Topic: urbanización

In Denver, Mike Johnston Confronts Success: The City’s Popularity Has Made It Pricey

July 9, 2025

By Anthony Flint, July 9, 2025

 

Mike Johnston, a one-time high school English teacher, has been overseeing a significant boom in one of the most prominent cities in the Intermountain West. Denver has been attracting people and businesses with its temperate climate and outdoorsy quality of life, but this popularity has also caused growing pains, starting with increasingly high housing costs, homelessness, and recently some significant municipal budget woes.

Johnston has tackled the challenges one by one, beginning with a permitting process overhaul, steps to reduce costs in building, and tax abatements and other incentives, like a density bonus, to encourage more construction.

“We have a lot of people that want to move to Denver. That’s driving a lot of economic growth. We’re thrilled about it. It also drives lots of housing demand,” Johnston said in an interview for the Mayor’s Desk series, recorded on the Land Matters podcast. “The overarching theme is, we have to add a lot more housing supply.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Johnston also reflected on his aggressive campaign to clear out homeless encampments in the city. As part of this effort, officials have provided customized relocations to private transitional housing units with services and support for the unhoused.

“When you have high cost of housing cities, you get more people who can’t afford to pay that cost. That is just a mathematical fact. And so that means many of the cities that are growing and are in high demand, like the Denvers, or the San Franciscos, or the Austins, or Seattles, are the places where we see this struggle.”

The strategy of individualized housing solutions, while expensive, has been working, he said. “We think it can work for other cities, and we’ll share these lessons with anyone who’s willing to take them on, because we think we should set the expectation in every American city that street homelessness can be a solvable problem.”

He also expressed confidence that the state and the metropolitan region will have continued success fighting climate change, as federal policy backs away from addressing that global crisis. He said incentives for electrification, electric vehicle infrastructure, and energy-efficiency upgrades like heat pumps are contributing to the city’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2040.

“We don’t want to make it too expensive to do business in Denver, and yet we still want to be aggressively committed to hitting climate goals,” he said. “People do care. And there’s a lot we can do,” such as encouraging residents to take more trips by bike or walking, or to consolidate trips made in single occupancy vehicles.

“We want to encourage people to take more local action now, in the face of federal abandonment of [climate action] … we’ll keep setting our own targets for how our vehicles, our businesses, and our residents try to hit aggressive climate goals, knowing that we’re still all in this together, even if the President doesn’t want to make it a priority.”

Being mayor is the latest step in a professional journey that began with teaching English in the Mississippi Delta. From there, Johnston returned to Colorado to become a school principal, leading three different schools in the Denver Metro area. In 2009 he was elected to the Colorado State Senate, where he served two terms representing Northeast Denver. He was also a senior education advisor to President Obama and CEO of Gary Community Ventures, a philanthropic organization, where he led coalitions to pass the state’s first plan for universal preschool and spearheaded efforts to fund affordable housing and address homelessness statewide. He lives in East Denver with his wife Courtney, who is a chief deputy district attorney, and their three children.

Johnston, 50, was part of the Lincoln Institute mayor’s panel at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference in Denver this spring, along with Aaron Brockett and Jeni Arndt, mayors of the Colorado cities of Boulder and Fort Collins, respectively. Senior Fellow Anthony Flint caught up with him several weeks later for this interview, which will also be available in print and online in Land Lines magazine.

Listen to the show here or subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 


Further reading

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s latest affordable housing strategy: tax rebates for developers | Denverite

Will Denverites Come Back to the Newly Renovated 16th Street? | 5280

Opinion: Denver Parking Minimums Increase Housing Costs | Westword

Mayor says downtown Denver has made a ‘dramatic change’ | Denverite

Denver City Hall Takes a Page from NASA to Tackle Housing Barriers |  Bloomberg CityLab

Zoning Report: Colorado | National Zoning Atlas

Who Should Pay to Fix the Sidewalk? | Bloomberg CityLab

 


Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.


Transcript

Anthony Flint: Welcome back to land matters, the podcast of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. I’m your host, Anthony Flint. On this show, we’re continuing our Mayor’s Desk series –- our Q&A’s with municipal chief executives from around the world — with Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who was inaugurated as the 46th mayor of that city pretty much 2 years ago this summer in July 2023. It’s fair to say he’s been overseeing a significant boom in one of the most prominent cities in the Intermountain West, which has been attracting people and business with its temperate climate and outdoorsy quality of life. Yet Denver has had its growing pains, too, with increasingly high housing costs. We see modest bungalows in several neighborhoods in Denver, easily selling for a million dollars or more … a not-unrelated homelessness problem, and recently some significant municipal budget woes.

Mayor Johnson started his career as a high school English teacher in the Mississippi Delta, and returned home to Colorado to become a school principal, leading 3 different schools in the Denver Metro area. He later served as a senior education advisor to President Obama. In 2009 he was elected to the Colorado State Senate, where he served 2 terms representing Northeast Denver, working on issues, including immigration, gun safety and the clean energy transition. He later served as the CEO of Gary Community Ventures, a local philanthropic organization where he led coalitions to pass the State’s 1st plan for universal preschool and spearheaded efforts to fund affordable housing and address homelessness statewide. Mayor Johnston grew up in Colorado, speaks Spanish and lives in East Denver with his wife Courtney, who is a chief deputy district attorney and their 3 kids. Your honor, thank you for joining the conversation at Land Matters, and being part of the Mayor’s Desk series.

Mayor Mike Johnston: I’m delighted to be on. Thank you so much for having me.

Anthony Flint: Well, as I mentioned in the intro, like a lot of booming metropolitan regions, Denver is facing down a housing affordability problem. So, first question, what are the key elements for addressing this crisis?

Mayor Mike Johnston: You bet, Anthony, and again thank you for having me, and I think the opening frame for me which you mentioned … My dad used to say, the only thing worse than being hated is being loved, you know, and what we know for Denver is, we do have folks from all over the country and all over the world who want to move to Denver. And that is a great problem to have. I have friends who are mayors and cities facing very different challenges, which is declining populations and lots of vacant buildings, because people don’t want to move there. Denver is now, I think, the number 2 desired destination for people under age 30 in the United States. And so we have a lot of people that want to move to Denver. That’s driving a lot of economic growth. We’re thrilled about it. It also drives lots of housing demand.

So for us there are three big top priorities here. The overarching theme is, we have to add a lot more housing supply, as you know, but we think there are three ways to do that. One is to make it faster to build housing for us. That means an aggressive strategy on permitting reform to make our permitting system go from what was a two and a half to three-year process to now, what will be a commitment from us to have every permit only take 180 days of time in the city’s hands. We created a new citywide permitting office that unifies all of the functions of permitting that were spread across seven departments, now into one director, who reports directly to me so part of that is making it easier to build in Denver.

The second is reducing the costs of building wherever we can. And so we’re doing that, obviously making the process faster. Reduce the cost. But also we’re doing more to provide our own tax abatements and our own tax programs. We launched a middle class housing strategy this week. That’s focused on providing property tax abatements for up to 10 years in exchange for a 30 year, commitment on deed, restricted affordability for people that are middle class Denverites who need to be able to afford to live in the city. So we think those incentives matter. And then, of course, we are investing more in affordable housing. We know that the city can’t solve this alone, and the market can’t solve it alone. We need a partnership where we will invest city resources into projects where we can be hopefully a smaller and smaller part of the capital stack. But just enough of the stack to be able to buy long-term affordability in the form of deed restrictions. And so for us, it’s making the city build faster. It’s making costs cheaper. And it’s making more public investment with really clear public goals. We’ve set a clear public goal to bring on 3,000 affordable units every year, and provide access for 3,000 households to affordable units every year. That’s about twice the rate what the city was bringing on before we got into office. And so we know we have to be really aggressive about bringing on a lot more housing, a lot more quickly and a lot more affordably.

Anthony Flint: Your campaign to address homeless encampments in Denver triggered a little bit of backlash, including some criticism of the expense. Can you explain your approach, and how it might apply to other cities? And is there anything you would do differently?

Mayor Mike Johnston: Yeah, I think this is one that we are really excited about, because I think many Americans have given into the belief that homelessness is an unsolvable problem that we are just stuck with this as a component of modern life. And, as you said accurately, Anthony, what we know is homelessness exists in the greatest acuity in cities, not because there’s high rates of poverty, not because there’s high rates of unemployment, not because of the political ideology of those cities. It exists in direct correlation to the cost of housing. In those cities. When you have high cost of housing cities, you get more people who can’t afford to pay that cost. That is just a mathematical fact. And so that means many of the cities that are growing and are in high demand, like the Denver’s, or the San Francisco’s, or the Austins, or Seattle’s, are the places where we see this struggle. But what we have really seen is that this is a problem that can be solved by addressing those core needs. And so I’ll lead with the headline that … we set an ambitious goal to try to end street homelessness in my 1st term. Four years. That seems impossible. Well, I’ll tell you, we’re two years in right now, and we have now reduced our street homelessness in Denver by 45% in a little less than two years. That is … the largest reduction of street homelessness in any city in American history, over two years, of which we’re very proud. But it’s also a clear sign that halfway through the term. We’re halfway on the path of that goal. We think other cities should be ambitious. And believing that this is a solvable problem, let me talk about the way we’ve done this, which we think is also really scalable.

What we’ve done is first really focused on bringing on what we call transitional housing units which are dignified, individual private units. A lot of these are hotels we’ve bought and converted. They’re tiny home villages that we’ve built. But critically, it’s not shelter like sleeping on a gym floor with 100 people on a mat. It is a place where you have a locked door. You have privacy, you have access to showers and bathrooms and kitchens. You can store your stuff when you go to work for the day.

And we brought on wraparound services on each of these sites. So our first big effort was to bring on 1,000 units of transitional housing, you know, like many cities, previous Administration fought this battle, and took 2 or 3 years to fight, to put one tiny home village of about 40 units into one neighborhood with a number of lawsuits. We said, we have to bring on units at the scale of the problems. We brought on a thousand units, and (over) six months I did 60 town halls all across the city, talking to neighbors and all of those locations about why this would make such a big difference. We put wraparound services — mental health addiction, support, workforce training, long-term housing navigation — on each of those sites. So people don’t have to always return just to downtown to get those services. And once we brought those units on, then we went geographically to the places where encampments existed in Denver, and instead of sweeping those encampments from block to block, where they just show up in front of someone else’s house or someone else’s church or hospital, we would actually go to those encampments and resolve them. We would close that encampment entirely by moving all 50 people or 100 people. In one case we had almost 200 people in one encampment, closing those encampments, resolving them, moving all those folks into housing, and then importantly keeping that block or that region of the city permanently closed to future camping. So the result is, two years in, we’ve now closed every encampment in the city. We haven’t had a single tent inside of our downtown business district for more than a year and a half we have cut family homelessness by 83%. We’ve become the largest city ever to end street homelessness for veterans. We have no veterans anymore on the streets who can’t get access to housing, and, importantly, anyone can walk down any street or sidewalk or public park, and none of them have tents or encampments in them, so we’ve both made sure there’s a real change in the experience for residents of Denver and those people who are most at risk of starving to death, freezing to death, overdosing on the streets … we moved off of the streets into transitional housing that has really worked for us. We think it can work for other cities, and we’ll share these lessons with anyone who’s willing to take them on, because we think we should set the expectation in every American city that street homelessness can be a solvable problem.

Anthony Flint: Are you satisfied with the number of people using this very impressive and extensive light rail network in Denver Metro, and the number of people living essentially in transit oriented development? Or is the system facing growing pains, and if so, why? A related question … any lessons learned from the relatively light ridership on the free bus on the 16th Street Transit Mall, which is finally concluding its renovation after long delays? But first the light rail network, transit-oriented development … How is it going.

Mayor Mike Johnston: As you, said, Anthony, we’re not satisfied yet, and that is because, as you know, transit and housing have to be connected strategies. Housing is a transit strategy. If you’re mindful about actually building housing and building density of housing around our public transit networks. And so we had this great transit network built. We did not have density of housing around any of those spots. And so what we’re doing now is undertaking a series of very large catalytic investments in a number of areas around the city that are on these light rail lines. So we can build thousands and thousands of units of housing along that corridor. We just, for instance, acquired the largest piece of private property in city history to turn into a public park. It will be a 155-acre park. It is right next to a light rail stop, so we can now add housing and housing density all around that site — beautiful location, and people can get on light rail and get right to downtown or do a Broncos game or anything else. We just won a franchise expansion, the one franchise expansion for the National Women’s Soccer League, and so we’ll have a new women’s soccer franchise. We’re building a new women’s soccer stadium also at a TOD site that we’ll have on that campus … a lot of dense housing commercial activities also connected to public transit. We’re rebuilding our stock show in a historically Latino part of North Denver — Globeville, Elyria, Swansea — that’ll allow us to add about 60 acres of new housing, public spaces, commercial activation also all on public transit. So our belief is, you have to actually be deliberate about building real density around your public transit as much as you want to build your public transit around well traveled lines of travel in the city. And so that’s a big part of our strategy. When we add that density, we know most of the major cities like ours that aren’t yet a New York, or a DC, with a full functioning subway line. You can’t just throw in that infrastructure and hope the city accommodates because people have lots of places to go to. You have to build nodes of real density around the city. So even though you might have 3 or 4 different jobs over the next 10 years, those jobs can be concentrated among different regions, and your housing can, and your activities can (as well). So that’s our big strategy around that. And you’ll see us make historic investments in doing that in the next couple of years.

But a part of that is downtown, is our downtown strategy. And you mentioned our 16th Street bus that we have, that’s free downtown. We’re making the largest investment in our downtown, also of any city in the country, per capita. Right now, about $600 million through a tax increment financing system that will focus on one getting more people to live downtown. We want downtown to be a neighborhood, not just a business district. And so we’re going to add about 4,000 units of housing in our city center, using these funds that we have from our downtown Denver authority, because we know that means more people that will use that bus every day that we’ll get to and from work they will go to see friends. So that’s a big part of our strategy. We’re working on filling up about 7 million square feet of vacant office space — like many cities, have about 4 million of that, we will use with residential conversion. We think one of the most ambitious residential conversion plans in the country. The other 3 million we’ll use by bringing people back to the office, recruiting businesses to come downtown, stay downtown, we think the more we activate that location the more folks will use the public transit, and the more people can use the connected public transit of coming from a neighborhood in East Denver or North Denver, take the light rail down to downtown, use the 16th Street ride to get up and down 16th Street … we have the second largest theater complex in the country off of Broadway. We have 5 professional sports franchises in our city center. We have Michelin Star restaurants. We’ll have the Sundance film festival coming to Colorado. There’s so much to be attracted to seeing. We want to make it easy to get to downtown and around downtown, and this will do that.

Anthony Flint: Given the current municipal fiscal challenges in Denver, what is your thinking about alternative financing systems such as a land value tax or value capture, as seen in the 38th & Blake incentive overlay? I’m hoping you might explain the concept as you see it and how or whether its rationale makes sense to you.

Mayor Mike Johnston: We are interested in every incentive we can find to encourage folks to build more housing. The 38th and Blake overlay was really kind of a density bonus, where we allow folks to build higher buildings than what the zoning might allow in exchange for adding more affordable housing, and we are always looking at ways to incentivize folks to add more affordable housing. So we’re delighted to do that. I think that also links to the program I described briefly which is our our middle class housing program we launched yesterday, which is also focused on a property tax abatement. We’ll offer up to 10 years of property tax abatement for people that are going to build middle class affordable housing. So think about that as people making sixty to a hundred thousand a year as an individual … and that’s about a 10 year property tax abatement for a 30-year commitment of affordability. So that’s a great deal for us. We’re also looking at partnership on places where we have public land. We’re looking at working with city-owned land, working with Denver public schools where they have land, our regional transit system, if they have land. And so we’re always looking to contribute public land as a way to incentivize more affordability. But we want to do a all of the above strategy. But wherever we can add more housing without having to invest more dollars in these fiscal times that’s a big help

[Re-stated] Our belief is we want to do an all of the above strategy on every way we can incentivize people to build more affordable housing. So for us, that means we want to use city land. Whenever we can do that, we’ll use public land to be able to incentivize a deal. We’ll partner with other public agencies like the Denver public schools, or like the regional transit system or the State. That’s always a great way for us to incentivize. And that’s why we’ve used strategies like this middle class housing program we launched, which is a property tax abatement where folks can get 10 years of property tax abatement for a 30 year, commitment of deed, restricted affordability through a special limited partnership. So we’re going to use every strategy we have, particularly in tough economic times, and you don’t have big new dollars to invest in supporting affordable housing. We have to find other creative ways and density. Bonuses are a great way, and we’ll keep doing that as well as everything else we can.

Anthony Flint: Finally, how would you assess the progress of your climate action plans which I see includes incentives for electrification, electric vehicle infrastructure, hot and cold weather heat pumps, energy efficiency … Do you see a tangible embrace at the local level for addressing climate change, especially in the context of retrenchment at the federal level. I mean, just as a practical matter, the federal government is getting out of the climate business. So can cities and states take that over and be effective?

Mayor Mike Johnston: We don’t see any change at all in our city’s commitment to climate action or our conviction that this is a still existentially important effort for us to undertake. And so we are not slowing down at all. We’re not changing our path, and what we are doing is trying to make sure we’re committed to an aggressive vision to meet our climate goals, which for us is a 2040 plan to be entirely carbon free by 2040, to have 100% renewable energy. And also to make sure we’re driving economic growth. We want to do both. And so we don’t want to make it too expensive to do business in Denver, and yet we still want to be aggressively committed to hitting climate goals. And we’re doing that. We’ve done things like we had, I think, one of the nation-leading efforts on making our commercial buildings more energy efficient through a program we have called Energize Denver. We also had concerns from the business community about how to comply with the cost to make those adjustments to buildings. And so we spent a lot of time with our landowners and building owners and business leaders, and we revised that plan to both decrease the penalties, extend the amount of time folks can comply, put a cap on the overall amount of changes they have to make, which drops the cost dramatically for our business partners, but still keeps us on path to hit aggressive 2040 climate goals. So people do care. And there’s a lot we can do. There’s behavior change. We’re doing a whole campaign on behavior change, to encourage folks to take more trips by bike or walking … Can they consolidate or condense the number of single occupancy vehicle trips that they take. And so part of it is about awareness. Part of it’s about behavior change and part of it’s about a good policy on things like banning plastic bags. Obviously, and being able to incentivize more and more solar and wind. So we think this is purely a part of Denver’s brand. We want to be able to be a great city and a good city. We want to be able to have a great economy, and also have great connection to the natural environment of the outdoors. And so for us, it’s it’s good climate and good business, and we’ll continue to do both.

Anthony Flint: And local and state government taking this over, are you optimistic about that? The question is, can they really take this over, a planet-wide issue, and really be effective.

Mayor Mike Johnston: I think we don’t believe that we should give up here or step away. Our campaign, we call, do more or do less, but do something, whether it’s going to do more in the way of recycling, or less in the way of using a single occupancy vehicle or doing something in terms of being able to make decisions about where and how you use energy. We want to encourage people to take more local action now, in the face of federal abandonment of this. The things that we’ll need help on are the things that made a big difference. The federal tax credits on electrical vehicle purchases — those are big drivers of behavior change. I sponsored when I was in the Senate a state credit that does the same thing — provide incentives, tax incentives for electric vehicle purchases. Here we’re building out aggressively, charging station infrastructure to make it easier for us to convert our fleet vehicles to be electric to get more Ubers and Lyfts and Fedexes and Amazons and UPS (vehicles) to do the same. And to convince regular residents do the same. So we’ll keep building the infrastructure to do this. We’ll keep incentivizing people to do it. We’ll keep changing behavior to do it, and we’ll keep setting our own targets for how our vehicles, our businesses, and our residents try to hit aggressive climate goals, knowing that we’re still all in this together, even if the President doesn’t want to make it a priority.

Anthony Flint: Mike Johnston, Mayor of Denver, Colorado. Thank you once again for this conversation.

Mayor Mike Johnston: Thanks so much for having me, Anthony. It’s great to meet you.

Anthony Flint: You can learn more about all the issues we covered — strategies for affordable housing, sustainable urbanism, transit-oriented development, value capture, and of course, the challenge of climate change, pursuing both mitigation and resilience — all of that and more at the Lincoln Institute website, www.lincolninst.edu. While you’re there, scroll to the bottom and join our mailing list to get periodic updates on our work. And also on social media, the handle is @landpolicy. Finally, don’t forget to rate, share and subscribe to the Land Matters podcast. For now, I’m Anthony Flint, signing off until next time.

Read full transcript
Cairo Governor Ibrahim Saber Khalik speaks at the World Urban Forum in 2024. He is standing at a white podium with two furled flags behind him and a large blue screen in the background that reads World Urban Forum.
El escritorio del alcalde

Planning for Growth in Cairo

By Anthony Flint, Abril 9, 2025

Ibrahim Saber Khalil, 62, was appointed governor of Cairo in July 2024. In this role, he leads the city of Cairo and oversees about half of the metropolitan area, including New Cairo, El Shorouk, and Badr City. Khalil previously served as deputy Cairo governor for Eastern Cairo and chief of the Misr El-Gadidah, Maadi, Dar El-Salam, and Tora districts. He has a PhD from the city’s Ain Shams University, with a focus on environmental and economic evaluation of national road network projects in Greater Cairo, and a master’s degree in public and local administration from the Sadat Academy for Administrative Sciences. His professional training is in law and environmental administration.

Cairo, built on the foundation of an ancient metropolis and now home to some 22 million people, was host of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Forum 12 in November 2024, where the governor joined other municipal leaders—including several previously featured in the Mayor’s Desk series—at a session organized by the Lincoln Institute, Mayors and Innovators: Replicable Strategies for Local Political and Technological Change. At the forum he talked with Senior Fellow Anthony Flint; the interview was continued and finalized by email and has been edited for length and clarity.

Anthony Flint: What are your reflections on the extraordinary expansion into the desert east of the city center that you are now overseeing?

Ibrahim Saber: Cairo stands at a historic crossroads—an intersection between the roots of its ancient civilization and the trajectory of its modern expansion. The extraordinary urban growth we’re witnessing, particularly to the desert areas outside of the city center, is a reflection of both necessity and vision. The New Administrative Capital alone spans 700 square kilometers—nearly the size of Singapore—and is designed to house 6 million residents. Beyond this, Egypt’s broader urban strategy involves developing over 30 new cities across the country, effectively tripling Greater Cairo’s footprint over the coming decades. This is not simply expansion for its own sake; it’s a deliberate effort to decentralize, reduce pressure on the historical core, and offer new economic and residential opportunities for millions.

 

Four tall, tan buildings against a blue sky, with a road in the foreground.
New construction in the New Administrative Capital, a development on the outskirts of Cairo designed to house 6 million people. Credit: Anthony Flint.

 

AF: Are the estimates still accurate about the influx of immigrants and refugees, which has prompted the construction of so much new housing?

IS: One of the key drivers behind this growth is Egypt’s rapid population increase, which is fueled not only by domestic growth but also by significant migration and refugee influxes. Currently, Egypt hosts approximately 5 million refugees and migrants, a far larger figure than often cited. These individuals [represent] over 60 nationalities, contributing to Egypt’s social fabric, labor force, and cultural diversity. Our national policy has long emphasized hospitality and inclusivity, providing access to services such as healthcare, education, and housing without discrimination. Yet accommodating this large, dynamic population places tangible strain on infrastructure, housing stock, and public services, which is why much of our urban expansion is strategically focused on ensuring capacity for both citizens and migrant communities alike.

AF: The urban expansion plan includes a monorail, connected to Cairo’s existing subway network. In a city known for its traffic jams, are there any plans for the type of congestion pricing recently adopted in other cities, or to go more fully car free in the city center, as Paris has done?

IS: Alongside this physical expansion, we are heavily invested in transforming Cairo’s urban mobility landscape. Projects such as the Cairo Monorail, which links to the city’s metro system, are designed to both alleviate existing traffic congestion and prevent its escalation as the city grows. Our vision is to promote public transportation and nonmotorized mobility options, reducing dependency on private cars. While policies like congestion pricing are under review, our immediate focus remains on expanding transport infrastructure, encouraging cleaner mobility, and exploring low-emission zones or even car-free districts, particularly in the historic city center.

 

A blue bridge with several arches spans the Nile River. Many low-rise buildings of Cairo are visible on both sides of the river.
The Nile River and downtown Cairo. Credit: Anthony Flint.

 

AF: What in your estimation are the top impacts of climate change in the region? Are there plans to reduce local emissions causing the smog and pollution often seen in the city?

IS: Of course, all these efforts are being implemented in the context of global and local climate challenges. Egypt faces mounting threats from rising temperatures, water scarcity, and urban air pollution, particularly in Cairo. We are addressing these by pursuing policies to reduce local emissions, including expanding electric public transport, introducing green building standards, and increasing urban green spaces. Our commitments under the National Climate Change Strategy 2050 reinforce our pledge to build resilient, sustainable cities that can withstand the pressures of climate change.

AF: Finally, can you reflect on the contrast between the old and the new in Cairo—antiquities alongside gleaming new development?

IS: What makes Cairo unique is its ability to weave together the old and the new. As we oversee the construction of state-of-the-art urban centers, we remain deeply committed to preserving and revitalizing Historic Cairo, home to millennia-old heritage. This coexistence is not contradictory, it is a source of strength. At forums such as the World Urban Forum, we’ve shared how our urban development approach is rooted in balancing heritage conservation with modern growth, ensuring that as we build for the future, we honor the past.


 

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Lead image: Cairo Governor Ibrahim Saber Khalil speaks at the World Urban Forum, hosted by the city in November 2024. Credit: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou.

Eventos

Land Policy Conference on Digitalization

Mayo 22, 2025 - Mayo 23, 2025

Cambridge, MA

Offered in inglés

The world is changing rapidly with digitalization. How can we ensure that our engagement with technology remains equitable and responsive?

This conference will examine the current and future impacts of digitalization on land policy. It will focus on aspects of power, purpose, and policy: who is driving these changes; what opportunities and risks are emerging; and what regulatory gaps or challenges will affect this area. After identifying the trends and tools, panels will examine the people, institutions, and ethics of digitalization, before forecasting the impacts in a new digital future.

This event is by invitation only. 


Detalles

Fecha(s)
Mayo 22, 2025 - Mayo 23, 2025
Location
Cambridge, MA
Idioma
inglés

Palabras clave

catastro, mitigación climática, desarrollo económico, gestión ambiental, inequidad, Ley de suelo, desarrollo urbano

A blue house on a stone road

Uma nova maneira de comparar os mercados imobiliários na América Latina  

Por Jon Gorey, Enero 14, 2025

A falta de acesso a moradias dignas pode perpetuar desigualdades que persistem ao longo de gerações. E, nesse sentido, países de toda a América Latina e Caribe estão enfrentando crises habitacionais. No entanto, cada um enfrenta esses desafios de maneira única. Nas cidades que estão se urbanizando rapidamente, por exemplo, em que os custos de terrenos e da construção são altos, a demanda por moradias acessíveis supera a oferta. Em outros lugares, pode ser difícil ou caro demais para os compradores de imóveis obterem um financiamento habitacional.

Esses desafios relacionados, que se manifestam em contextos distintos, exigem soluções políticas únicas e bem elaboradas. E agora, um novo relatório que “harmoniza” dados habitacionais díspares de uma dúzia de países da América Latina coloca o panorama habitacional da região em uma perspectiva mais clara para os formuladores de políticas.

O 2024 LAC Housing Yearbook, uma colaboração entre o Lincoln Institute of Land Policy e o CAF (Banco de Desenvolvimento da América Latina e do Caribe) catalogou mais de 250 indicadores habitacionais e financeiros em 12 países (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colômbia, Costa Rica, República Dominicana, Equador, El Salvador, México, Panamá, Peru e Uruguai) para permitir comparações entre os países da região. O relatório já está disponível em espanhol, com traduções para inglês e português em breve.

“Ao coletar e padronizar esse amplo conjunto de informações, o projeto busca preencher lacunas de conhecimento, permitir comparações entre países e apoiar a formulação de políticas eficientes e direcionadas que reduzam os déficits habitacionais, melhorem a acessibilidade e promovam o desenvolvimento sustentável”, afirmou Pablo López, coordenador executivo sênior de habitação no CAF.

“Os dados revelam realidades marcantes”, continuou López, cuja equipe apresentou o relatório inaugural à Assembleia Geral do Fórum de Ministros e Altas Autoridades em Habitação e Desenvolvimento Urbano da América Latina e do Caribe (MINURVI) em dezembro. “Os déficits habitacionais são significativos, a penetração de hipotecas continua baixa e a acessibilidade é constantemente prejudicada pelo aumento dos custos em um ritmo mais acelerado que o dos rendimentos.”

Os tipos de indicadores monitorados nos 12 países incluem taxas de inflação e de hipoteca, taxas de participação no mercado de trabalho formal e informal, custos de construção por metro quadrado, além de medidas quantitativas e qualitativas do déficit habitacional de um país, sendo que as primeiras se referem ao número de casas adicionais necessárias para atender à demanda, e as últimas contabilizam o número de famílias que vivem em moradias precárias. Além de um almanaque de informações estatísticas, o relatório inclui uma visão geral regional e perfis detalhados do mercado habitacional de cada país.

Uma comparação do recém-lançado LAC Housing Yearbook ilustra a relação entre o crédito hipotecário e o PIB em 12 países da região. Crédito: CAF/Lincoln Institute.

 

“É um projeto bastante ambicioso devido à ampla variedade de categorias de dados que ele tenta consolidar”, disse Luis Quintanilla, analista sênior de políticas do Lincoln Institute. A esperança é atualizar o anuário anualmente, o que permitirá comparações ano a ano, além de expandir a lista de países ao longo do tempo. “Achamos que é um recurso muito valioso”, acrescentou. ““Esperamos que seja útil para os ministros de habitação e secretários de desenvolvimento urbano, bem como para profissionais, desenvolvedores, instituições bancárias e financeiras e outros pesquisadores.”

Reunir alguns dos dados apresentou um “desafio formidável”, disse López, já que estavam dispersos em várias bases de dados públicas e privadas, exigindo uma meticulosa verificação cruzada, quando estavam disponíveis. Por exemplo, as informações sobre microfinanciamentos (pequenos empréstimos não hipotecários que as famílias podem usar para fazer melhorias graduais em suas casas) eram inconsistentes e fragmentadas. E números confiáveis sobre a produção de habitação informal e o acesso ao crédito para trabalhadores informais eram difíceis ou impossíveis de encontrar.

O processo também revelou algumas lacunas de informações que pesquisadores ou agências públicas poderiam abordar no futuro, bem como algumas ineficiências nos subsídios habitacionais. “Contrariamente à intuição, alguns mecanismos de apoio habitacional de países carecem de foco social, [o que faz com que] beneficiem grupos de maior renda, minando seus objetivos de equidade social”, explicou López.

An urban streetscape with apartment buildings, cars, grass, and trees.
Crédito: CAF – Banco de Desenvolvimento da América Latina e Caribe.

 

Os países estudados não estão apenas enfrentando a crise habitacional de maneiras diferentes, mas também estão tomando medidas distintas para enfrentá-la. “Embora os países compartilhem desafios fundamentais relacionados à habitação, suas abordagens variam significativamente”, disse López. “A pesquisa revelou bolsões de inovação e progresso em toda a região—cada nação demonstrou pontos fortes únicos que oferecem insights para possíveis soluções.”

O Chile, por exemplo, desenvolveu um mercado hipotecário sofisticado “complementado por programas inovadores de subsídios para aluguel que abordam a acessibilidade habitacional de múltiplas perspectivas”, afirmou López. O Panamá pode se orgulhar de taxas de hipoteca relativamente baixas e de um mercado de crédito que alcança quase um quarto (23,1%) do PIB, “um feito notável em uma região muitas vezes caracterizada pela inclusão financeira limitada”, acrescentou. “Enquanto isso, o Equador e o Peru estão rompendo barreiras com instrumentos inovadores de financiamento verde, incluindo títulos verdes e hipotecas que demonstram uma abordagem progressista para o desenvolvimento sustentável da habitação.”

Ainda assim, os dados deixam claro que nenhum país solucionou de modo abrangente os desafios habitacionais, disse López. “Em vez disso, a região exibe um mosaico de inovações direcionadas, cada uma abordando dimensões específicas de um panorama habitacional complexo.”
Quintanilla espera que essa nova coleção de dados confiáveis e comparáveis ajude os formuladores de políticas a se conectarem e aprenderem uns com os outros. “Se algum país em particular encontrar um contexto semelhante, mas com resultados diferentes, esperamos que, ao destacar essas discrepâncias, seja possível gerar um intercâmbio de ideias e lições transferíveis”, afirmou.


 

Jon Gorey é redator da equipe do Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

Crédito da imagem principal: CAF – Banco de Desenvolvimento da América Latina e Caribe. 

A blue house on a stone road

Una nueva forma de comparar el negocio inmobiliario en América Latina 

Por Jon Gorey, Enero 14, 2025

La falta de acceso a una vivienda digna puede perpetuar la desigualdad que persiste de generación en generación. En ese sentido, países de toda América Latina y el Caribe tienen crisis de vivienda, pero cada uno se enfrenta a desafíos únicos. Por ejemplo, en las ciudades que se urbanizan rápidamente, donde los costos del terreno y la construcción son altos, la demanda de viviendas asequibles supera la oferta. En otros lugares, puede ser difícil o demasiado costoso para los compradores obtener una hipoteca.

Esos desafíos relacionados, que se dan en contextos distintos, exigen soluciones de políticas únicas y sensatas. Ahora, el panorama de la vivienda de la región es más claro para los gestores de políticas gracias a un nuevo informe en el que se “armonizan” datos dispares sobre la vivienda de una decena de países latinoamericanos.

En el Anuario de Vivienda de ALC de 2024, una colaboración entre el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y CAF (Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe), se catalogan más de 250 indicadores de vivienda y financieros en 12 países (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, México, Panamá, Perú, República Dominicana y Uruguay) para propiciar comparaciones en toda la región. El informe ya está disponible en español, próximamente con traducciones al inglés y portugués.

“Al recopilar y estandarizar este amplio conjunto de información, el proyecto busca abordar las brechas de conocimiento, permitir hacer comparaciones entre países y apoyar la formulación de políticas eficientes y específicas que reduzcan los déficits de vivienda, mejoren la accesibilidad y promuevan el desarrollo sostenible”, explica Pablo López, coordinador ejecutivo sénior de vivienda de CAF.

“Los datos revelan realidades crudas”, continúa López, cuyo equipo presentó el informe inaugural a la Asamblea General del Foro de Ministros y Autoridades Máximas de la Vivienda y el Urbanismo de América Latina y el Caribe (MINURVI) en diciembre. “Los déficits de vivienda son significativos, la penetración hipotecaria sigue siendo baja y la asequibilidad se ve erosionada continuamente por el aumento de los costos a tasas más altas que los ingresos”.

Los tipos de indicadores analizados en los 12 países incluyen tasas de inflación e hipotecas, tasas de participación en el mercado laboral formal e informal, costos de construcción por metro cuadrado, y medidas cuantitativas y cualitativas del déficit de vivienda de un país (la primera se refiere al número de viviendas adicionales necesarias para satisfacer la demanda, mientras que la segunda indica el número de familias que viven en viviendas en malas condiciones). Además de un almanaque de información estadística, en el informe se incluye información general regional y perfiles detallados del negocio inmobiliario de cada país.

Una comparación del Anuario de Vivienda de América Latina y el Caribe publicado hace poco ilustra la relación entre el crédito hipotecario y el PIB en 12 países de la región. Crédito: CAF/Instituto Lincoln.

 

“Es un proyecto bastante ambicioso, debido a la amplia gama de categorías de datos que se intenta consolidar”, expresa Luis Quintanilla, analista sénior de políticas del Instituto Lincoln. La meta es actualizar el anuario cada año, lo que permitirá hacer comparaciones año tras año y ampliar la lista de países a lo largo del tiempo. “Creemos que es un recurso muy valioso”, agrega. “Esperamos que sea útil para los ministros de vivienda y los secretarios de desarrollo urbano, así como para los profesionales, los emprendedores inmobiliarios, las instituciones bancarias y financieras y otros investigadores”.

La recopilación de algunos de los datos presentó un “desafío formidable”, dice López, ya que estaban dispersos en varias bases de datos públicas y privadas y requerían referencias cruzadas verificadas, si es que estaban disponibles. Por ejemplo, la información sobre microfinanciación (pequeños préstamos no hipotecarios que las familias pueden utilizar para realizar mejoras graduales en sus hogares) era inconsistente y estaba fragmentada. Además, fue difícil o imposible encontrar cifras confiables sobre la fabricación de viviendas informales y el acceso al crédito para los trabajadores informales,

El proceso también reveló algunas brechas de información que los investigadores o los organismos públicos podrían abordar en el futuro, así como algunas ineficiencias en los subsidios de vivienda. “Contrario a la lógica, los mecanismos de apoyo a la vivienda de algunos países carecen de consideración social, [por lo que] benefician a los grupos de mayores ingresos y socavan sus objetivos de equidad social”, explica López.

An urban streetscape with apartment buildings, cars, grass, and trees.
Crédito: Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe (CAF).

 

Los países estudiados no solo están experimentando la crisis de la vivienda de diferentes maneras, sino que también están tomando distintas medidas para abordarla. “Si bien los países comparten desafíos fundamentales en materia de vivienda, sus enfoques varían de manera significativa”, dice López. “Según la investigación, existen focos de innovación y progreso en toda la región: cada nación demostró fortalezas únicas que ofrecen información valiosa sobre posibles soluciones”.

Por ejemplo, Chile ha desarrollado un sofisticado mercado hipotecario “complementado por programas innovadores de subsidios de alquiler que abordan la asequibilidad de la vivienda desde varios ángulos”, indica López. Panamá puede presumir tasas hipotecarias relativamente bajas y un mercado crediticio que alcanza casi una cuarta parte (23,1 %) del PIB, “un logro notable en una región que a menudo se caracteriza por una inclusión financiera limitada”, agrega. “Mientras tanto, Ecuador y Perú están ampliando los límites a través de instrumentos pioneros de financiamiento verde, incluidos bonos e hipotecas verdes innovadores que señalan un enfoque con visión de futuro para el desarrollo de viviendas sostenibles”.

Aun así, López explica que los datos dejan en claro que ningún país ha resuelto de manera integral sus desafíos de vivienda. “En cambio, la región demuestra una variedad de innovaciones específicas, cada una de las cuales aborda dimensiones particulares de un panorama de vivienda complejo”.

Quintanilla espera que esta nueva recopilación de datos confiables y comparables ayude a los gestores de políticas de políticas a comunicarse y aprender unos de otros. “Si un país en particular encuentra un contexto similar al suyo, pero resultados diferentes, esperamos que resaltar algunas de esas discrepancias pueda ser la chispa para un intercambio de ideas y lecciones transferibles”, dice.


 

Jon Gorey es redactor del Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo.

Crédito de la imagen principal: Banco de Desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe (CAF)

As Wars Rage, Cities Face a Dark New Era of Urban Destruction

By Anthony Flint, Enero 29, 2025

This article is reprinted with permission from Bloomberg CityLab, where it originally appeared.

Not far from the pyramids of Giza, symbols of the endurance of civilization, a global group of urban planners and scholars recently gathered to confront the myriad threats afflicting the physical city.

Calamity associated with climate change continued to be top of mind at UN-Habitat’s World Urban Forum 12, a summit to promote equitable and sustainable global cities held in Cairo in November. But another driver of urban devastation loomed especially large: intensifying military conflict.

In Gaza and Ukraine, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, following on the vast destruction seen in Syria, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia in the last nearly half-century. While attacking human settlement is hardly new—from the sacking of Rome to the London blitz to Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the razing of cities has grown in intensity and scope, researchers say, thanks to shifts in military strategy and advances in missile, bomb, and drone technology.

Accordingly, conflict-driven destruction—and the vastly complicated associated questions of humanitarian triage, refugees, and ultimately, rebuilding—played a prominent role in policy discussions at WUF12. With urban ruination occurring in real time not far away, one of the forum’s six major “dialogues” confronted the issue directly: In a session called “The Loss of Home,” delegates addressed “displacement caused by global crises, with a focus on rebuilding resilient communities and strengthening urban responses to protect the idea of home.”

The forum’s concluding resolution acknowledged the toll, citing “the need for resilient urban systems that can adapt and respond to the needs of all residents, fostering social cohesion and the reconstruction of homes” and noting that “local governments play a key role in driving solutions and integrating the forcibly displaced into urban development strategies.”

“Those of us brought up as architects or urban planners, we know that the home is not just about the provision of shelter,” but is inextricably bound up with family, community, culture and identity, said Sultan Barakat, professor of public policy at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and one of the speakers at the dialogue.

Any plans for accommodating displaced peoples, or in the longer term, reconstruction—a politically fraught exercise that will depend on who is doing the rebuilding, and paying for it—must acknowledge these powerful associations, Barakat said.

While there is no single metric, researchers and international aid organizations agree that urban destruction driven by conflict has intensified in the first quarter of the 21st century. Since 2002, approximately 432,000 civilians have been killed, and 38 million forcibly displaced, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Most were city dwellers, partly a reflection of continuing global rural-to-urban migration.

Over the last several decades, the battlefield has shifted to dense urban areas, military scholars say, often because insurgent or paramilitary forces have embedded themselves into the civilian population. In other cases, armies are simply seeking to make territorial gains city by city—an established military tactic that is today playing out in an excruciatingly drawn-out process.

“Evacuation and exile appear to be the main objective: depopulation lowers the human capital of countries and depresses their economies,” writes University of Glasgow professor Josef Konvitz in his 2023 article “People Are the Target: Urban Destruction in the 21st Century.” “Moreover, the increased number of refugees can be turned into an instrument to exert leverage on other countries, destabilizing regions far removed from the war zone.”

Advances in weaponry also play a role. While modern weapons systems can hit with great accuracy—and in some cases civilians are forewarned of an attack—the sheer volume and intensity of today’s urban bombardments has brought shocking devastation. By some measures, the campaign on Gaza has outpaced Allied bombings of Germany during World War II. Human rights groups have decried the use of weapons like ground-penetrating bunker buster ordnance, air-launched glide bombs and “barrel bombs”—oil barrels filled with explosives—on the populations of cities like Kharkiv in Ukraine and Aleppo in Syria. This carnage has brought into the discourse the concept of urbicide, referring to the deliberate destruction of cities, their iconic architecture, and their identity.

The end result, as listed by United Nations Under-Secretary Anacláudia Rossbach, executive director of UN-Habitat, which organizes the World Urban Forum: 1.4 million homes damaged or destroyed and 3.7 million people displaced in Ukraine; 227,000 homes destroyed and 2 million forced to flee in Gaza; and 6,700 residential buildings destroyed and 1.2 million people displaced in Lebanon.

“The situation is huge and urgent. The sense of emergency—we need to bring that to the table,” she said before a hushed audience at the event, offering to work with other parts of the UN, especially with regard to building safe housing. “My view on that is that we can support in looking at the long term. While all the agencies are very well equipped to provide immediate humanitarian support, we can help look beyond the humanitarian crisis. We can work with communities, with local governments, with local stakeholders, with the civil society, because we do have these entry points naturally throughout our work.”

 

Anaclaudia Rossbach, executive director of UN-Habitat, speaks at a podium at the World Urban Forum in 2024.
Conflict-related destruction of cities is a “huge and urgent” situation, said Anacláudia Rossbach, executive director of UN-Habitat and former director of the Lincoln Institute’s Latin America and the Caribbean program, at the World Urban Forum in 2024. Credit: UN-Habitat.

 

Beyond near-term measures geared toward humanitarian relief and accepting refugees—an estimated 9 million are expected in Egypt alone—the broader discussion of reconstruction from these current conflicts is so politically fraught that it’s hard to envision a way back from all the destruction. The rebuilding of Europe under the Marshall Plan appears straightforward by comparison. As the journal article author Konvitz wrote: “Cities destroyed in world wars were rebuilt; cities destroyed in today’s urban battles, often in fragile, unstable states, may be left in ruins for years.”

Nevertheless, there are tools and methodologies available to facilitate rebuilding, these experts said in Cairo, from post-disaster land readjustment strategies to geospatial mapping, which can instantly assess the damage and define the land use parameters of reconstruction.

At WUF12, those with experience with the devastation of warfare on cities talked about the importance of neighborhood-scale planning. Mona Fawaz, professor in urban studies and planning at the American University of Beirut, warned against a focus on rebuilding individual buildings, which can engender competition. Instead, she envisioned building a “collective” that would have “custody over the neighborhood and the space of negotiation with public authorities. Once we don’t focus on the collective and we don’t put the public at the center of our attention, what happens is that people don’t come back.”

Another challenge, she said, is the regulatory framework. Consider that cities and villages in southern Lebanon, for example, were built before modern building codes: “So the framework allows only for reconstruction not as it used to be before, which destroys heritage and the sense of identity in these collectives, or then to build illegally.”

Ammar Azzouz, a research fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, agreed that if cities can ever recover from the horrors of conflict over recent years, rebuilding will need to be informed by more basic elements of urbanism. There is too much emphasis on the destruction of “cultural heritage and monuments and the ancient and the classical antiquity sites, but less often there is a focus on the everyday, on the mundane, on the bakery shops on the streets, the neighborhood, the schools,” he said.

Azzouz, the author of Domicide: Architecture, War, and the Destruction of Home in Syria, left his hometown of Homs, Syria, in 2011, and has not been able to return.

“These power dynamics are so important, and I feel like we have to to move from our obsession in academia and journalism and international organizations of focusing on one mosque or one church or a bridge, to celebrate the success of reconstruction,” Azzouz said, asserting that master plans formulated by aggressors do not constitute genuine rebuilding at all. “We need to think about the wider question of what reconstruction means for the local people, and how can we listen to their voices.”

 


 

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matterspodcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Lead image: A residential building in Odesa, Ukraine, damaged by a Russian drone strike in 2024. Credit: Office of the President of Ukraine via Flickr/CC0 1.0 Universal.

Three men wearing suits and seated on couches talk to each other while two news photographers take photos of their interaction.

Report from Cairo: For Global Cities, Pressures Just Keep Building

By Anthony Flint, Enero 16, 2025

Urban planners, elected officials, representatives of nonprofit organizations, and others came together in the historic metropolis of Cairo in late 2024 to confront the relentless pressures that global cities are facing, at the World Urban Forum 12 convened by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). The theme of the summit was “It all starts at home.”

Growing populations, a continuing housing crisis, and climate change–triggered disasters including floods, droughts, and fires—as well as vast destruction associated with military conflict—have brought new intensity to efforts to support burgeoning urban areas across the globe, particularly in the developing world.

At the closing ceremony, UN-Habitat Executive Director Anaclaudia Rossbach, noting that two-thirds of the world’s population resides in urban areas, highlighted the pivotal role of local governments in shaping cities and human settlements. Rossbach, previously the director of the Latin America and the Caribbean program at the Lincoln Institute, said the conference set new records of engagement, with 24,000 participants from 182 countries.

“The World Urban Forum is a uniquely relevant event for those concerned about the quality and promise of human settlements large and small,” said Enrique R. Silva, chief program officer at the Lincoln Institute. “It’s an event that tackles the complex nature of urban issues by embracing a diversity of voices, techniques, and tools. For the Lincoln Institute, the World Urban Forum is a key space in which we can demonstrate how land and land policy can provide effective solutions to address housing, climate, and public health concerns, among other global, national, and local policy priorities.”

At the summit’s Dialogue 4: Localizing Finance and Financing Localization, Silva lauded local government efforts to boost own-source revenues, especially revenues that can be generated through the property tax or land value capture. “A local government’s capacity to leverage and manage own-source revenue not only strengthens its local finances, but also demonstrates to national and multilateral funders that it has the ability to plan, finance, and deliver projects,” he said. “This capacity can help local governments access larger sources of funding for much-needed projects.”

Several people standing and sitting at an exhibit space at a conference. The sign reads Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
World Urban Forum attendees from around the world explored the Lincoln Institute exhibit space and engaged in discussions about land policy issues during the four-day conference. Credit: Lincoln Institute.

 

Representatives from the Lincoln Institute delegation participated in panels and training sessions focused on financing local development, climate mitigation and resilience, land value capture, and affordable housing. They also took part in an open house presented by the Center for Geospatial Solutions and a special Urban Library event featuring municipal leaders and the Lincoln Institute book Mayor’s Desk: 20 Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems. That event included the governor of Cairo, Ibrahim Saber Khalil, who will be the next local leader interviewed in the ongoing Mayor’s Desk series. Other municipal leaders who participated in the panel, Mayors and Innovators: Replicable Strategies for Local Political and Technological Change, included Manuel de Araujo, mayor of Quelimane, Mozambique; Kostas Bakoyannis, former mayor of Athens; and Marvin Rees, former mayor of Bristol, England.

The issue of climate change remains prominent in any consideration of global cities and their future, said Amy Cotter, director of urban sustainability at the Lincoln Institute.

“In this unparalleled global conversation about all things urban, the context of a changing climate is ever present,” she said. “City leaders are very aware of their dual roles—both agent and victim of climate change impacts—and eager for levers of change that they can control. I was impressed with their level of engagement in our sessions on land-based climate finance and on preparing for a potential climate-induced population influx, and their commitment to putting ideas and approaches into practice back home.”

At the Urban Planning & City Solutions for Climate Mobility panel, Cotter acknowledged “the increasing difficulty of people to remain in precarious places” and offered ways that communities anticipating a potential influx of climate change–induced relocation can plan and prepare for that future, drawing from the recent working paper “Insights for Receiving Communities in Planning Equitable and Positive Outcomes Under Climate Migration.”

A red pickup truck parked near a row of partially constructed residential buildings made of concrete.
New construction on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. The city, which hosted the World Urban Forum in 2024, is home to 22 million people. Credit: Anthony Flint.

 

The Lincoln Institute continued to expand the knowledge base and create new resources on the topic of land-based climate finance. Economist Cynthia Goytia, lead author of the recently published working paper “Examining Opportunities and Challenges for Implementing Land-Based Financing Instruments for Funding Climate Action: A Study of Land Markets and Flood Risk Pricing in Different Contexts,” explored the ways cities can recoup the costs of resilience through value capture, at the session Financing Strategies and Smart Solutions for Cities Worldwide.

Luis Quintanilla, program analyst at the Lincoln Institute, led a training workshop on value capture and participated in Financing Urban Infrastructure: Innovative Options to Attract Investors. In collaboration with the Cities Forward initiative, the session Overcoming the Project Implementation Gap to Address Urban Sustainability and Resilience revealed the opportunity and benefit of land value capture for climate action.

Housing inadequacy—affecting an estimated 2.8 billion people worldwide—was the weighty topic at Meeting the Moment: Innovations in Housing Supply to Address Inequality in Cities, where Darla Munroe, director of Research and Cross-Cutting Initiatives at the Lincoln Institute, discussed the affordability of manufactured homes, as well as zoning reform efforts in the US aimed at increasing housing supply.

The Lincoln Institute has been engaged in UN-Habitat’s World Urban Forum summits for nearly 20 years.



Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of theLand Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Lead image: Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute, center, meets with Cairo Governor Ibrahim Saber Khalil, left, at the World Urban Forum. Khalil will be the next local leader profiled in the ongoing Mayor’s Desk series. Credit: Lincoln Institute.

A blue house on a stone road

A New Way to Compare Housing Markets in Latin America 

By Jon Gorey, Enero 14, 2025

A lack of access to decent housing can perpetuate inequality that persists across generations. And in that sense, countries all across Latin America and the Caribbean are facing housing crises—but each experiences those challenges in unique ways. In rapidly urbanizing cities, for example, where land and construction costs are high, demand for affordable housing outstrips supply. In other places, it can be difficult or too expensive for homebuyers to obtain a mortgage.   

Those related challenges, playing out in distinct contexts, demand unique, thoughtful policy solutions. And now, a new report that “harmonizes” disparate housing data from a dozen Latin American countries puts the region’s housing landscape in clearer perspective for policymakers.    

The 2024 LAC Housing Yearbook, a collaboration between the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and CAFDevelopment Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, catalogs more than 250 housing and financial indicators across 12 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay) to allow comparisons across the region. The report is now available in Spanish, with English and Portuguese translations coming soon.   

“By collecting and standardizing this broad set of information, the project aims to address knowledge gaps, enable cross-country comparisons, and support the formulation of efficient and targeted policies that reduce housing deficits, improve accessibility, and promote sustainable development,” says Pablo López, senior executive housing coordinator at CAF.  

“The data reveal stark realities,” continues López, whose team presented the inaugural report to the General Assembly of the Ministers and High Authorities of Housing and Urban Development of Latin America and the Caribbean (MINURVI) in December. “Housing deficits are significant, mortgage penetration remains low, and affordability is continually eroded by costs rising at higher rates than incomes.”  

The types of indicators tracked across the 12 countries include inflation and mortgage rates, formal and informal labor market participation rates, construction costs per square meter, and both quantitative and qualitative measures of a country’s housing deficit—the former referring to the number of additional homes needed to meet demand, the latter tabulating the number of families living in substandard housing. In addition to an almanac of statistical information, the report includes a regional overview and in-depth profiles of each country’s housing market. 

 

A chart comparing mortgage credit to GDP in 12 Latin American countries.
A comparison from the newly released LAC Housing Yearbook illustrates the relationship between mortgage credit and GDP in 12 countries in the region. Credit: CAF/Lincoln Institute.

 

 “It’s quite an ambitious project, because of the wide range of data categories it attempts to consolidate,” says Luis Quintanilla, senior policy analyst at the Lincoln Institute. The hope is to update the yearbook annually, which will allow for year-over-year comparisons, and to expand the list of countries over time. “We think it’s a very valuable resource,” he adds. “We hope it will be helpful for housing ministers and urban development secretaries, as well as practitioners, developers, banking and financial institutions, and other researchers.”   

Gathering some of the data presented a “formidable challenge,” López says, scattered as it was across various public and private databases, and required meticulous cross-referencing,if it was available at all. For example, information on microfinancing—small, non-mortgage loans that families can use to make incremental improvements to their homes—was inconsistent and fragmented. And reliable figures on informal housing production and credit access for informal workers were difficult or impossible to find.  

The process also revealed some information gaps that researchers or public agencies could address in the future, as well as some inefficiencies in housing subsidies. “Counterintuitively, some countries’ housing support mechanisms lack social targeting, [so they’re] benefiting higher-income groups, undermining their intended social equity objectives,” López explains.   

An urban streetscape with apartment buildings, cars, grass, and trees.
Credit: CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

The countries studied aren’t just experiencing the housing crisis in different ways, they’re also taking different steps to address it. “While countries share fundamental housing challenges, their approaches vary significantly,” López says. “The research revealed pockets of innovation and progress across the region—each nation demonstrated unique strengths that offer insights into potential solutions.”   

Chile, for example, has developed a sophisticated mortgage market “complemented by innovative rental subsidy programs that address housing affordability from multiple angles,” López says. Panama can boast relatively low mortgage rates and a credit market that reaches almost a quarter (23.1 percent) of GDP, “a notable achievement in a region often characterized by limited financial inclusion,” he adds. “Meanwhile, Ecuador and Peru are pushing boundaries through pioneering green financing instruments, including innovative green bonds and mortgages that signal a forward-thinking approach to sustainable housing development.”   

Still, the data make clear that no country has comprehensively solved its housing challenges, López says. “Instead, the region demonstrates a mosaic of targeted innovations, each addressing specific dimensions of a complex housing landscape.”  

Quintanilla hopes this new collection of reliable, comparable data will help policymakers reach out and learn from each other. “If some particular country finds a similar context, but different outcomes, we hope that highlighting some of those discrepancies may be the spark for an exchange of ideas and transferable lessons,” he says.  

 


 

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image credit: CAF—Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.