimilation (see Figure 1). As with so many policy issues, segregation will not be solved by viewing it as a dichotomy but rather as a continuum of degrees or levels of separateness, each with different spatial manifestations.
For Peter Marcuse (Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning, Columbia University, New York) segregation implies a lack of choice and/or the presence of coercion. When racial or ethnic groups choose to live together, he calls that clustering in enclaves. However, when groups are forced apart, either explicitly or through more subtle mechanisms, he calls that segregation in ghettoes. It is the lack of choice that distinguishes these patterns and invites a public policy response.
The meaning and importance of segregation varies with the historical context. For William Harris (Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Jackson State University, Mississippi), who writes about spatial segregation in the U.S. South, segregation can be neither understood nor addressed without fully appreciating the role that race has played and continues to play in American history and public policy. Flavio Villaça (School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo, Brazil) understands segregation within a class framework, where income level and social status, not race, are the key factors influencing residential patterns. In Brazil and many other countries with long histories of authoritarian regimes, urban services are generally provided by the state. In these countries, urban residential patterns determine access to water and sewer facilities (and therefore health) as well as transportation, utility infrastructure and other urban services.
In many cases, Villaça and others assert, land market activity and urban codes and regulations have been used, both overtly and furtively, to create elite, well-serviced neighborhoods that segregate the upper classes from the rest of society, which is largely ignored. This view has parallels in the U.S., where access to high-quality schools and other valued amenities is largely determined by residential patterns that are closely associated with segregation by income level, ethnic background and other demographic characteristics. Seminar participants also cited the correlation between disadvantaged communities and the location of environmental hazards. People segregated into low-income ghettoes or neighborhoods comprised primarily of people of color confront the downsides of modern urban living, such as hazardous waste sites and other locally unwanted land uses.
Ariel Espino (Department of Anthropology, Rice University, Texas) presented an analysis of how distance is used to reinforce social, political and economic inequality in housing. When social and economic differences are clear and understood, ruling elites tolerate physical proximity. For example, servants can live close to their employers, even in the same house, because economic relations and behavioral norms dictate separation by class.
Why Does Segregation Persist?
Prevalent throughout the seminar was an assumption that all residents of the city (i.e., citizens) ought to have access to urban services, at least to a minimum level of services. However, Peter Marcuse challenged the participants to think beyond a minimum level and to consider access to urban amenities in the context of rights. He questioned whether wealth or family heritage or skin color or ethnic identity ought to determine one’s access to public goods—not only education, health and shelter, but also other amenities directly related to physical location. In language reminiscent of Henry George’s views on common property in the late-nineteenth century, Marcuse asked whether it was fair or right, for example, for the rich to enjoy the best ocean views or river frontage or other endowments of nature while the poor are often relegated to the least attractive areas.
Robert Wassmer (Department of Public Policy and Administration, California State University) described the economic processes involved in residential location, as they are understood by public choice economists. In this view, house buyers do not choose to buy only a house and a lot; they consider a diverse set of amenities that vary from place to place. Some buyers may choose an amenity bundle that includes more public transit and less lakefront, while others may choose greater access to highways and higher-quality public education. However, not all citizens have equal opportunities to make such choices. Several seminar participants added that this debate is part of a larger conversation about access and choice in society, since nearly all choices are constrained to some extent, and many constraints vary systematically across social groups.
Other participants drew attention to the ways that government policy (e.g., tax codes, housing legislation) and private institutions (e.g., real estate agents, lending institutions) interact to influence the behavior of land markets, and thus the effects of land policies on public and private actions. Greg Squires (Department of Sociology, George Washington University) reported on a study of the house-hunting process in Washington, DC. His research findings emphasize the role of real estate agents in steering buyers and renters into same-race neighborhoods. As a consequence, blacks simply do not enjoy the same opportunities as whites and are far less likely to obtain their first choice of housing, thus challenging the public choice model. Squires also found that housing choice is determined by social or economic status. For example, priorities for neighborhood amenities among black house-hunters tended to differ from those of whites, in part because they had fewer private resources (such as an automobile) and were more dependent on a house location that provided centralized services such as public transportation.
John Metzger (Urban and Regional Planning Program, Michigan State University) examined the role of the private market in perpetuating segregation. He presented research on the demographic cluster profiles that companies like Claritas and CACI Marketing Systems use to characterize neighborhoods. These profiles are sold to a range of industries, including real estate and finance, as well as to public entities. The real estate industry uses the profiles to inform retailing, planning and investment decisions, and, Metzger argues, to encourage racial steering and the persistence of segregation. Mortgage lenders use profiles to measure consumer demand. Urban planners—both private consultants and those in the public sector—use profiles to determine future land uses for long-range planning and to guide planning and investment for central business districts. Real estate developers use profiles to define their markets and demonstrate pent-up demand for their products. The profiles themselves are often based on racial and ethnic stereotypes and in turn reinforce the separation of racial and ethnic groups within regional real estate markets.
Xavier de Souza Briggs (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) brought the idea of “social capital” to the discussion. As the term is being used today by sociologists and social theorists, social capital embodies the social networks and social trust within communities that can be harnessed to achieve individual and group goals. Briggs argued that social capital is both a cause and an effect of segregation in the U.S., but it can be leveraged to create positive change. Others challenged the extent to which social capital theory and research helps to address urban spatial segregation. These participants argued that it tended to frame the policy question as “How do we improve poor people?” rather than addressing the structural and institutional mechanisms that contribute to residential segregation and income inequality. Yet, the sociologists’ view is that social capital is the very element that communities need to exert some element of control over their immediate environments, rather than to be simply the recipients of the intended and unintended consequences of the political economy.
Social Justice and Land Policy
Seminar participants from around the world shared examples of spatial segregation enforced as a political strategy through the power of the state.
The connections between these extreme forms of spatial segregation and the land policies and market forces at work in most cities today are complex and challenging to articulate. One link is in the ways that land policies and the institutions that support land markets continue to be used to legitimize discriminatory practices.
By envisioning cities where citizens have real freedom to choose their residential locations, the planners in the seminar focused on government policies and programs to facilitate integration, such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Moving to Opportunity Program. However, Stephen Ross (Department of Economics, University of Connecticut) questioned the assumed benefits of resettlement or integration policies by asking, “What if you dispersed high-income people across the city? What would change? Does this idea help us to think more carefully about why space matters?”
Another query from Xavier Briggs challenged participants to think about where the most meaningful social interactions actually occur. Specifically, what needs to happen, and in what circumstances, to move from the extreme of ethnic cleansing on Boal’s urban ethnic spectrum toward assimilation? Briggs suggested that institutions such as schools and workplaces might be better suited to foster more diversity in social interactions than are residential neighborhoods.
Ultimately, the urban planners wanted the tools of their trade to be used for shaping a city that offered justice for all. Haim Yacobi (Department of Geography, Ben-Gurion University, Israel), while referring to the status of the Arab citizens in the mixed city of Lod, touched the foundations of western democratic ideals when he asked, “If a citizen does not have full access to the city, if a citizen is not a full participant in the life of the city, is he or she living in a true city?”
Allegra Calder is a research assistant at the Lincoln Institute and Rosalind Greenstein is a senior fellow and cochairman of the Institute’s Department of Planning and Development.
Few places in Latin America, or in the rest of the world, have dared to implement such radical urban land policy reforms as Chile has over the last 20 years. In 1979, the government began initiating deregulation policies by releasing a document that stated that the scarcity of land was artificially produced by excessive regulation, which resulted in the virtual elimination of urban growth boundaries.
Since then much has changed in the morphology and internal structure of Chilean cities, but the assessment of these changes varies greatly according to one’s ideological position. Explicit socially oriented urban policies have allowed for significant improvements in access to housing by the poor, but some argue that the spatial segregation impacts of such policies have imposed a high toll on society by indirectly lowering quality of life, impeding access to jobs and aggravating social alienation.
Even before the 1973-1990 period of military government, Chile was recognized as a unitarian and centralist political system, characterized by the strong presence of the state in economics and politics. It is a society with a relatively homogenous culture and is unique among Latin American countries in its strong legalist tradition. Chilean cities also present a sharp contrast to their counterparts in Latin America. There are virtually no informal land markets; land tenure has been almost completely regularized by strong public programs; and the majority of the urban poor live in areas where the main streets are paved and sanitary services are provided. Urban violence, in spite of growing trends, is still minimal compared to the rest of the continent.
Deregulation Policies and Problems
Among the most innovative aspects of Chilean urban policy are the following:
Although some of the achievements of these deregulation policies are widely recognized as positive-particularly in regard to legal and physical or urbanistic regularization and the quantity of social housing provided-many Chileans believe that the policies of the past 20 years have only caused new problems. Some of them are:
It is unclear whether these urban changes can be attributed directly to the effectiveness of market-oriented land policies or to the strong overall performance of the Chilean economy. The steady growth in gross domestic product (GDP), averaging about seven percent a year since 1985, was interrupted only recently due to the Asian economic crisis.
Expanding the Debate
The liberalization of urban land markets in Chile represents an intriguing and innovative experience from an international perspective, yet internal public debate has been limited. Recently, the achievements and problems of liberalization have reached a point of such undeniable importance that they have stimulated broad concerns. Furthermore, the government has proposed modifying the current “Ley General de Urbanismo y Construcciones” (Law of Urban Planning and Construction), which would result in a number of significant changes. Among the most important are:
To facilitate a focused discussion of these issues, Carlos Montes, President of the Chilean House of Representatives, invited the Lincoln Institute to participate in a seminar coordinated with the Institute of Urban Studies of the Catholic University of Chile. Titled “20 Years of Liberalization of Land Markets in Chile: Impacts on Social Housing Policy, Urban Growth and Land Prices,” the seminar was held in October 1999 in Santiago. It brought together members of the Chilean Congress, the business community (developers, financial leaders, etc.), officials of public agencies (ministries, municipalities, etc.), academics and representatives of NGOs to engage in a lively public debate. The discussion highlighted a clear ideological polarization between “liberal” and “progressive” approaches to understanding and solving deregulation issues (i.e., “more market” versus “more state”).
From a liberal point of view, these problems emerge and persist because land markets have never been sufficiently deregulated. Some liberals, in fact, insist that public intervention never disappeared; they believe that regulation actually increased after Chile’s return to democracy in 1990. For example, liberals cite various means, often indirect, by which the state restricts the free growth of cities, such as when it attempts to expand environmentally protected areas that are closed to urban uses or to impose an official and almost homogenous criterion of densification to all urban space. They also assert that citizens should be free to choose different lifestyles and that the authorities should limit themselves to informing citizens of the private and social costs of their options, with the implicit understanding that such costs are reflected in market prices when urban land markets are functioning efficiently (i.e., when they are fully liberalized).
The principal explanation offered by the liberals for the problems of equity and efficiency facing Chilean urban development today are insufficient advances in the application of criteria to “internalize the externalities,” particularly negative externalities, by those responsible for them. As passionately argued by some representatives of this group, private agents should be allowed to act freely, as long as they are willing to compensate society for the implied social costs incurred.
On the other hand, the progressives believe that liberalization has gone too far in its market approach and has left many problems unsolved: the increase in land prices; problems in the quality and durability of housing; the conditions under which land is serviced; social problems associated with urban poverty; and problems of efficiency and equity derived from the growth patterns of cities, such as the mismatch between areas where services are provided and the locations chosen for private developments.
These criticisms recognize the imperfect nature of urban markets and the need for greater levels of control and intervention. Among the forms of intervention recommended by many progressives are value capture instruments, which have rarely been used or even contemplated in financing programs for the public provision of new urban infrastructure and services. The creation of such mechanisms would be consistent with the idea of internalizing the externalities, a point of relative consensus between the progressives and the liberals. The main difference is that the liberals would restrict value capture to the public recovery of specific costs, whereas the progressives would consider the right to capture the full land value increment resulting from any public action, whether resulting from investment or regulation.
In more general terms, the progressives argue that not everything can be considered in strictly monetary terms. There are urban values and objectives related to public policy that cannot be achieved through the market, or for that matter by law, such as the sense of community. Although largely disregarded in the new housing options provided by private developers to low-income families, such as the voucher system, community solidarity is of tremendous importance to counteract the social problems that spatial segregation tends to exacerbate. Environmental conservation is another example of an urban policy objective for which “price tags” are seen to be of questionable effectiveness.
With regard to the free growth of cities and the idea of respecting the options of their citizens, the progressives react by noting that steep social and environmental costs tend to go hand-in-hand with sprawl. They also point out that the only group that can truly choose its way of life through the marketplace is the wealthy minority. While seeing benefits in concentration, progressives also voice concerns about extreme density. Some Chileans have expressed an interest in a metropolitan authority to deal with regional issues, and in the use of public infrastructure investment as a means of guiding growth.
Adequate responses to these issues and perspectives involve more than technical or fiscal solutions, such as the extent to which developers actually pay for the full cost of the changes they impose on society (let alone the problem of accurately assessing the costs) or the sustainability of the demand-driven voucher system which constitutes the core of Chile’s housing policy. The solutions also involve broader and more value-related concerns, such as the environmental costs of sprawl and the importance of maintaining local community identities and initiatives. Discussion in the Congress and other settings is still expanding, but is expected to take some time before the opposing perspectives reach consensus.
Martim O. Smolka is a senior fellow and the director of the Lincoln Institute’s Latin America and Caribbean Program. Francisco Sabatini is assistant professor of the Institute of Urban Studies at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. Laura Mullahy, research assistant, and Armando Carbonell, senior fellow, both of the Lincoln Institute, also contributed to this article.
Notes:
In contrast to the rest of the continent, drugs were not a major problem in Chile until recently.
2 Metropolitan Santiago is comprised of 35 independent political-administrative jurisdictions called comunas.
3 See Gareth A. Jones, “Comparative Policy Perspectives on Urban Land Market Reform,” Land Lines, November 1998.
4 Our use of the term “liberal” corresponds to its connotation in Chile, which refers to the strong influence of the economic principle of freeing market forces to their limits, as espoused by the “Chicago School.”
Sources: Francisco Sabatini, et.al., “Social Segregation in Santiago, Chile: Concepts, Methods and Urban Effects” (monograph, 1999) and Executive Secretariat of the Planning Commission for Investments in Transportation Infrastructure (SECTRA), “Survey of Origin and Destination of Trips in Santiago”(1991).
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Access to urban land by the popular sectors in metropolitan Lima has a troubled history resulting from the combination of spontaneous, unregulated land occupation and short-sighted policies to regularize land tenancy. Policies that were designed to resolve or mitigate irregular occupations have instead exacerbated the problem.
A workshop on “Local Governments and the Management of Urban Land: Peru and Latin America” in Lima in February brought together municipal officials, Latin American experts and community leaders to address the question, “Does the current regulatory framework guarantee the orderly and fair growth of Lima and other Peruvian cities?” The program was organized by the Lincoln Institute; the Institute of Urban Development CENCA, a community-based nongovernmental organization; the Local Governments Association of Peru; and Red Suelo, the land policy network of the Habitat International Coalition.
Regularization Policies
Land regularization is generally understood as the process of public intervention in illegally occupied zones to provide urban infrastructure improvements and to recognize ownership titles or other occupancy rights. Regularization policies are needed in many developing countries to reverse irregular and sometimes illegal development patterns, such as when land is occupied and housing is built before infrastructure improvements and legal documentation are put in place.
Since 1961, the central government of Peru has supported tolerant policies that have permitted the poor to occupy vacant public land, which was seen as a natural “land bank” resource. Most of this land consisted of sandy, almost desert terrain surrounding Lima which had little commercial value and was considered unsuitable for other market uses. Some 34 percent of Lima’s population lived in irregular “barriadas” or new towns in 1993.
In the absence of policies to effectively provide for organized and legal access to land, the permissiveness that allowed irregular development of these outlying areas has led to a crisis that now dominates the urban land policy agenda (see Figure 1). Many officials and other observers acknowledge that the system itself encourages and permits informal and unregulated growth, and that some of the policies designed to regularize land have actually created more irregularities.
Urban Land Management Problems
Management of urban land policies in Peru is presently being reevaluated because of tensions between central and local government control. Between 1981 and 1995, the municipalities managed land regularization procedures, authorizations and related policies. In 1996 the Peruvian government centralized the administration of economic resources relating to habitation and urban development, thereby denying local governments the ability to manage regularization problems. This political, administrative and fiscal centralization has created serious inefficiencies, however, since local government agencies must nevertheless respond to daily demands from the population regarding land and housing concerns.
Tensions also exist because of contradictions between the legal framework of formal regulations as promulgated by public officials and the informal market transactions that occur in the “real world” on a day-to-day basis. The mismatch between these formal and informal norms is reflected in the lack of understanding and distrust between the political authorities who determine land market policies and the urban practitioners and private agents who operate outside the formal policy framework.
In spite of attempts by commercial and nongovernmental organizations to improve the coordination and implementation of land policies that affect formal and informal market mechanisms, the political leaders still make the final decision. This situation exacerbates the politicization of public management (i.e., politics for politicians and not for the community). At the same time, it encourages a short-term perspective, since a governing authority is generally more interested in the immediate work to be accomplished than in a reliable follow-up of development plans requiring longer-term execution. As a result, Lima’s serious growth problems are not being adequately addressed by the current political, legal and regulatory framework.
Common Concerns
An important result of this workshop in Peru was the sharing of experiences from other Latin American and Asian cities where local governments can use public resources to promote more orderly cities. Even though the problems regarding land management are wide-ranging and complex, some common concerns emerged for discussion in future programs:
development of public policies and community-level initiatives to capture the value of “intermediate” land that is in the process of being developed and is often the most vulnerable to speculation;
municipal housing programs that use existing legal frameworks to encourage an orderly occupation of space. Specifically, there is a need to promote coordination among various public and private agents, as well as mechanisms to support financial credit for low-income people, housing construction, basic utility services and neighborhood participation strategies.
land regularization policies and a comprehensive articulation of land access policies to break the vicious cycle of irregularities that is causing the current urban growth and management problems.
better understanding of the dynamics of both formal and informal land markets, especially on the part of those who are charged with developing and implementing appropriate policies to address complex land market activities.
Some Definitions
Illegal – land occupation that expressly contradicts existing norms, civil codes and public authorization
Informal – economic activity that does not adhere to and is not protected by institutional rules, as opposed to formal activity that operates within established procedures
Irregular – subdivisions that are officially approved but are not executed in accordance with the law
Clandestine – subdivisions that are established without any official recognition
Figure 1: Regularization Policies on Land Tenancy in Lima
February 1961-1980: Law 13517 was established to make various central government agencies responsible for regularizing land tenancy procedures, but only 20,000 titles were issued.
1981-1995: The titling function was transferred to the Municipality of Lima and the delivery of land titles increased to some 200,000. In the 1990s the delivery capacity gradually decreased until it generated a land market crisis.
April 1996: The State Commission to Formalize Informal Property (COFROPI) was given responsibilities that were formerly assigned to the municipality.
Following a presidential promise to incorporate the poor into the land market process, some 170,000 property titles were delivered between July 1996 and July 1997. An additional 300,000 titles are expected to be delivered by the year 2000. However, COFROPI states that 90 percent or 180,000 of the titles delivered prior to 1995 have recordkeeping problems, so that many of the 170,000 titles delivered since July 1996 may be redundant. Hence, it is difficult to reconstruct how many titles were properly delivered under each administration.
Julio Calderon, an urban researcher and consultant on social development programs, is affiliated with Red Suelo, the land policy network of the Habitat International Coalition.
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The Lincoln Institute’s Latin America program pursues education and research projects with universities and local governments throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. These activities are especially salient now given many political and economic changes affecting Latin American land markets. For example, the (re)democratization of the continent is engaging a larger segment of the society in designing viable, innovative programs for local administrations of competing political parties.
In addition, institutional and in many cases constitutional reforms are affecting land values and landownership rights and regulations. Structural adjustment programs to curb inflation and overcome the economic crises of the 1980s are changing attitudes regarding holding land either as an investment or a reserve of value. Frequent speculative switches between land holdings and other financial assets according to the caprices of the prevailing ‘economic environment’ have been a planner’s nightmare in Latin America.
The forces of globalization and urbanization also contribute to significant and changing pressures on the use of land. More and more, Los Angeles-style landscapes can be found in certain suburbs of Sao Paulo, Santiago or Mexico City. While loss of the region’s biodiversity is well documented, Latin America is also at risk of losing its land use diversity.
In spite of these common themes, Latin America is hardly a homogeneous entity. Its diversity emerges clearly when examining the landownership and land market structures of different countries. For example:
The Chilean glorification of land markets contrasts with Cuba’s virtual elimination of land markets and resulting residential segregation.
Mexico had a unique experience with communal (ejido) lands that are now being privatized with important implications for new urban expansion.
In Brazil, frequent land conflicts, many with tragic consequences to the landless, can be attributed to a long-promised land reform yet to be implemented.
In Paraguay, until its recent democratization, land was traditionally attributed by the hegemonic political party, simply by-passing the market. In Argentina, on the other hand, the state uses its considerable stock of fiscal land to facilitate international investments in property developments directly through the market.
Nicaragua’s past land redistribution is probably responsible for the vigor of the recently liberalized property market and the strong land reconcentration processes now under way.
The booming land markets of Ecuador and Venezuela have often been attributed to the ease of laundering drug money from neighboring Colombia, where regulations are stricter.
Given this diversity, the Institute’s Latin America program is focusing its education and research efforts on building a network of highly qualified scholars and policymakers. Representing different countries and a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, they help identify topics of proven relevance for the region. Some examples of current topics grounded in public officials’ actual and anticipated needs are: rekindling the debate on the functioning of urban land markets; closing the gap between formal and informal land markets; and implementing new land policy instruments.
Access to land by the low-income urban population is the issue that best captures the hearts and minds of many researchers and public officials. Two connected research themes are 1) the mechanisms that generate residential segregation or exclusion through the market by private or public agents; and 2) the strategies of ‘the excluded’ to access land and subsequently formalize their ‘inclusion.’ Most of the Institute’s education programs being developed in Latin America to deal with land management and instruments of public intervention are informed directly or indirectly by this issue.
For many public officials in the region, land reform is a sensitive issue and capturing land value increments generated by public action is still seen suspiciously as a subversive idea. Thus, the Lincoln Institute is in a unique position as a neutral facilitator capable of collaborating with Latin American scholars and public officials as well as experts from the United States to provide a comparative, international perspective on land policy ideas and experiences.
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Martim Smolka, Senior Fellow of the Institute since September 1995, is on leave as associate professor at the Urban and Regional Research and Planning Institute at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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In preparation for the 2003–2004 academic year, the Lincoln Institute has made some changes in its departmental structure. We established the Department of International Studies to integrate the Institute’s international research and educational programs that address key land and tax policy issues identified by the existing departments of Valuation and Taxation and Planning and Development. This new department’s work includes the well-established Program on Latin America and the Caribbean and a new Program on the People’s Republic of China, as well as ongoing programs in Taiwan, Central and Eastern Europe and other areas of the world.
Cities in developing nations, and in Latin America in particular, vividly illustrate the contemporary relevance of Henry George’s concerns about progress engendering poverty through constraints on access to land ownership and persistent informality in land markets. The ten-year retrospective article on the Latin America Program (see page 8) provides an overview of the changing context of land and tax policy in the region and a review of the Institute’s current programs.
The new Program on the People’s Republic of China addresses the fundamental problems of land allocation, land taxation and the development of land markets in one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The Institute has an agreement with the Ministry of Land and Resources in Beijing to collaborate on researching and teaching land and tax policy (see Land Lines April 2003). Other partners in this initiative are the National Center for Smart Growth and the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs at the University of Maryland; the Development Research Center of the State Council; the China Development Institute in Shenzhen; and several university and local government departments.
China initiated fundamental and revolutionary land use reforms during the mid-1980s, addressing privately held land use rights, land banking, land trusts, land readjustments, and development of land markets in both urban and rural areas. The Institute will contribute to the implementation of these reform measures by sponsoring educational and training programs for Chinese public officials and practitioners and by supporting research and publications by both international and Chinese scholars. Institute faculty with expertise in urban and regional planning, real estate development, land economics and property taxation will introduce curriculum materials designed for China that build on our work in Latin America and other regions of the world.
The Institute is also continuing its long-term educational and research programs in collaboration with the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training in Taiwan, including the annual cosponsored course on “Infrastructure Planning and Urban Development” for public officials from developing countries. Institute faculty associated with the Department of Valuation and Taxation are involved with officials from the public and private sectors in Central and Eastern European countries as they develop and implement land and tax reforms
I believe this new department will help us operate more efficiently abroad and better integrate our international experiences in all areas.
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The United States is emerging from a great recession whose major hallmark has been the collapse of national housing prices, which grew by 59 percent from 2000 to 2006 and then fell 41 percent by 2011, all in constant dollars. Nationally, real house prices in 2011 were 6 percent below levels in 2000. The housing price collapse had unanticipated contagion effects that helped produce the accompanying financial crisis and the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. The share of U.S. mortgages that were delinquent by 90 days or more rose from about 1 percent in 2006 to over 8 percent in 2010. The economic and social costs of this house price bubble and subsequent collapse have been immense.
The benefits of preventing future house price bubbles is obviously great, but realizing such benefits will require that policy makers learn to detect price bubbles as they are forming and then implement policies that will attenuate or mitigate them. A recent Lincoln Institute policy focus report, Preventing House Price Bubbles: Lessons from the 2006–2012 Bust, by James Follain and Seth Giertz, addresses the challenges of diagnosing and treating price bubbles in the real estate market. Their report builds on extensive statistical analysis available in several Lincoln Institute working papers.
While it is common to summarize the recent housing market bust using national indicators (as in the first paragraph above), these national indicators don’t account for great variations in both the levels and changes in housing prices across metropolitan areas. For example, from 1978 to 2011, constant dollar housing prices in Dallas, Texas and Omaha, Nebraska varied by less than 20 percent from their 1978 levels; those in Stockton, California nearly tripled from 1978 to 2006, but by 2011 fell back to their 1978 levels. Local housing markets are all influenced by national economic and financial policies and conditions, but these large differences across metropolitan markets indicate that local conditions play a very important role as well.
A key element of the statistical work by Follain and Giertz is to use metropolitan housing markets as the unit of observation for their analyses, which are based on annual data (for 1980 to 2010) and quarterly data (for 1990 to 2010) for up to 380 metropolitan areas. Their econometric work indicates that house price bubbles can be detected across metropolitan areas and that price changes and the accompanying credit risk vary greatly in size. Stress tests, such as those used to evaluate mortgage credit risk, can be useful indicators of potential price bubbles at the metropolitan level.
Because the levels and changes in housing prices vary greatly across metropolitan areas—with bubble-like price increases in some and essentially stable prices in others—Follain and Giertz conclude that policy measures to mitigate housing bubbles should be tailored to target metropolitan areas or regions rather than be applied uniformly across all metropolitan areas at the national level. Thus monetary policy would be an unattractive intervention to counter house price increases in a few metropolitan areas, because it would affect financing terms across both frothy and stable housing markets. Instead, Follain and Giertz favor policy interventions that would target those metropolitan areas with high price increases. The policy they advance would raise the capital reserve ratio that banks are required to hold against mortgages that they finance in those areas. Such countercyclical capital policies would both dampen house price increases and strengthen the reserves of the issuing banks, improving their ability to withstand any unexpected financial shocks.
Applying prudential housing market policies at the metro-politan level seems to be an obvious thing to do; so why has it not been done before? A major part of the answer is that housing market analysis is benefitting from a revolution in the availability of spatially disaggregated data at the metropolitan, county, and even zip code level. The data required to inform policy interventions targeted at the metropolitan level have only recently become widely available, and such data underpin the empirical work carried out by Follain and Giertz. For more information on their analysis, see http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/2245_Preventing-House-Price-Bubbles.
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The Impacts of Land Use Regulations in Latin America
Cynthia Goytia is a professor in the urban economics and public policy graduate programs at Torcuato Di Tella University (TDTU) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She serves as the director of both TDTU’s M.Sc. in urban economics program and its Urban Policy and Housing Research Center (CIPUV). Cynthia has also lectured at the University of Cambridge and London School of Economics.
Since 2009, the Lincoln Institute has supported her research on the impacts of residential land use regulations on informality, urban extension, and land values in Latin American cities. In her consulting practice, she has worked with a number of government departments in Argentina and other Latin American countries, as well as several international organizations such as the World Bank, UN University World Institute for Development Economics Research, and the Development Bank of Latin America, among others.
Cynthia holds a M.Sc. in urban economics and a Ph.D. in regional and urban planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
LAND LINES: Local land use regulation is a difficult topic to tackle. Although zoning and other interventions can be a strong remedy for market failures, they can have unplanned adverse effects. How did you come to take on this type of research?
CYNTHIA GOYTIA: I became interested in the economic analysis of land use interventions as I began to recognize that land markets are about more than just land and location. Over the last 30 years or so, land use regulation and zoning have become much more important than land taxation in determining quality of life for people in cities. And over time, I noticed that land use interventions designed to achieve socially desirable ends sometimes had unintended negative consequences that planners and policy makers had totally failed to anticipate. For example, government regulations affect access to a wide range of public goods and, as a result, may lead to increased residential segregation and informal development.
All these facts encouraged me to research the effects of government interventions on the land market. I also realized that part of the knowledge gap about regulatory effects in Latin America resulted from the lack of comparable and systematic data on land use. So in 2005, I began an extensive research agenda on this subject, which started as a cooperative effort with Argentina’s national government and later gained the strong support of the Lincoln Institute.
LL: How relevant to Latin America are the results of recent studies claiming that over-regulation of land use in developed countries drives up housing prices?
CG: Our empirical research provides evidence that by increasing prices in the formal land market, thus reducing the supply of housing affordable to low-income households, some aspects of land use regulation could promote more informal development. For example, the Land Use Law enacted in Buenos Aires Province 38 years ago defined new requirements for minimum lot size and forced developers to finance the infrastructure for new subdivisions. These requirements priced low-income households out of the legal land market and into the informal sector.
While the overall objectives of the law were not bad, they had unintended consequences for housing affordability. As a result, the land market was severely skewed to the higher-income segment, while the low-income submarket—households that previously had been allowed to construct their own houses on residential lots—was practically dismantled by the time the new land use standards were enacted and enforced. Not surprisingly, these types of constraints have led to illegal occupation of land in nearly two-thirds of the municipal jurisdictions forming Argentina’s metropolitan areas, including Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.
LL: Many analysts assert that exclusionary building and land use codes are largely responsible for rampant informality in the region. How would you respond to that criticism?
CG: My recent research supports the claim that land use regulation is used not only to correct for market failures, but it can constitute a way to achieve exclusionary aims as well. We have found that municipalities with large shares of both educated households and disadvantaged populations tend to impose more restrictive residential zoning to maximize the benefits that formal home owners receive from their local governments.
There are some interesting correlations between the use of exclusionary measures in some jurisdictions and conditions in nearby areas. For example, municipalities in Buenos Aires with stringent policies about infrastructure provision are surrounded by municipalities with large shares of households that lack basic services. Indeed, under-provision of infrastructure is central to the idea of urban exclusion. The local government may thus attempt to indirectly regulate the scope of informal development by failing to pave the roads or provide connections to water and sewerage services. Under-servicing informal settlements may be a strategic device to discourage migration to areas experiencing population growth pressure, which are already highly populated, richer, and reluctant to share their tax base with lower-income migrants.
LL: Among the many factors accounting for informality in Latin America, where would you place land use regulation?
CG: Our research provides evidence of a link between land use regulation and the housing choices of urban households in Argentina. Municipalities that have enacted more land regulatory measures also have larger informal sectors, suggesting that the regulatory environment severely constrains development of formal low-income land and housing markets. For example, minimum lot sizes set up land consumption levels that low-income households cannot afford. Moreover, these regulations determine the amount of housing that can be built on lots by setting maximum heights, floor area ratios, or allocation of open space—skewing the supply to the upper-income market. Relatively high project approval costs (in terms of both time and money) also have negative impacts by raising the final cost of housing and/or discouraging developers from building housing for low-income households. At the same time, however, inclusionary policies—including value capture or betterment levies, impact fees, and setting vacant land aside for affordable housing—reduce the likelihood that households resort to informal land markets.
One of the most important concepts we need to understand is that informality is not merely a poverty issue, but rather a land market distortion that affects households of all incomes. Therefore, land use regulation should contribute to the design of policies that are able to address the fundamental causes of informality and hold down the prices of serviced land.
LL: The efficiency-equity trade-off seems to be at the heart of debates about land use regulation. This trade-off is played out under different rules when it comes to higher-income and lower-income urban areas, as plainly revealed in Brazil’s special zones of social interest (ZEIS)—low-income areas preserved for affordable housing by the state.
CG: You are right. Rules such as general-purpose urban zoning regulations are quite different from the pro-poor standards allowed in ZEIS. General-purpose zoning is meant to improve the efficiency of urban land use, especially in the formal housing market. Adequate planning facilitates timely infrastructure investment and large-scale urban development. Overall, efficient land use contributes to improved urban productivity. But many times, it does not in itself ensure affordability for lower-income groups.
At present, we do not have a rigorous evaluation of ZEIS effects, but it is important to consider two facts when it comes to the less stringent standards set for low-income housing. First, the rationale for allowing different regulations for particular segments of the housing market is that doing so enhances general welfare. Second, the pragmatic solution of regularizing informal areas raises the question of why municipalities do not allow higher densities in the first place, provided that the appropriate infrastructure is put in place. In theory, allowing higher-density development in formal areas would increase the overall supply of buildable land, thereby reducing prices and increasing the availability of affordable housing.
LL: Are there any good examples of politically feasible, socially inclusive land use regulations?
CG: In most developing countries, the challenge is to design policies that address the fundamental causes of informality and promote social inclusion. Jurisdictions that have adopted—and effectively implemented—inclusionary measures are now better able to provide more affordable housing options in the formal market. But there are at least two distinct types of approaches, which push the land use regulation agenda in our cities in different ways and have various implications.
The first type of approach focuses on easing land use restrictions that disproportionately affect the supply of low-income housing. We know that higher land costs due to “forced consumption” make housing less affordable to lower-income families. Revising these types of standards—such as allowing condominium units in low-density areas (where most low-income households live), increasing floor area ratios, and reducing minimum lot sizes for subdivisions where infrastructure is phased in—helps to improve housing affordability in the formal market. These measures also make it more profitable to develop low-income housing, thereby increasing the incentives to supply units for this market segment. There are now some examples of formal developers building low-income subdivisions and affordable housing units in some municipalities where population and affordable housing demand have been growing fast, such as La Matanza, in the Buenos Aires metro area.
The second type of land use innovation involves making changes to regulatory frameworks. Government jurisdictions at all levels are now enacting a variety of policies that play a more active role in land and infrastructure development and finance, guiding urban growth and infill development while also capturing the value of large-scale public investments. Rosario, Argentina, provides a great example. The government there grants building rights—notably in high-income areas—as long as the proceeds are used to fund the public investments necessary to support higher densities and to provide serviced land for affordable housing or for informal settlements.
I have already underscored the importance of infrastructure spending. Over the last decade, metropolitan agglomerations in Argentina were expanding 3.5 percent annually on average while the population was growing by 1.2 percent annually. This development path makes the financing of infrastructure imperative. Some municipal governments have responded by implementing betterment levies. Trenque Lauquen is a case in point. The municipality has used the levies not only to finance infrastructure investments, but also to manage urban growth and make land available for different uses, including low-income housing. Although limited in scope, this success shows that betterment levies are a feasible and flexible instrument that can help expand urban services. It also prevents informal land subdividers from exploiting the gap between the prices of raw and fully serviced formal land.
LL: Based on what we know and do not know about land use regulation in Latin America, which research priorities do you think the Lincoln Institute should pursue?
CG: The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has been doing a great job in generating knowledge about land use regulation in Latin America through its support of research, seminars, and other activities, and by encouraging valuable interactions among a broad audience of urban planners and policy makers in the region. Now we need to build on this knowledge to promote policies that improve land and housing affordability, and to identify the sources of supply distortions that lead to low compliance and widespread informality.
This means improving our understanding of the impacts of regulatory innovations now taking place in the region. Although we have some case studies about the effects of these new tools, we need to carry out a comprehensive review of the ways cities, municipalities, states, and national offices define their regulatory frameworks. Creating a comprehensive database of this information for the main urban agglomerations in the region would allow comparisons over time and across municipalities.
To this end, we at CIPUV performed a nationwide survey of planning officials about local land use regulations in Argentina’s metropolitan areas. The set of indicators assembled in the CIPUV Index of Land Policy (CILP) provides detailed information on such parameters as the existence of land use plans, the authorities involved in zoning changes and residential project approval processes, the existence of building restrictions, the costs related to project approvals, and the implementation of value capture instruments.
Over the years, our research has started to reshape planners’ attitudes about regulatory frameworks. We have initiated a dialogue with planners and public officials in the hope of gaining new insights about the role of land markets within cities and the impacts of regulations. In addition, our standardized indices have enabled comparisons of regulations across municipalities as well as analysis at the metropolitan and state levels. As a result, some municipal and provincial jurisdictions in Argentina have recently updated, or are in the process of updating, their land use plans and laws, some of which date back nearly half a century.
LL: Would it be feasible to develop an international version of the CIPUV Index of Land Policy?
CG: Yes. Taking up such an initiative would have two important effects. First, it would allow comparisons of metropolitan areas throughout Latin America and increase the visibility of successes that some cities have had in increasing land affordability. And second, it would provide fertile ground for policy makers and researchers to learn which initiatives lead to better outcomes. It is not only feasible, but a central challenge that should be addressed in the coming years.
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Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 2 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
Uno de los más formidables retos para los líderes políticos y sociales de este siglo radica en poder crear condiciones económicas e institucionales que conduzcan a una gestión ambiental urbana eficaz, y que al mismo tiempo estén comprometidas a consolidar la democracia, promover la justicia social y erradicar la pobreza urbana. Este desafío de promoción de la inclusión socioespacial resulta todavía más significativo en los países en vías de desarrollo y con economías en transición, dada la complejidad de los problemas resultantes de la urbanización intensiva, la degradación ambiental, las crecientes desigualdades socioeconómicas y la segregación espacial. Merece especial atención el debate sobre las condiciones jurídico-políticas del desarrollo y la gestión ambiental urbana.
La discusión sobre ley e ilegalidad en el contexto del desarrollo urbano ha cobrado impulso en años recientes, especialmente desde que el Programa Hábitat1 de la ONU destacó la importancia fundamental del Derecho Urbanístico. En los talleres de trabajo facilitados por el Grupo Internacional de Investigación sobre Legislación y Espacio Urbano (IRGLUS) de los últimos ocho años, los investigadores han señalado la necesidad de realizar un análisis crítico del papel de las instituciones y de las estipulaciones jurídicas en el proceso de urbanización. Según lo sugiere la Campaña Mundial de Gobernabilidad Urbana del Centro de las Naciones Unidas para los Asentamientos Humanos (CNUAH)2, la promoción de la reforma jurídica ha sido considerada por organizaciones nacionales e internacionales como una de las condiciones principales para cambiar la naturaleza excluyente del desarrollo urbano en países en desarrollo y en transición, y para confrontar eficazmente el problema cada vez mayor de la ilegalidad urbana.
Las prácticas ilegales han proliferado de formas variadas, especialmente en el contexto cada vez más extenso de la economía informal. Un número creciente de personas han tenido que ponerse al margen de la ley para poder tener acceso a tierra y viviendas urbanas, y se ven forzadas a vivir sin seguridad de tenencia en condiciones muy precarias, generalmente en zonas periféricas. Este proceso tiene muchas repercusiones serias —sociales, políticas, económicas y ambientales— y requiere confrontación por parte del gobierno y de la sociedad. Generalmente se reconoce que la ilegalidad urbana debe entenderse no sólo en términos de la dinámica entre sistemas políticos y de mercados del suelo, sino también en función de la naturaleza del orden jurídico en vigor, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a la definición de los derechos de propiedad inmobiliaria urbana. La promoción de la reforma urbana depende principalmente de una reforma comprensiva del orden jurídico, que modifique los reglamentos de los derechos de propiedad del suelo y el proceso general de desarrollo, legislación y gestión del suelo urbano. Se ha concedido especial importancia a las políticas de regularización de la tenencia, dirigidas a promover la integración socioespacial del pobre urbano, tales como las propuestas por Campaña Mundial de Tenencia Segura del CNUAH.
Comparación entre enfoques conservadores e innovadores
Este complejo debate jurídico-político tiene serias repercusiones socioeconómicas en el mundo entero, y debe considerarse bajo tres enfoques político-ideológicos, conservadores pero influyentes, del derecho y la reglamentación jurídica.
En primer lugar, la función de la ley en el desarrollo urbano no puede cifrarse a los términos simplistas propuestos por quienes sugieren —a pesar de los resultados históricos— que el capitalismo de por sí permite distribuir ampliamente la riqueza, y quienes defienden un estilo “no intervencionista” a la regulación estatal para controlar el desarrollo urbano. Considerando que la globalización es sin duda irreversible y en cierto modo independiente de la acción gubernamental, no hay justificación histórica para la ideología neoliberal que supone que al maximizarse el crecimiento y la riqueza, el mercado libre también optimiza la distribución de ese incremento (Hobsbawn 2000).
Varios indicadores de la creciente pobreza social, especialmente los que guardan estrecha relación con las condiciones precarias del acceso al suelo y a la vivienda en áreas urbanas, demuestran que, incluso si el mundo se ha enriquecido como resultado del crecimiento económico y financiero mundial, la distribución social y regional de esta nueva riqueza dista de ser óptima. Aún más, el desarrollo industrial exitoso de muchos países (por ejemplo Estados Unidos, Alemania o incluso Brasil y México) se logró adoptando medidas de regulación y rechazando la aceptación incondicional de la lógica del mercado libre. Quizás más que nunca es de importancia capital redefinir la acción estatal y la regulación económica en países en desarrollo y en transición, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la promoción del desarrollo urbano, la reforma del suelo, el control del uso del suelo y la gestión de la ciudad. No se puede pasar por alto el papel central de la ley en este proceso.
En segundo lugar, el efecto de la globalización económica y financiera sobre el desarrollo de los mercados del suelo ha presionado a los países en desarrollo y en transición para que reformen sus leyes nacionales del suelo y homogenicen sus sistemas jurídicos a fin de facilitar la gestión internacional de los mercados del suelo. Este énfasis en una reforma globalizada orientada al mercado de la tenencia de la tierra y del derecho, con la resultante “americanización de las leyes comerciales y la expansión de bufetes anglo-estadounidenses mundiales”, se basa en un enfoque del suelo “puramente como un activo económico que debería estar a la disposición de cualquiera que pueda aprovecharlo para lograr los más altos y mejores beneficios económicos”. Este punto de vista está encaminado a facilitar las inversiones extranjeras en el suelo, más que a reconocer “el papel social del suelo en la sociedad” y que dicho suelo es “parte del patrimonio social del Estado” (McAuslan 2000).
Un tercer y cada vez más influyente punto de vista se ha basado mayoritariamente, y a veces imprecisamente, en las ideas del economista Hernando de Soto. Él defiende la noción de que se puede resolver el problema de la pobreza global si se incorpora la creciente economía extralegal informal a la economía formal, particularmente en áreas urbanas. En su opinión, los pequeños negocios informales y viviendas marginales de los pobres son esencialmente activos económicos (“capital muerto”), que deberían ser revitalizados por el sistema jurídico oficial y convertidos en un capital líquido que permita a sus dueños el acceso al crédito formal y la posibilidad de invertir en sus viviendas y negocios, y de esa manera fortalecer la economía como un todo. Ahora bien, en vez de cuestionar la naturaleza del sistema jurídico que generó la ilegalidad urbana en primer lugar, varios países han propuesto la total —y frecuentemente incondicional— legalización de los negocios informales y el reconocimiento incondicional de títulos de propiedad absoluta para los habitantes urbanos de algunos asentamientos informales como método “radical” para transformar las economías urbanas.
Contrario a estos enfoques conservadores, varios estudios recientes han señalado que, en ausencia de planes urbanos bien estructurados, coherentes y progresistas, el enfoque del (neo)liberalismo jurídico no hará más que agravar el ya serio problema de la exclusión socioespacial. Tanto legisladores como organismos públicos deben tomar conciencia de las muchas y a veces malignas repercusiones de sus propuestas, especialmente las relativas a la legalización de los asentamientos informales. El tan esperado reconocimiento de la responsabilidad del Estado por suministrar derechos de vivienda social no puede reducirse al reconocimiento de los derechos de propiedad. La legalización de actividades informales, particularmente a través del reconocimiento de los títulos individuales de propiedad, no garantiza automáticamente la integración socioespacial.
Y si no se formulan dentro del ámbito de políticas socioeconómicas comprensivas y no se asimilan a una estrategia ampliada de gestión urbana, las políticas de legalización de la tenencia podrían tener efectos indeseados (Alfonsin 2001), entre ellos: nuevas cargas financieras no intencionales a los pobres urbanos, poco efecto en la reducción de la pobreza urbana, y, lo más importante, el refuerzo directo de los poderes económicos y políticos que han sido los causantes tradicionales de la exclusión socioespacial. Las nuevas políticas deben integrar cuatro factores principales:
La búsqueda de soluciones jurídico-políticas novedosas de tenencia para los pobres urbanos debe integrar la promoción de la tenencia individual con el reconocimiento de los derechos sociales de vivienda, incorporar esa dimensión siempre olvidada del papel de la mujer e intentar reducir los impactos de tales soluciones en el mercado del suelo, para que los beneficios de las inversiones públicas estén a disposición de los pobres urbanos y no de los promotores inmobiliarios privados. Perseguir esos objetivos es de fundamental importancia dentro del contexto de la promoción de una estrategia de reforma urbana más amplia y de carácter inclusivo (Payne). Varias ciudades, como Porto Alegre, Ciudad de México y Caracas, han tratado de materializar planes urbanos progresistas con la reforma de sus sistemas jurídicos tradicionales. Entre las medidas significantes que se han tomado para democratizar el acceso al suelo y a la propiedad, figuran normas y regulaciones de naturaleza menos elitista, zonificación residencial especial para los pobres urbanos y cambios en los mecanismos fiscales de captura de plusvalías del suelo, para tornarlos menos regresivos.
Para ampliar el debate
Dentro del contexto de estos acalorados debates sobre Derecho Urbanístico, el Instituto Lincoln prestó su apoyo a tres conferencias internacionales recientes:
Ley y gobernabilidad urbana
En vista del énfasis relativamente nuevo en establecer vínculos entre los estudios urbanos y los estudios jurídicos, es necesario que la dimensión jurídica del proceso de desarrollo urbano se convierta en el centro de la investigación de una forma más explícita. Para ello se requiere un abordaje más coherente al lenguaje, de manera que conceptos claves, como los derechos de propiedad, puedan discutirse adecuadamente tanto en términos políticos como jurídicos. La mayoría de los artículos presentados en esta conferencia de IRGLUS se centraron en la regularización del suelo. La regularización se ha convertido en la respuesta política más frecuente al problema general de los asentamientos ilegales, pero el término es usado de muchas maneras y con diferentes significados por diferentes organismos e investigadores. Para implementar la dimensión física de las políticas de regularización se impone actualizar infraestructuras e introducir servicios, como también destacar puntos de sensibilidad cultural. Por ejemplo, para que las políticas de regularización aporten seguridad de tenencia, se deberá prestar más atención al impacto del proceso sobre la mujer.
Los participantes también señalaron los efectos de las políticas de regularización en los mercados de suelo formales e informales. Algunos perciben la regularización como un “mercadeo” de los procesos operativos de los antiguos asentamientos ilegales. Un punto de preocupación fue la posibilidad de “elitización” (gentrification) la cual en este caso no se refiere a restaurar y cambiar el uso de las edificaciones, sino más bien al proceso mediante el cual grupos de medianos ingresos “invaden” asentamientos recientemente regularizados para fines residenciales u otros, hasta desalojar a los inquilinos originales. No hay duda de que al definir las políticas de regularización, es importante considerar una amplia gama de aspectos económicos y políticos. En particular, hay que incluir a los habitantes de los asentamientos ilegales en la vida económica y política de la ciudad, para así evitar mayor segregación socioeconómica y sus peligros asociados.
Dar respuestas adecuadas a los problemas complejos de los asentamientos ilegales es difícil, aparte de que las soluciones particulares no siempre funcionan en todos los casos. A la hora de la verdad, el éxito de un programa de regularización depende de acciones gubernamentales y de costosos programas y reformas jurídicas. Sin embargo, hay una brecha significativa entre las preguntas planteadas y la práctica real. Debido a la urgencia de adelantarse a los procesos de los asentamientos ilegales, los organismos públicos se están concentrando en la cura, y no en la prevención.
¿Cómo pueden los gobiernos municipales detener el proceso de los asentamientos ilegales? Aportando soluciones más eficaces de suelo y vivienda. Los participantes de la conferencia defendieron la legitimidad de los programas de tenencia, pragmáticamente en algunos casos, como un derecho fundamental en otros. Dado el enfoque de direccionamiento “desde arriba” que suele aplicarse a este asunto, se debe ampliar el círculo de participantes con capacidad decisoria para que incluya la voz de los pobres urbanos.
Conferencia del CNUAH/CEPAL
América Latina fue la única región que elaboró un plan de acción para el programa Hábitat II, señal de que, a pesar de las diferencias fundamentales de tipo lingüístico, histórico y cultural de la región, existe un plan común que debería facilitar la colaboración. La estructura urbana de la región está pasando por cambios profundos como resultado de varios procesos combinados, entre ellos:
Todos estos problemas han empeorado debido a la expansión de la globalización económica, las políticas de liberalización inapropiadas y los esquemas de privatización carentes de regulación. Pese a su rápida integración al creciente mercado global, América Latina ha experimentado una explosión de pobreza social en la última década. Las proyecciones del Banco Mundial sugieren que, de no confrontarse este problema, 55 millones de latinoamericanos podrían estar viviendo con menos de US$1 al día en la próxima década.
La Declaración de Santiago producto de esta conferencia estableció la meta de un plan ambiental urbano para poner en marcha diálogos político-institucionales y gestiones conjuntas. El objetivo es crear las condiciones necesarias para salvar los obstáculos de gobernabilidad política que siguen oponiéndose a los esfuerzos de las dos décadas pasadas para promover reformas económicas y democratización en la región. A fin de desarrollar una estructura urbana más competitiva y eficiente, tal plan de acción regional debe:
Como parte de una estrategia de reforma urbana más amplia, debe prestarse atención urgente a la necesidad de suministrar condiciones habitacionales mejores y más accesibles para los pobres urbanos. Dada la reciente disminución de las inversiones públicas habitacionales en la mayor parte de América Latina, es crítico comenzar ya a proporcionar nuevas unidades habitacionales, mejorar las existentes y regularizar los asentamientos informales.
Igualmente, la Declaración de Santiago adelantó una variedad de propuestas, entre ellas nuevos marcos normativos para políticas urbanas y habitacionales; políticas de organización territorial y mecanismos de control del uso del suelo; y políticas públicas para integración social e igualdad de los géneros. Sin embargo, no confrontó el hecho de que muchos de los problemas sociales, urbanos y ambientales de la región son consecuencia de los sistemas jurídicos nacionales de carácter conservador, elitista y mayormente obsoleto que siguen vigentes en muchos países. Cualquier propuesta para un nuevo equilibrio entre estados, mercados y ciudadanos para apoyar el proceso de reforma urbana, requiere no sólo cambios económicos y político-institucionales, sino también una completa reforma jurídica, especialmente la gestión jurídico-política de los derechos de propiedad.
Conferencia de Derecho Urbanístico de Brasil
La constitución brasileña de 1988 introdujo un capítulo pionero sobre política urbana al consolidar la noción de la “función social de la propiedad y de la ciudad” como el principal marco conceptual para el Derecho Urbanístico brasileño. Si bien es cierto que las constituciones brasileñas desde 1934 establecían nominalmente que el reconocimiento del derecho individual de propiedad estaba condicionado a la realización de una “función social”, hasta 1988 no se había definido claramente este principio ni se había podido ejecutar con los mecanismos de observancia en vigor. La Constitución de 1988 reconoce el derecho individual de propiedad en áreas urbanas únicamente si el uso y desarrollo del suelo y de la propiedad satisfacen las estipulaciones con sesgo social y ambiental del Derecho Urbanístico, especialmente de los planes maestros formulados en los ámbitos municipales. Como resultado, se ha decretado un sinnúmero de leyes municipales urbanas y ambientales para apoyar una amplia variedad de políticas y estrategias de gestión urbana progresista.
Algunas de las experiencias internacionales más innovadoras de gestión urbana están teniendo lugar en Brasil, como el proceso del presupuesto participativo adoptado en varias ciudades (Goldsmith y Vainer, 2001). La inminente aprobación de la Ley Nacional de Desarrollo Urbano (el llamado “Estatuto de la ciudad”) debe contribuir a consolidar el nuevo paradigma constitucional de planificación y gestión urbana, especialmente por el hecho de reglamentar instrumentos de observanción constitucional tales como edificación obligatoria, transferencia del derecho de construir, expropiación mediante tributación progresista y derechos de prescripción adquisitiva.
Proceder a ese cambio en el paradigma jurídico es de importancia fundamental. La tradición incipiente de estudios jurídicos urbanísticos en Brasil tiende a ser esencialmente legalista, pero refuerza las nociones tradicionales del derecho individual de propiedad especificadas en el Código Civil de 1916. Este Código obsoleto considera el suelo y los derechos de propiedad casi exclusivamente en función de las posibilidades económicas ofrecidas a los propietarios individuales, sin dejar mucho campo para una intervención estatal con sesgo social, dirigida a conciliar los diferentes intereses existentes sobre el uso del suelo y de la propiedad. Tan importante es decretar nuevas leyes como lo es consolidar el marco conceptual propuesto por la Constitución de 1988, y de esa manera sustituir las estipulaciones individualistas del Código Civil, las cuales todavía sientan las bases para una interpretación judicial conservadora sobre el desarrollo del suelo. Gran parte de la resistencia ideológica a las políticas urbanas progresistas que sostienen grandes grupos conservadores de la sociedad brasileña tiene su origen en el Código, que no considera el papel de la ley y la ilegalidad en el proceso de desarrollo urbano y de gestión urbana.
Los artículos presentados en esta conferencia exploran las posibilidades jurídicas, políticas e institucionales creadas por el nuevo marco constitucional para ejecutar acciones estatales y sociales en el proceso de desarrollo urbano y control de uso del suelo. Los participantes recalcaron que la discusión de leyes, instituciones jurídicas y decisiones judiciales debe estar respaldada por un entendimiento de la naturaleza del proceso legislativo, las condiciones de cumplimiento de la ley, y la dinámica del proceso de producción social de ilegalidad urbana.
Los participantes también advirtieron que si el tratamiento jurídico del derecho de propiedad se saca del ámbito restrictivo del Derecho Civil, de forma que pueda ser interpretado a partir de los criterios más progresistas del redefinido Derecho Urbanístico público redefinido, entonces las posibilidades ofrecidas por el Derecho Administrativo brasileño tampoco son satisfactorias. Las estipulaciones existentes y en vigor, limitadas y formalistas, carecen de suficiente flexibilidad y competencia para manejar y garantizar la seguridad jurídica y las relaciones político-institucionales que están transformándose rápidamente en varios niveles: dentro del entorno estatal, entre niveles gubernamentales, entre Estado y sociedad, y dentro de ésta. Las nuevas estrategias de gestión urbana se basan en ideas tales como plusvalías, asociaciones público-privadas, operaciones “urbanas” e “interligadas”, privatización y terciarización de la prestación de servicios públicos y presupuesto participativo; el problema es que dichas estrategias carecen de un soporte pleno del sistema jurídico. Además, la nueva base constitucional del Derecho Urbanístico brasileño todavía requiere consolidarse como el primer marco jurídico para la gestión urbana.
Conclusión
Todavía quedan sin contestar muchas preguntas importantes sobre ley e ilegalidad urbana, y antes de que puedan contestarse adecuadamente, se necesitarán muchos más trabajos, investigaciones y debates. Sin embargo, formular las preguntas correctas es a veces tan importante como dar las respuestas acertadas. Por esa razón, el debate de la dimensión jurídica del proceso de desarrollo urbano y de gestión urbana continuará explorando las interrogantes para América Latina y el resto del mundo.
Notas
1) Programa Hábitat: Plan de acción global adoptado por la comunidad internacional en la Conferencia Hábitat II en Estambul, Turquía, en junio de 1996
2) CNUAH: Centro de las Naciones Unidas para los Asentamientos Humanos (Hábitat). Consulte los sitios www.unchs.org/govern y www.unchs.org/tenure para obtener información sobre la Campaña Mundial de Gobernabilidad Urbana y la Campaña Mundial de Tenencia Segura del CNUAH.
Referencias
Alfonsin, Betania de Moraes. 2001. “Politicas de regularizacao fundiaria: justificacao, impactos e sustentabilidade”, in Fernándes, Edésio (org) Direito Urbanistico e Politica Urbana no Brasil. Belo Horizonte: Del Rey.
de Soto, Hernando. 2000. The Mystery of Capital. London: Bantam Press.
1989. The Other Path. London: I.B.Tauris & Co.
Fernandes, Edésio. 1999. “Redefinición de los derechos de propiedad en la era de la liberalización y la privatización”, Land Lines (noviembre) 11(6):4-5.
Goldsmith, William W., and Carlos B. Vainer. 2001. “Participatory budgeting and power politics in Porto Alegre”. Land Lines (January) 13(1):7-9.
Hobsbawn, Eric. 2000. The New Century. London: Abacus.
McAuslan, Patrick. 2000. “From Greenland’s icy mountains, from India’s coral strand: the globalisation of land markets and its impact on national land law”. Trabajo presentado en la Conferencia de Derecho Urbanístico de Brasil.
Payne, Geoffrey. “Innovative approaches to tenure for the urban poor”. United Kingdom Department for International Development.
Sobre el autor
Edésio Fernandes, abogado brasileño, es profesor de la Unidad de Planificación para el Desarrollo del University College de Londres. También se desempeña como coordinador de IRGLUS (Grupo Internacional de Investigación sobre Legislación y Espacio Urbano). Fernándes desea expresar su agradecimiento a los participantes del taller de trabajo del IRGLUS en Cairo quienes compartieron sus notas, especialmente Ann Varley, Gareth A. Jones y Peter Marcuse.
Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 5 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.
Pocos países de América Latina (o del resto del mundo) se han atrevido a poner en práctica reformas tan radicales de la política de tierras urbanas como lo ha hecho Chile en los últimos 20 años. En 1979 el gobierno comenzó a aplicar las políticas de desregulación mediante la publicación de un documento donde se establecía que la escasez de la tierra era un producto artificial de la excesiva regulación, que había llevado a la virtual eliminación de los límites de crecimiento urbano.
Desde entonces ha habido cambios numerosos en la morfología y estructura interna de las ciudades chilenas, pero la evaluación de dichos cambios varía según la posición ideológica de quien evalúa. Si bien las políticas urbanas explícitas de orientación social han propiciado un mejoramiento significativo en lo que se refiere al acceso a la vivienda para la población de bajos recursos, algunas personas sostienen que la segregación espacial derivada de tales políticas ha perjudicado a la sociedad al indirectamente disminuir la calidad de vida, impedir el acceso al trabajo y agravar la alienación social.
Incluso antes del período del gobierno militar de 1973 a 1990, Chile estaba reconocido por su sistema político unitario y centralista, caracterizado por una fuerte presencia del Estado en la economía y la política. Esta sociedad con cultura relativamente homogénea se diferencia de otros países latinoamericanos por su fuerte tradición legalista. De la misma manera, las ciudades chilenas exhiben marcados contrastes cuando se las compara con sus homólogas latinoamericanas. Prácticamente no hay mercados de tierra informales; la tenencia de la tierra ha sido casi completamente regularizada mediante programas públicos radicales; y la mayoría de los pobres urbanos viven en áreas urbanizadas cuyas calles principales están pavimentadas. La violencia urbana, a pesar de su tendencia creciente, es aún mínima si se la compara con el resto del continente.
Políticas y problemas de la liberalización
Entre los aspectos más innovadores de la política urbana chilena figuran los siguientes:
Si bien, algunos de los logros de estas políticas de liberalización se han reconocido ampliamente como positivos -particularmente en lo que se refiere a la regularización legal y física o urbanística y la cantidad de vivienda social proporcionada- muchos chilenos creen que las políticas de los últimos 20 años han sido una fuente de nuevos problemas, entre ellos:
No está claro si estos cambios urbanos pueden atribuirse directamente a la eficacia de las políticas urbanas de mercado, o a la positiva evolución de la economía chilena en general. El crecimiento sostenido del producto interno bruto (GDP), con un promedio del 7 % anual desde 1985, se interrumpió sólo recientemente debido a los efectos de la crisis asiática.
Expansión del debate
A pesar de que la liberalización de los mercados de suelo urbano en Chile constituye una experiencia interesante e innovadora desde un punto de vista internacional, el debate público interno ha sido limitado. No obstante, los logros y problemas de la liberalización han llegado a tal punto de importancia que últimamente han estimulado un nivel generalizado de preocupación y una variedad de planteamientos al respecto. Más aún, el gobierno está proponiendo una serie de modificaciones de la actual “Ley General de Urbanismo y Construcciones”, que traerían consigo un número de cambios significativos, entre ellos:
Con el fin de facilitar una discusión concentrada en los temas anteriores, Carlos Montes, Presidente de la Cámara de Diputados de Chile, invitó al Instituto Lincoln a participar en un seminario coordinado con el Instituto de Estudios Urbanos de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. El seminario, llamado “A 20 años de la liberalización de los mercados de suelo urbano en Chile: Impactos en la política de vivienda social, el crecimiento urbano y los precios del suelo”, tuvo lugar en octubre de 1999 en la ciudad de Santiago. Allí se reunieron miembros del Congreso chileno y de la comunidad comercial (promotores, líderes financieros, etc.), oficiales de organismos públicos (ministerios, municipalidades, etc.), académicos y representantes de organizaciones no gubernamentales para participar en un animado debate. En la discusión se notó una marcada polarización ideológica entre las metodologías “liberal” y “progresiva” utilizadas para entender y resolver los asuntos de la liberalización, es decir, “más mercado” frente a “más Estado”.
Desde el punto de vista liberal4, estos problemas emergen y persisten debido a que los mercados de tierra no han sido nunca suficientemente liberalizados. De hecho, algunos liberales insisten en que la intervención pública no desapareció nunca, y creen que la regulación más bien aumentó después de que Chile retornara a la democracia en 1990. Por ejemplo, los liberales citan varios medios, a menudo indirectos, que utiliza el Estado para restringir el libre crecimiento de las ciudades, tales como cuando se intenta ampliar áreas designadas con protección ambiental y cerradas a usos urbanos, o se impone un criterio oficial y casi homogéneo de densificación para todo espacio urbano. También aseveran que los ciudadanos deberían tener la libertad de elegir diferentes estilos de vida, y que las autoridades deberían limitarse a informar a los ciudadanos sobre el costo privado y social de sus opciones, con el entendimiento implícito de que tales costos están reflejados en los precios del mercado cuando hay un funcionamiento eficaz de los mercados de suelo urbano, es decir, cuando están completamente liberalizados.
La principal explicación ofrecida por los liberales sobre los problemas de equidad y eficiencia que enfrenta el desarrollo urbano chileno actual son los avances insuficientes en la aplicación de criterios para “internalizar las externalidades”, particularmente externalidades negativas, por aquellos que son responsables por ellas. Tal como lo han clamado apasionadamente algunos de los representantes de este grupo, se debería permitir a los agentes privados actuar con libertad, siempre que éstos estén dispuestos a hacerse cargo de los costos sociales involucrados.
Por otra parte, los progresistas creen que la liberalización se ha excedido en su abordaje de mercado y ha dejado muchos problemas sin resolver, tales como el aumento en los precios del suelo; los problemas en la calidad y durabilidad de la vivienda; las condiciones de servicio de la tierra; los problemas sociales asociados con la pobreza urbana; y los problemas de eficiencia y equidad derivados de los patrones de crecimiento de las ciudades, p. ej., la disparidad entre áreas dotadas de servicios públicos y las localidades seleccionadas para proyectos privados de desarrollo.
Estas críticas reconocen la naturaleza imperfecta de los mercados urbanos y la necesidad de tener mayores niveles de control e intervención. Entre las formas de intervención recomendadas por muchos progresistas se encuentran los instrumentos de captura de plusvalía, los cuales raramente han sido empleados o incluso contemplados en programas de financiamiento para la provisión pública de nueva infraestructura y nuevos servicios urbanos. La creación de tales mecanismos apoyaría la idea de internalizar las externalidades, un punto de relativo consenso entre progresistas y liberales. La diferencia principal es que los liberales restringirían la captura de plusvalía a la recuperación pública de costos específicos, mientras que los progresistas considerarían el derecho a capturar la plusvalía entera que resulte de cualquier acción pública, bien sea como resultado de inversión como de regulación.
En términos más generales, los progresistas claman que no todo puede medirse estrictamente en términos monetarios. Hay valores y objetivos urbanos relacionados con la política pública que no pueden conseguirse a través del mercado, ni siquiera por ley, tal como el sentido de comunidad. Aunque mayormente se le desatiende en las nuevas opciones habitacionales facilitadas por promotores privados a familias de bajos recursos, tales como el sistema de vouchers, la solidaridad comunitaria es un asunto de enorme importancia para contrarrestar los problemas sociales que la segregación espacial tiende a exacerbar. La protección ambiental es otro ejemplo de un objetivo de política urbana para el cual las “etiquetas de precios” son de dudosa eficacia.
Con respecto al crecimiento libre de las ciudades y la idea de respetar las opciones para sus ciudadanos, los progresistas apuntan los fuertes costos ambientales y sociales que normalmente acompañan el crecimiento descontrolado. También hacen notar el hecho de que el único grupo que realmente puede elegir su estilo de vida a través del mercado es la minoría pudiente. Si bien conceden que hay beneficios en la concentración, los progresistas también expresan sus inquietudes sobre el exceso de densificación. Algunos chilenos han expresado interés en una autoridad metropolitana que maneje los asuntos regionales, y también en el uso de inversión en infraestructura pública como forma de orientar el crecimiento.
Las respuestas adecuadas a estos asuntos y perspectivas implican algo que va más allá de soluciones técnicas o fiscales, tales como el punto al cual los promotores realmente pagan por el costo total de los cambios que imponen en la sociedad (para no hablar del problema de evaluar los costos con precisión) o la sustentación del sistema de vouchers bajo demanda, que constituye la base de la política habitacional de Chile. Las soluciones también involucran inquietudes de mayor amplitud y con más contenido valórico, tales como los costos ambientales del crecimiento descontrolado y la importancia de mantener las identidades e iniciativas comunitarias locales. La discusión continúa en el Congreso y en otros entornos, pero es de esperar que pase un tiempo antes de que los bandos opuestos lleguen al consenso.
Martim O. Smolka es Senior Fellow y Director del Programa para América Latina del Instituto Lincoln. Francisco Sabatini es profesor asistente de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Otros contribuyentes a este artículo fueron Laura Mullahy, asistente de investigación, y Armando Carbonell, Senior Fellow, ambos del Instituto Lincoln.
Notas: En contraste con el resto del continente, las drogas no eran un problema mayor en Chile hasta hace poco tiempo.
2 El área metropolitana de Santiago se compone de 35 jurisdicciones administrativo-políticas independientes llamadas comunas.
3 Véase Gareth A. Jones, “Comparative Policy Perspectives on Urban Land Market Reform”, Land Lines, noviembre de 1998.
4 El uso del término “liberal” en este contexto corresponde a su connotación en Chile, la cual se refiere a la fuerte influencia del principio económico del libre mercado, tal como la aboga la teoría desarrollada por la Escuela de Chicago.
Fuentes: Francisco Sabatini y colaboradores, “Segregación social en Santiago, Chile: Conceptos, métodos y efectos urbanos” (monografía, 1999); y Secretaría Ejecutiva de la Comisión de Planificación de Inversiones en Infraestructura de Transporte (SECTRA), “Encuesta de recorridos de origen y destino en Santiago”(1991).
