The largest of the post-World War II suburbs were the size of cities, with populations between 50,000 and 80,000, but they looked like overgrown subdivisions. In Levittown, Lakewood and Park Forest, model houses on curving streets held families similar in age, race and income whose suburban lifestyles were reflected in the nationally popular television sitcoms of the 1950s. The planning of these suburbs was often presented in the popular press as hasty, driven by the need to house war heroes returned from the Battle of the Bulge or Bataan; any problems could be excused by the rush. But, haste was not the case. Political lobbying during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s shaped postwar housing and urban design. The postwar suburbs were constructed at great speed, but that is a different part of their story.

Postwar suburbs represented the deliberate intervention of the federal government into the financing of single-family housing across the nation. For the first time, the federal government provided massive aid directed to developers (whose loans were insured by the Federal Housing Administration, FHA) and white male homeowners (who could get Veterans’ Administration guarantees for mortgages at four percent, with little or nothing down, and then deduct their mortgage interest payments from their taxable income for 30 years). The federal government came to this policy after fierce debates involving architects, planners, politicians, and business and real estate interests.

Herbert Hoover, as secretary of commerce (1921-1928) and then as president (1929-1933), drew the federal government toward housing policy to promote home building as a business strategy for economic recovery from the Depression. Working closely with the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), Hoover’s Commerce Department had established a Division of Building and Housing in 1921, and went on to establish and support Better Homes in America, Inc. By 1930, this coalition had over 7,000 local chapters composed of bankers, real estate brokers, builders, and manufacturers who lobbied for government support for private development of small homes to boost consumption.

In 1931, Hoover ran a National Conference on Homebuilding and Home Ownership that explored federal investment, discussing not only financing and construction of houses, but also building codes, zoning codes, subdivision layout, and the location of industry and commerce. President Franklin D. Roosevelt followed Hoover and launched numerous New Deal programs in planning and housing. The National Housing Act created the FHA in 1934; the Resettlement Administration, created by Executive Order in 1935, sponsored the Greenbelt Towns; the U.S. Housing Act (Wagner Act) created the U.S. Housing Authority to sponsor public housing in 1937. Which of these programs would be the most influential?

The RPAA and the Labor Housing Conference

Housing activists such as Catherine Bauer and Edith Elmer Wood were members of the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), along with planners Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, and Benton MacKaye. They advocated federal support for public housing through the Wagner Act. Bauer, an architectural critic and author of Modern Housing, was also executive secretary of the Labor Housing Conference, which campaigned for the design of multi-family housing with child care centers and recreational amenities. Projects such as the Hosiery Workers Housing in Philadelphia and the Harlem River Houses for African Americans in New York, designed by teams of noted architects in the 1930s, demonstrated the excellence possible for multi-family urban projects. Nevertheless, conservative Republicans refused to vote for the Wagner Act in 1935 and 1936, passing it in 1937 with severe cost restrictions, means testing for tenants, and slum clearance provisions to protect private landlords. These provisions meant that design would be minimal and residents would be poor. The Labor Housing Conference members bemoaned the final result as the “Anti-Housing Act.”

The Realtors’ Washington Committee

Many of NAREB’s members, large-scale land subdividers of the 1920s, were originally real estate brokerage firms, not homebuilders. (They left the home building to small contractors or mail order house companies.) By the 1930s, many of these subdividers realized they could enhance profits by erecting houses on some of their lots to enhance the image of community and stability they were selling. They renamed themselves “community builders.” Herbert U. Nelson, NAREB’s chief lobbyist, became executive director of the Realtors’ Washington Committee, which lobbied hard for the FHA, so that federal sources of capital and guarantees of mortgages would provide a safety net for the subdividers’ building operations. Both the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) formed in the early 1940s as spin-offs from NAREB.

Beginning in 1934, the FHA insured bank loans to developers so they could purchase land, subdivide it, and construct houses on it with very little of their own capital involved. These loans of 80 or 90 percent of project cost eliminated risk and were made long before the developers had buyers. In return, the developers had to agree to submit site plans and housing plans for review by the FHA, which issued booklets offering conservative advice about architecture and site design. Meant to correct the worst abuses of corrupt builders, these manuals on small houses and on “planning profitable neighborhoods” rejected regional styles, scorned modern architecture and, according to architect Keller Easterling, instituted mediocre “subdivision products.” Kenneth Jackson has documented that the FHA’s concern for resale value also led it to refuse loans for racially mixed neighborhoods. Only all-white subdivisions, enforced by deed restrictions, would qualify.

The Realtors’ Washington Committee supported the FHA. It also lobbied against federal government funding for any other approaches to housing, including complete towns planned by the Resettlement Administration, wartime housing for workers constructed by the government that might provide competition for private efforts, and public housing in the cities. Allied with NAREB were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. League of Savings and Loans, the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, and others.

Housing Hearings of 1947-1948

After the war ended, demand for housing was intense. People were doubled up with relatives, friends and strangers. Veterans lived in converted chicken coops and camped out in cars. The need for shelter was only expected to grow as waves of demobilized veterans, wartime savings at the ready, married and formed new households.

Although they were deeply disappointed by some aspects of the 1937 housing legislation, Catherine Bauer and other advocates of multi-family housing in urban residential neighborhoods did not retreat. They campaigned for expanded public housing through better legislation in the form of the bipartisan Taft Ellender Wagner housing bill first introduced in 1945 and supported by such groups as the AFL, the CIO and the Conference of Mayors.

These advocates found themselves in a shouting match with NAREB lobbyists who were busy discrediting public construction of shelter as “un-American” and promoting government subsidies for private housing development. Historians Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, in their book Picture Windows, document the hearings on housing dominated by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1947 and 1948. McCarthy hassled proponents of public housing and planned towns. Attacking one federally funded multi-family project for veterans, he claimed the government had paid for “a breeding ground for communists.” NAREB’s Herbert U. Nelson also believed public housing was communistic, whereas public support for private businesses was fine. He argued that “public credit can properly be used to help sustain home ownership and private enterprise,” and he railed against the women housing activists trying to promote affordable housing for workers. McCarthy’s committee also attacked building workers in the AFL’s traditional craft unions as incompetents who produced “slack” work and would impede the postwar housing process.

McCarthy found in developer William Levitt an ally who testified that only federal aid to large private builders, coupled with abolition of zoning codes, building codes and union restrictions, could solve the postwar housing shortage. Levitt and Sons, of Long Island, became the nation’s largest home building firm by 1952, creating its first postwar suburb of over 70,000 inexpensive houses on small lots. Levitt followed FHA restrictions on race, refusing to sell to African Americans, so Levittown became the largest all-white community in the nation. There was never an overall town plan for Levittown, which spanned two existing Long Island towns, Hempstead and Oyster Bay, in Nassau County. Levitt and Sons provided no sewers, relying instead on individual septic tanks, and built residential streets that failed to connect with county and state highways. The project was all about selling houses, not about the basics of sheltering tens of thousands of people according to professional standards of housing or urban design.

By October 1952, Fortune magazine gushed over “The Most House for the Money” and praised “Levitt’s Progress,” publishing his complaints about government interference through too-strict FHA and VA inspections and standards. With a straight face, and despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of FHA financing, Levitt said, “Utopia in this business would be to get rid of the government, except in its proper function of an insurance agency.”

Meanwhile, Catherine Bauer and her allies faced the same kind of opposition they had confronted on the earlier housing bill. The 1949 Housing Act did not meet their expectations, and its provisions for demolition began the neighborhood destruction pattern that would later become “urban renewal.” With each succeeding year, fewer units of new public housing construction were authorized.

The Two-Tier Legacy

In Modern Housing in America, historian Gail Radford defines the 1930s and 1940s as the time when Americans developed a “two-tier” policy to subsidize housing. Cramped multi-family housing for the poor would be constructed by public authorities, while more generous single-family housing for white, male-headed families would be constructed by private developers with government support. This policy disadvantaged women and people of color, as well as the elderly and people of low incomes. It also had profound implications for urban design. Inadequate financial resources hampered multi-family housing complexes, while material resources were wasted in single-family housing production without proper urban planning. Worst of all, federal policy mystified many working-class and middle-class Americans, who saw minimal visible subsidies helping the poor but never understood that their own housing was being subsidized in a far more generous way through income-tax deductions that grew with the size of their mortgages.

Despite the greater scope for urban public amenities suggested by New Deal legislation enabling federal involvement in town building and public housing, it was the FHA’s mortgage insurance for private subdivisions that proved to have the greatest long-term effect on American urbanization patterns. As real estate historian Marc A. Weiss has stated: “This new federal agency, run to a large extent both by and for bankers, builders, and brokers, exercised great political power in pressuring local planners and government officials to conform to its requirements.” Between 1934 and 1940, Weiss concludes that “FHA had fully established the land planning and development process and pattern that a decade later captured media attention as ‘postwar suburbanization.'” Barry Checkoway notes that accounts of subdivisions “exploding” often attributed their growth to consumer choice, but in fact consumers had little choice. The well-designed urban multi-family projects Bauer and others had envisioned were not available as alternatives to the large subdivisions of inexpensive houses constructed by the big builders who now controlled the housing market.

The distrust and anger generated by the two-tier housing solution endure today. Public policy has separated affluent and poor, white and black, male-headed households and female-headed households, young families and the elderly. Advocates of affordable housing and urban amenities often see white suburbs and their residents as the enemy, while many affluent white suburban homeowners and successful builders don’t want to deal with city problems. The two-tier solution also dampened idealism in the planning and design professions. Architects lost the chance to build large amounts of affordable multi-family housing with sophisticated designs. Regional planners lost the chance to direct the location and site design of massive postwar construction. Sixty years later, metropolitan regions are still shaped by the outcome of these old debates.

Dolores Hayden is professor of architecture, urbanism and American studies at Yale University. With support from the Lincoln Institute, she is working on a new history of American suburbia, Model Houses for the Millions: Making the American Suburban Landscape, 1820-2000.

Her new working paper, Model Houses for the Millions: Making the American Suburban Landscape, 1820-2000, is currently available from the Lincoln Institute.

References

Catherine Bauer. 1934. Modern Housing. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen. 2000. Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Barry Checkoway. 1986. “Large Builders, Federal Housing Programs, and Postwar Suburbanization,” in Rachel G. Bratt, Chester Hartman, and Ann Meyerson, Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. 119-138.

Keller Easterling. 1999. Organization Space. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Dolores Hayden. 1984. Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work, and Family Life. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Kenneth T. Jackson. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gail Radford. 1996. Modern Housing in America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Marc A. Weiss. 1987. The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Use Planning. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Vacant land and its integration into the urban land market are topics rarely investigated in Latin America. The existing literature tends to focus only on descriptive aspects (i.e., number and size of lots). In the current context of profound economic and social transformations and changing supply and demand patterns of land in cities, the perception of vacant land is beginning to change from being a problem to offering an opportunity.

A comparative study of vacant land in six Latin American cities (Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Quito, Ecuador; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Santiago, Chile) was recently completed as part of an ongoing Lincoln Institute-sponsored research project. The participating researchers examined different categories of vacant land, the problems they generate and their potential uses, as well as the changing roles of both private and public agents, including governments, in the management of vacant land. They concluded that vacant land is an integral element of the complex land markets in these cities, affecting fiscal policies on land and housing. Thus, vacant land has great potential for large-scale developments that could result in improved conditions for urban areas, as well as reduced social polarization and greater equity for their populations.

The six cities in the study vary in size but share the common attributes of rapid population growth and territorial expansion. They also have comparable social indicators (high rates of poverty, unemployment and underemployment), significant deficits in housing and provision of services, and high levels of geographical social stratification and segregation. The land markets in each of the cities also have similar characteristics, although they exhibit their own dynamics in each sub-market.

Characteristics of Vacant Land

The four primary characteristics of vacant land considered in this research project are ownership, quantity, location and length of vacancy. In general, vacant land in Latin America is held by one or more of the following agents, each with their respective policies: real estate developers or sub-dividers (both legal and illegal); low-income people who have acquired land, but cannot afford to develop it; real estate speculators; farmers; state enterprises; and other institutions such as the church, the military, social security, etc.

Determining how much vacant land exists in each city depends on the definition given to the term in the respective country . Quantifying vacant land is further complicated by the numerous obstacles that exist to obtaining accurate information, thus limiting the possibility of comparing data and percentages across metropolitan areas. Finally, in several of these cities (San Salvador, Santiago and Buenos Aires) there are significant “latent” vacant areas. These are unused or marginally used buildings, often previously occupied by former state-owned companies, waiting for new investments in order to be demolished or redeveloped.

In these six cities, the percentage of vacant land ranges from under 5 percent in San Salvador to nearly 44 percent in Rio de Janeiro. If all of San Salvador’s “latent” vacant areas were included, the percentage of vacant land could increase to 40 percent of the total metropolitan area. On the whole, vacant land in the cities accounts for a significant percentage of serviced areas that could potentially house considerable numbers of people who currently have no access to serviced urban land.

The location of vacant land is relatively uniform throughout the region. Whereas in the United States vacant land tends to be centrally located (such as abandoned areas or industrial brownfield sites), in Latin America the majority of vacant sites lie in the outskirts of the cities. These areas are frequently associated with speculation and retention strategies for occupation based on the provision of services. In contrast, the length of time land has been vacant differs considerably: in Lima and Quito, vacant urban lots are relatively “new,” whereas in Buenos Aires some urban lots have remained vacant for several decades.

Policy Issues and Development Potential

An evaluation of the urban-environmental conditions of vacant land concludes that a significant number of sites could tolerate residential or productive activities. These areas currently constitute an underutilized resource and should be considered for investments in urban infrastructure to improve land use efficiency. An equally significant segment, however, has important risk factors: inadequate basic infrastructure; water polluted by industrial waste; risk of flood, erosion or earthquake; and poor accessibility. Such land is inappropriate for occupation unless significant investments are made to safeguard against these environmental problems. Some land in this category could have great potential for environmental protection, although consciousness about land conservation remains a low priority in Latin America.

The study asserts that, in general, the urban poor have little access to vacant land due to high land values, despite the fact that values do vary according to sub-market. Prices are high in areas of dynamic urban expansion that offer better accessibility and services. A large amount of vacant land in several of the cities studied is not on the market and will likely remain vacant for an indefinite period of time. It is in these areas, the researchers contend, that policies should be implemented to reduce the price of serviced vacant land to make it more accessible to the poor.

The majority of Latin American cities have no explicit policies or legal framework regarding vacant land. In those cities where some legislation does exist, such as Rio de Janeiro, it is basically limited to recommendations and lacks real initiatives. In Santiago, recent legislation has promoted increased density in urban areas, yet it is too soon to know the implications of these measures. References to the environment are also generally lacking in “urban” legislation. Vacant land could play an important role in urban sustainability. However, reaching this potential would depend on better articulation between environmental and planning actions, especially at the local level.

Another characteristic common to the areas studied, with the exception of Santiago, is that urban development policy and specific land market policies have been disconnected from tax policy. Even in those cities where there is a distinction in taxation on vacant versus built land-such as Buenos Aires or Quito-it has not translated into any real changes. Sanctions and higher taxes on vacant areas have largely been avoided through a series of loopholes and “exceptions.”

Proposals and Criteria for Implementation

Arguing for an increased government role in land markets in combination with institution-building and capacity-building among other involved actors, the study formulates a number of proposals for the use and reuse of vacant land in Latin America. An overriding proposal is that vacant land should be incorporated into the city’s overall policy framework, taking into account the diversity of vacant land situations. Land use policies to increase the number of green areas, build low-income housing and provide needed infrastructure should be implemented as part of a framework of urban planning objectives. Furthermore, vacant land should be used to promote “urban rationality” by stimulating the occupation of vacant lots in areas with existing infrastructure and repressing urban growth in areas without appropriate infrastructure.

Urban policy objectives on vacant land should also be pursued through tax policy. Some suggestions formulated in this regard are the broadening of the tax base and tax instruments; incorporating mechanisms for value capture in urban public investment; application of a progressive property tax policy (to discourage land retention by high-income owners); and greater flexibility in the municipal tax apparatus.

These policies should be linked to other mechanisms designed to deter the expansion of vacant land and the dynamic of geographical social stratification and segregation. Such related mechanisms might include the granting of low-interest credits or subsidies for the purchase of building materials; technical assistance for construction of housing; provision of infrastructure networks to reduce costs; and credits or grace periods for payment of closing costs, taxes and service fees on property.

Other proposals address the development of pilot programs for land transfers using public-private partnerships to build on government-owned land in order to promote social housing at affordable rates; reuse of some land for agricultural production; and greater attention to environmental issues, with the goal of assuring urban sustainability in the future.

The 1994 Regulatory Plan for the Santiago metropolitan area defined a goal of elevating the city’s average density by 50 percent, while 1995 reforms to the Ley de Rentas introduced a fee on non-edified land and a disincentive to land speculation.

Nora Clichevsky is a researcher with CONICET, the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is the coordinator of the six-city study of vacant land in Latin America, which met to discuss these findings in August 1998. Laura Mullahy, a research assistant with the Lincoln Institute’s Latin American Program, contributed to this article.

Other members of the research team are Julio Calderón of Lima, Peru; Diego Carrión and Andrea Carrión of CIUDAD in Quito, Ecuador; Fernanda Furtado and Fabrizio Leal de Oliveira of the University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Mario Lungo and Francisco Oporto of the Central American University in El Salvador; and Patricio Larraín of the Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urbanism.

In the next phase of this project, the Lincoln Institute will sponsor a seminar on vacant land this spring in Río de Janeiro, with the participation of the original researchers as well as other experts from each of the cities involved.

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 6 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

Los sectores populares en la mayoría de las ciudades latinoamericanas se encuentran en una grave desventaja al intentar influenciar la planificación urbana y la administración de sus comunidades. A pesar de que los activistas comunitarios pueden estar bien organizados a nivel local, sus intereses no están involucrados en la toma de decisiones que pueden tener implicaciones a gran escala tanto en la administración de tierras urbanas como en los derechos humanos. Como parte de este esfuerzo actual para ayudar a líderes comunitarios y a funcionarios públicos de América Latina a ser más efectivos en la implementación de políticas de administración de tierras de carácter fundamental, el Instituto Lincoln respaldó un programa educativo innovador en octubre en la ciudad de Quito, Ecuador.

El programa “Políticas de tierra urbanas para los sectores populares” fue copatrocinado por el Instituto Lincoln, el Centro de Investigaciones CIUDAD y el Centro de Investigaciones en Diseño y Urbanismo de la escuela de arquitectura de la Universidad Católica de Quito. Este programa piloto sirvió para que por primera vez se reunieran en un foro representantes de más de 50 comunidades de bajos recursos de todo Ecuador. Se discutieron ambigüedades en torno a la formulación e implementación de políticas de tierra urbanas, así como las causas e impactos de estas políticas en el uso y regulación de la tierra. Particularmente, se prestó atención al acceso equitativo a la propiedad de la tierra, el acceso a viviendas y a la construcción de ayuda propia en las periferias urbanas.

El ministro de la vivienda y desarrollo urbano de Ecuador dio inicio a la primera sesión. Un grupo de académicos, consejeros de políticas profesionales, autoridades gubernamentales locales y nacionales, y líderes de opinión ofrecieron una variedad de talleres de planificación estratégica y presentaciones de panel. El foro contó tanto con discusiones conceptuales como prácticas sobre la legislación de tierras urbanas, donde se reconoció la evidente falta de información acerca de políticas de tierra a nivel de las bases.

Muchas preguntas subrayaron la situación de Ecuador, donde la inseguridad personal, del hogar y de la tierra frecuentemente llevó a la violencia y los desalojos. Este importante tema sirvió para resaltar la preeminencia de los derechos humanos en el debate sobre las tierras urbanas, y para reforzar la necesidad urgente de tomar en cuenta una amplia gama de políticas públicas y mecanismos de planificación. Además de incentivar redes de organización entre los pobres urbanos y alianzas con otros líderes de movimientos populares y locales, en el foro se exploraron estrategias para construir solidaridad entre los diversos sectores.

La última sesión contó con la asistencia de alcaldes de otras ciudades latinoamericanas, y se concluyó que las fuerzas que afectan a los residentes urbanos de bajos recursos en Ecuador son sorprendentemente similares a lo largo de toda la región. Una clara lección es que el acceso a la información es imprescindible si se quiere permitir que cada comunidad e individuo influencie la formulación e implementación de políticas de tierra urbanas sobre una base de participación democrática. Un inventario de casos de estudio comparativo en prácticas de uso comunitario de la tierra será incorporado en programas de seguimiento para asistir a funcionarios públicos y administradores en las futuras planificaciones y gestiones de políticas para el uso de la tierra.

El foro de Quito es un ejemplo de la meta educativa del Instituto Lincoln de proporcionar un mejor conocimiento a los ciudadanos afectados por las políticas de tierra urbanas. Uno de los resultados fue “El documento de Quito”, un resumen de las estrategias a que se llegó por consenso entre los participantes. El reto de convertir el consenso de ellos en acciones será la prueba verdadera del programa piloto. El instituto podría también colaborar con el Programa de Gestión Urbana de las Naciones Unidas para Latinoamérica y el Caribe para desarrollar una agenda común de educación, investigación y publicaciones. Los resultados ayudarían a ampliar las discusiones de problemas a nivel de las bases y a mejorar las formas en que los funcionarios públicos y los líderes populares pueden trabajar en conjunto para generaran políticas más efectivas.

Sonia Pereira es miembro visitante del Instituto Lincoln. También es abogado ambientalista, biólogo, psicólogo social y activista de derechos humanos. Su trabajo sobre protección ambiental en comunidades de bajos recursos del Brasil ha sido ampliamente reconocido. Es Citizen of the World Laureate (Universidad Mundial de la Paz, 1992) y Global 500 Laureate (Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente-PNUMA, 1996).

Una versión más actualizada de este artículo está disponible como parte del capítulo 1 del libro Perspectivas urbanas: Temas críticos en políticas de suelo de América Latina.

El Programa para América Latina del Instituto Lincoln se dedica a la educación y los proyectos de investigación con universidades y gobiernos locales en toda América Central, Sudamérica y el Caribe. Estas actividades cobran mayor relevancia en la actualidad debido a los numerosos cambios políticos y económicos por los que están atravesando los mercados inmobiliarios de América Latina. Por ejemplo, la (re)democratización del continente permite que un segmento más amplio de la sociedad participe en el diseño de programas viables e innovadores para los gobiernos locales en manos de partidos políticos rivales.

Además, las reformas institucionales, y en muchos casos constitucionales, están afectando el valor de la tierra y los derechos y regulaciones de la propiedad. Los programas de ajustes estructurales diseñados para contener la inflación y superar las crisis económicas de los años 1980 están cambiando las actitudes en cuanto a la tenencia de la tierra, ya sea como inversión o como reserva de valor. En América Latina, los frecuentes cambios especulativos entre la tenencia de la tierra y otros activos financieros, según los caprichos del “ambiente económico” predominante, han sido la pesadilla de los planificadores.

Las fuerzas de la globalización y la urbanización contribuyen igualmente con las presiones significativas y variables que se ejercen sobre el uso de la tierra. Cada vez más, se ven espacios al estilo de Los Ángeles en ciertas zonas residenciales de Sao Paulo, Santiago o Ciudad de México. Aunque la pérdida de la biodiversidad de la región se conoce bien porque está documentada, América Latina también corre el riesgo de perder la diversidad del uso de la tierra.

Pese a que estos temas son comunes, América Latina dista mucho de ser una entidad homogénea. La diversidad surge claramente al analizar la tenencia de la tierra y las estructuras de los mercados inmobiliarios de los distintos países, por ejemplo:

• La glorificación de los mercados inmobiliarios en Chile contrasta con la verdadera eliminación de dichos mercados en Cuba y la segregación residencial resultante.
• México tuvo una experiencia única con las tierras comunales (ejidos) que ahora se están privatizando con repercusiones considerables para la nueva expansión urbana.
• En Brasil, los frecuentes conflictos por causa de la tierra —algunos con consecuencias trágicas para los desposeídos— pueden atribuirse a una reforma prometida hace mucho y que aún no se ha materializado.
• En Paraguay, hasta su reciente democratización, tradicionalmente las tierras eran repartidas por un partido político hegemónico, en un claro menosprecio del mercado. En Argentina, por el contrario, el estado utiliza sus considerables reservas de tierras fiscales para facilitar las inversiones extranjeras en proyectos inmobiliarios, directamente a través del mercado.
• Es probable que la pasada redistribución de tierras en Nicaragua sea la causa de la vitalidad del mercado de bienes raíces recientemente liberado y los fuertes procesos de reconcentración de tierras que están en marcha actualmente.
• Los pujantes mercados inmobiliarios de Ecuador y Venezuela a menudo han sido atribuidos a la facilidad para el lavado de dinero proveniente de Colombia, país vecino donde la regulación es más estricta.

En vista de esta diversidad, el programa para América Latina del Instituto está concentrando sus esfuerzos educativos y de investigación en la creación de una red integrada por estudiosos sumamente capacitados y autoridades responsables de formular políticas públicas.

Dado que representan países diferentes y aportan variados antecedentes académicos y profesionales, estos expertos ayudan a identificar los asuntos de mayor importancia para la región. Estos son algunos ejemplos de los temas actuales que surgen de las necesidades reales y previstas por los funcionarios públicos: La reactivación del debate sobre el funcionamiento de los mercados inmobiliarios urbanos, el estrechamiento de la brecha entre el mercado inmobiliario formal y el informal y la implementación de nuevos instrumentos de políticas de tierras.

El acceso a la tierra por parte de la población urbana de ingresos bajos es el tema que tiene mayor presencia en el ánimo y la mente de muchos investigadores y funcionarios públicos. Hay dos campos de investigación que se relacionan: 1) los mecanismos que generan la segregación residencial o la exclusión a través del mercado por parte de agentes privados o públicos, y 2) las estrategias para que “los excluidos” tengan acceso a la tierra y así puedan formalizar su “inclusión social”. En su mayoría, los programas educativos que el Instituto lleva a cabo en América Latina para abordar la gestión de la tierra y los instrumentos de intervención pública surgen directa o indirectamente de este tema.

Para muchos funcionarios públicos de la región, la reforma de la tierra es un tema delicado y la recuperación de plusvalías de los bienes raíces generados por la actuación del sector público todavía parece una idea subversiva vista con recelo. De tal modo, el Instituto Lincoln se sitúa en una posición privilegiada como facilitador neutral con capacidad para colaborar con académicos y funcionarios públicos de América Latina, y también con expertos de los Estados Unidos, para aportar una perspectiva comparativa internacional de las ideas y experiencias en cuanto a las políticas de la tierra.

Martim Smolka, miembro principal del Instituto desde septiembre de 1995, se encuentra de licencia como profesor asociado en el Instituto de Investigación y Planificación Urbana y Regional de la Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro, en Brasil.

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.

El precio excesivamente alto de la tierra urbanizada en América Latina es una de varias explicaciones del grado y la persistencia de los mercados informales de tierra. Contrario a las creencias populares, la informalidad es costosa y por lo tanto no es lo mejor y ni siquiera es una alternativa ventajosa para combatir la pobreza, pero por lo general es la única salida para las familias urbanas pobres. Una política más consistente para reducir la informalidad, y así reducir la pobreza, debería ser al menos neutra o aportar a la reducción de los altos precios de la tierra.

La Pobreza Sola no puede Explicar la Informalidad

Aunque el mapa de la ilegalidad urbana se parezca al de la pobreza, la extensión y la persistencia de la informalidad no puede ser explicada solamente por la pobreza. No todos los ocupantes de los asentamientos informales son pobres, tal como muchos estudios empíricos en América Latina lo han demostrado en los últimos años. La tasa de ocupación irregular de la tierra es mucho más alto que el aumento del número de familias nuevas pobres. En Brasil, por ejemplo, el número total de residentes en “favelas” ha aumentado cinco veces más rápido que el de residentes pobres, y una tendencia similar se observa en las más grandes ciudades Latinoamericanas.

Este crecimiento espectacular de los asentamientos informales ha ocurrido en las periferias y por densificación de áreas “consolidadas” irregulares urbanas, pese a que los índices de natalidad y de migrantes campo-ciudad hayan caído sustancialmente y el porcentaje de ciudadanos pobres haya permanecido relativamente estable. Otras explicaciones de este crecimiento informal incluyen la falta de programas de vivienda social, la inversión pública inadecuada en infraestructura urbana y, por último aunque no menos importante, debido a la cruda realidad de que los mecanismos informales son rentables para quienes los promueven.

El Alto Costo de la Tierra Urbanizada

La economía convencional formula que los precios de libre mercado reflejan el nivel en el que la capacidad y la disposición a pagar de un comprador coincide con la capacidad y la disposición a vender de un proveedor, pero esto no garantiza que se suplan las necesidades sociales. Es decir, el mercado para la tierra urbanizada puede estar funcionando bien mientras que muchas familias (incluso no pobres) no pueden acceder a él, y mientras algunos terrenos urbanos son mantenidos vacantes intencionalmente.

En las periferias de muchas ciudades Latinoamericanas, el precio de un metro cuadrado (m2) de tierra urbanizada, desarrollado por agentes privados, puede variar entre US$32 Y US$172. Estos niveles son cercanos en términos absolutos a los encontrados en el mundo desarrollado, donde los ingresos per-cápita son típicamente 7 a 10 veces mayores. Hasta una familia encima de la línea de pobreza que ahorre el 20% de su ingreso mensual (US$200) necesita ahorrar de 12 a 15 años para adquirir un lote urbanizado de 150 m2. Estos indicadores sugieren que la dificultad de acceso a la tierra urbana pueda ser uno de los factores que contribuyen a la pobreza.

El precio de la tierra urbana, como en cualquier mercado, es determinado por la oferta y demanda. El suministro de tierra depende de la cantidad habilitada (producida) por año, la cantidad que es retenida, y la intensidad de uso de la existente. La demanda depende de la tasa anual de formación de nuevos hogares, ajustada por su ingreso y/o poder adquisitivo, sus preferencias y los precios de otros artículos en sus presupuestos. Es difícil realizar una explicación completa de todos los factores que afectan el comportamiento de precios de tierra (Ver Smolka 2002), pero basta mencionar ciertos determinantes emblemáticos para entender algunas aparentes idiosincrasias del funcionamiento de mercados de tierra urbanos en América Latina.

Desde el lado de la oferta, los impuestos prediales, la mayor fuente potencial para financiar la producción de tierra urbana, es ridículamente bajo. Típicamente representan menos que el 0.5 por ciento del PIB, comparado al 3 y 4 por ciento en EE UU y Canadá. En general hay la sensación de que América Latina invierte poco en infraestructura y servicios comparado con su PIB per cápita. Los sustanciales incrementos observados en el valor de tierra, como resultado de inversiones en infraestructura urbana y servicios, generalmente son ignorados como una fuente para financiar tales inversiones, debido a mecanismos débiles de captura de la valorización (Smolka y Furtado 2001).

Además, la disposición de considerables áreas de tierra es controlada por agentes que no siguen la racionalidad económica (por ejemplo, las fuerzas armadas, la iglesia o entidades estatales como los ferrocarriles). De otro lado, la limitada disponibilidad de tierra habilitada es a menudo sometida a normas urbanísticas elitistas, diseñadas para “proteger” esos vecindarios haciéndolos inaccesibles para familias de bajos ingresos.

En el lado de la demanda, muchas familias, incluso con buenos ingresos, trabajan informalmente y son excluidos del mercado por no tener las credenciales requeridas por los bancos para otorgar créditos. La necesidad de auto-financiar la producción de la vivienda alarga el tiempo entre la adquisición y la ocupación del lote, aumentando tanto el costo de la financiación como la demanda global por tierra. Además, la herencia de alta inflación, mercados de capital subdesarrollados o inaccesibles, y la limitada cobertura del sistema de seguridad social, son responsables de alimentar una cultura establecida entre sectores de bajos ingresos de usar terrenos como reserva de valor y como un mecanismo popular de capitalización, lo cual también presiona la demanda de tierra. En otras palabras, retener terrenos rústicos y especular con tierra no es una conducta exclusiva de los sectores altos ingresos.

Los precios de los Lotes Informales

Más allá de estos argumentos convencionales acerca de la oferta y demanda, hay que tener en cuenta la interdependencia de los mercados formales e informales de tierra, como factores que contribuyen a su alto precio. Específicamente, el alto precio de la tierra urbanizada en el mercado formal, parece afectar los relativamente altos precios de los loteos informales, y viceversa.

Los precios de tierra revelan la diferencia que un comprador tiene que pagar para evitar caer en una situación peor (esto significa más lejos del trabajo, menos o peores servicios públicos, menos calidad ambiental, y otros). Entonces, si la “mejor” alternativa es un lote en un asentamiento informal, cabe esperar un precio mayor en los terrenos que si tienen servicios, lo cual también refleja el valor de los títulos legales que ostentan estos terrenos. De otra parte, si el precio mínimo de la tierra urbanizada (la tierra bruta más el costo de urbanización) sigue siendo inaccesible, entonces cualquier tipo de tierra que la familia pueda conseguir le representa una mejor alternativa. Esta alternativa puede variar desde el loteo más alejado, la invasión con la mediación de un urbanizador pirata o de movimientos organizados (ambos envuelven comisiones y otro tipo de pagos), hasta el más predominante mercado de tierra, consistente en subdivisiones irregulares de grandes parcelas en pequeños lotes con servicios precarios.

El precio de la tierra en los mercados informales es, por consiguiente, más alto que el precio de tierra bruta, pero normalmente menor que la suma de la tierra bruta más el costo de habilitarla. Al mismo tiempo, el precio tiende a ser menor (aunque no necesariamente por metro cuadrado) que el precio mínimo de la tierra completamente habilitada y comercializada en los mercados formales. En efecto, el mercado aprecia las formas más “flexibles” para acceder a la tierra, como por ejemplo tamaños de lote más pequeños que el mínimo legal, o la construcción sin respetar los códigos de construcción, o incluso la posibilidad de vender la azotea de una casa como espacio construible.

La mayoría de las familias de más bajos ingresos no escogen un asentamiento informal porque les brinde el mejor precio, sino simplemente porque con frecuencia solo tienen esa alternativa. “La decisión” de adquirir un lote informal es de todas maneras costosa. Estimativos conservadores obtenidos de una encuesta informal en diez grandes ciudades de Latinoamérica, muestran que el precio promedio de la tierra en loteos comercializados ilegalmente es de US$27 por metro cuadrado (Ver Tabla 1).

Tabla 1. Precios y rentabilidad en mercados formales e informales de tierra (US$)

Mercado Formal Mercado Informal

1. Tierra rural asignada para uso urbano $4 $4

2. Costo de urbanización Mínima = $5 Máximo = $25

3. Precio final en el mercado $27 $70

4. Beneficio sobre capital avanzado= (3-1-2)/(1+2) 200% 141%

El renglón de las utilidades (4) explica al menos en parte la cuestión (paradójica en apariencia): ¿Por qué, a pesar de los significativos márgenes de ganancia del mercado informal, uno encuentra tan poco interés en desarrollar tierra por parte del sector privado? Como lo indica la Tabla 1, la producción de tierra informal es más rentable que la producción formal. Incluso el resultado para el mercado formal está bastante subestimado, puesto que hay altos riesgos asociados con costos financieros, de seguridad y mercadeo, y otros costos incurrido por el desarrollador que no afectan al urbanizador informal. Estos datos también ayudan a explicar por qué la formalidad genera informalidad, y desnudan el hecho de que las ventajas de los arreglos informales no son necesariamente percibidas por los ocupantes de bajos ingresos, sino por los urbanizadores informales.

Efectos Inesperados de la Normalización

Miremos ahora la cuestión de las políticas utilizadas en esta materia. Dada la aparente imposibilidad o impracticabilidad de adoptar alguna otra política, la noción prevaleciente ha sido tolerar las “soluciones” informales para posibilitar el acceso a la tierra y después normalizar o “desmarginalizar” los asentamientos, como algo más barato en el largo plazo para los fondos públicos, y mejor para los ocupantes de bajos ingresos (Lincoln Institute 2002).

El argumento de las finanzas públicas consiste en que el arreglo existente es más barato porque se apoya en inversiones privadas, relevando las agencias públicas de responsabilidades y gastos que, en caso contrario, se entenderían como parte del “derecho a la ciudad”. Esta visión es cuestionable por dos razones. Primero, las condiciones físicas de las habitaciones son a menudo inaceptables como asentamiento humano, pese a lo imaginativas que resultan las soluciones informales bajo condiciones extremas. Los bajos estándares de utilización de la tierra y la alta densidad en estos asentamientos son tolerados solamente porque el daño ya ha sido hecho. Segundo, en relación con la infraestructura, algunas de alternativas promisorias han mostrado recientemente un pobre comportamiento y demandan gastos excesivos de mantenimiento.

Los impactos sobre las familias de bajos ingresos son también peores de lo esperado. No sólo los precios de la tierra son bastante altos sino que conllevan costos adicionales: aquellos sin una dirección de residencia (por vivir en un asentamiento irregular) a menudo son discriminados cuando buscan un trabajo o servicios; los alquileres como porcentaje del valor de las propiedades son más altos que los cánones observados en los mercados formales; el acceso al agua en camiones u otra fuente temporal resulta más costoso que por acueducto; y el costo de la inseguridad es mayor por vivir en un ambiente más violento.

Las políticas de normalización, evaluadas en un contexto amplio, pueden estar contribuyendo a agravar el problema que buscan remediar. En otras palabras, el enfoque curativo de estas políticas puede tener, al contrario, efectos perversos y contraproducentes , como se anotó antes.

Señales de Precios

La expectativa de que un área va a ser normalizada le permite al urbanizador subir el precio de los lotes. A menudo el comprador obtiene un terreno con evidencia escrita de que el desarrollador no tiene todavía los servicios requeridos por las normas de urbanísticas. Al mismo tiempo el desarrollador le promete que tan pronto como se vendan suficientes terrenos, los servicios y la infraestructura serán instalados, incluso a pesar de que esas promesas poco se cumplen. En el mejor de los casos una relación de complicidad se establece entre el comprador y el vendedor. En el peor, que es por desgracia el más común, el comprador es engañado en cuanto a la existencia de servicios, como por ejemplo tubos en el terreno que el urbanizador señala como parte de la infraestructura. Otros problemas en estos arreglos que pueden lesionar a los residentes pobres son títulos dudosos, formas de pago que esconden los intereses a pagar y detalles contractuales imprecisos y confusos.

Como en cualquier otro segmento del mercado de tierras, el precio refleja o absorbe las expectativas del uso futuro del terreno. El sector informal no es la excepción. Entre mayor sea la expectativa de que un terreno sin servicios los va a tener luego, tanto viniendo del urbanizador o, como es más frecuente, del gobierno a través de algún programa de normalización, más alto será el precio al cual se transa el terreno.

Normalización como una Atracción para Más Subnormalidad

Las investigaciones sobre las fechas de llegada de los habitantes de los asentamientos informales, sugieren que en muchos casos la mayoría de las personas se mudaron justo cuando se anunció o implementó un programa de normalización (Menna Barreto 2000).

La idea de que las expectativas de normalización tienen un efecto en la informalidad, es también corroborada por el gran número de invasiones y ocupaciones que ocurren en los períodos electorales, cuando los candidatos prometen nuevos programas de normalización. La historia latinoamericana de los efectos de las expectativas creadas por promesas populistas, es rica en ejemplos. Varios de los asentamientos existentes que necesitan ser normalizados hoy, deben su origen a la complacencia irresponsable de políticos que cerraron los ojos o, lo que es peor, que cedieron terrenos públicos por propósitos electorales.

Los Costos de Oportunidad de la Normalización

Los programas de normalización, que son de naturaleza remedial o curativa, tienen un costo de oportunidad alto comparado con el de proporcionar la tierra urbanizada en una manera preventiva. El costo por familia de un programa de normalización ha estado en la gama de US$3,000 a US$4,000. Tomando el tamaño de un lote alrededor 50 m2 y agregando el 20 por ciento para calles y otros servicios públicos, el costo se mueve de US$50 A US$70 por m2. Esto es mucho más alto que producir tierra nueva, que es inferior a US$25 por m2, y es similar al precio cargado por urbanizadores privados, incluso con un buen margen de ganancia. ECIA, un urbanizador de Río de Janeiro, vendió lotes completamente urbanizados desde US$70 a US$143 por m2 en precios 1999 (Oliveira 1999). En el mismo sentido, Aristizabal y Ortíz (2001) en Bogotá, estiman que el costo de corrección (“la reparación”) de un asentamiento irregular es 2.7 veces el costo de áreas planeadas.

Estas cifras sugieren las limitaciones de programas curativos a favor de los preventivos. Es también relevante que el permiso de desarrollar una subdivisión, formal puede tomar de tres a cinco años, mientras que la decisión de regularizar un establecimiento informal a menudo toma menos de seis meses.

” El Día Después ” de La Normalización

Un programa de regularización bien ejecutado (es decir el que integra con eficacia al área informal con la malla urbana) generalmente eleva la calidad de vida para todos los ocupantes y fortalece las comunidades. También trae valorización de la propiedad, causando alguna movilidad residencial de familias con ingresos debajo del promedio, que son presionadas a mudarse. Sin embargo, cuando el programa es mal ejecutado, el área puede consolidarse como un asentamiento irregular de bajos ingresos.

El Programa “Favela – Bairro” de Río de Janeiro es a menudo puesto de ejemplo como la experiencia más amplia y exitosa en su clase. Abramo (2002) estudió el impacto del programa y encontró valorizaciones relativamente pequeñas (28%). Aplicando este promedio a una vivienda típica o modesta con precios previos de US$12,000, el valor ganado es cercano a US$3,400, un número parecido al costo medio por familia en programas de regularización. Este resultado contrasta con en incremento de más del 100% obtenido en el proceso de urbanizar tierra rústica por agentes privados. Esta intrigante información parece mostrar que el “mercado” se entera poco del incremento en valor de los asentamientos mejorados. La inserción completa en los tejidos urbanos resulta ser menos frecuente de lo esperado. Muchas “favelas” que recibieron importantes inversiones de mejoramiento, permanecen estigmatizadas como “favelas” 15 años más tarde.

Conclusiones

La informalidad es costosa y exacerba las penurias de vivir en la pobreza. El diagnóstico de agencias como Hábitat, Banco Mundial, Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo y otros, parecen estar en lo correcto respetando los programas de mejoramiento como parte esencial de cualquier política para enfrentar la pobreza urbana. Sin embargo, debido al enfoque fragmentado y limitado de estos programas, no hay ninguna garantía de que la normalización de asentamientos sola contribuya a reducir la pobreza urbana. En efecto estos programas no sólo mantienen intactas y refuerzan las “reglas del juego” del mercado que contribuyen a la informalidad, sino que además generan efectos perversos. Esta situación plantea un dilema y un desafío. El dilema es que no regularizar simplemente no es una opción política (ni humanitaria). El desafío es cómo interrumpir el ciclo vicioso de pobreza e informalidad a través de intervenciones en el mercado de tierra. La tarea por hacer es formidable, pero hay lugares en América Latina donde los gobiernos locales están comenzando a poner nuevas reglas de juego.

Martim O. Smolka es “Senior Fellow” y director del Programa para América Latina y el Caribe del Lincoln Institute.

Andrés Escobar es Gerente de MetroVivienda, Empresa del Distrito de Bogotá, generadora de nuevo suelo urbano.

Latin America is a region of sharp contrasts in land use: the expansive Amazon forest and growing areas of deforestation; large uninhabited regions and enormous urban concentrations; the coexistence of wealth and poverty in the same neighborhoods. Many of these contrasts derive from land policies established by powerful land interests that are perpetuated because of outdated or distorted data. This heritage is a part of the region’s colonization process that has been characterized by the exploitation and occupation of land at any price.

The first land information system for registering parcels in Latin America was established in 1824 by the Topographic Commission in the Province of Buenos Aires in the Republic of Argentina. Territorial cadastre offices throughout the region now manage public land information systems that register maps and data about the parcels on which taxes are levied and rights are granted to the owners or occupants of the land.

What Is a Cadastre?

A modern cadastre is an integrated database system that holds information on land registration and ownership, physical characteristics, econometric modeling for property valuation, zoning, geographic information systems, transportation, and environmental, socioeconomic and demographic data. Such cadastres represent a holistic planning tool that can be used at the local, regional and national levels to address issues such as economic development, sprawl, poverty eradication, land policy and sustainable community development.

The earliest recorded accounts of property surveys in ancient Egypt used the science of geometry to measure distances. European cadastres later followed this ancient model until advancements led to more fully integrated systems that could be used for fiscal purposes, such as valuation, taxation and legal conveyance, as well as land management and planning. The United States does not have a national cadastral system, but similar municipal processes reflect both the policy and protocol of international cadastre programs.

The International Federation of Surveyors was founded in Paris in 1878 as the Fédération Internationale des Géomètres and is known by its acronym, FIG. This nongovernmental organization represents more than 100 countries and supports international collaboration on surveying through the collection of data on surface and near-surface features of the earth and their representation as a map, plan or digital model. FIG’s work is conducted by 10 commissions that specialize in different aspects of surveying. Commission 7, Cadastre and Land Management, focuses on issues in cadastral reform and multipurpose cadastres; parcel-based land information systems; cadastral surveying and mapping; and land titling, land tenure, land law and registration. For more information, see www.fig.net/figtree/commission7/.

Multipurpose Cadastres

In recent years, the vision of the cadastre as a multipurpose information system has begun to evolve, bringing with it great advances in the quality of land information systems, as well as some problems. The origin of these concerns can be found in the very concept of multipurpose cadastre systems and in the administrative decisions needed for their implementation. A common assumption holds that to implement a multipurpose cadastre it is necessary to expand the alphanumeric databases—including social and environmental data as well as the usual physical (location and shape), economic and legal aspects of the parcel—and to connect this information with a parcel map in a geographical information system (GIS). While this is very important, it is not enough.

Implementation of a multipurpose cadastre implies a change of paradigm for its administration and demands a new land use framework law and new relationships between the public and private sectors. In 1996 Brazil established a biannual National Multipurpose Cadastral Congress that examines its own state-level cadastre programs and those in neighboring countries. Despite the attention devoted to cadastres and the many papers published on the topic since then, there is no evidence of any municipality in which the multipurpose cadastral system is actually working as well as hoped.

According to the literature, the way to make a cadastre truly multipurpose is to integrate all the public and private institutions that are working at the parcel level using a unique identifier, and to define standards for the alphanumeric and cartographic databases. Chile is one of the countries where all the parcels have a common identifier designated by the implementation of the National Territorial Information System, although the system does not yet integrate the alphanumeric cadastral data with maps at the parcel level (Hyman et al. 2003).

Centralization versus Decentralization

The hegemony of the unitary system of government that characterizes most Latin American countries has caused a predominance of centralized cadastres, although this phenomenon also occurs in countries with a federal government. Brazil, for example, recently restructured its National System of Rural Cadastre, which, in spite of the technical advances proposed by Law 10.267/2001, will continue to be administered by an institution of the national government.

In contrast, the decentralization movement in the region aspires to modernize state governments by transferring powers to municipal jurisdictions, including the institutions responsible for land administration. For example, more than half of the states in Mexico still have centralized cadastral data, although some have begun to decentralize by creating municipal systems that are compatible with the state cadastre. A similar situation is occurring in Argentina, where some provincial institutions are beginning to transfer systems and data to the municipalities. Local administrators have an added incentive for assuming responsibility for organizing and maintaining cadastral systems because of the opportunities to collect property taxes and sell maps or databases registered in the local cadastral system to utility companies and other entities in the private sector.

All these good intentions, however, frequently run up against the chronic problem of the scarcity of capable personnel and infrastructure. In some cases decentralization may constitute a problem rather than a solution and it could jeopardize the maintenance and validation of data. For example, the adoption of the decentralized model may lead to the coexistence of extremely detailed and precise cadastres in some locations with practically nonexistent cadastres in other locations. Such discrepancies between adjacent municipalities may create inconsistent land information when it is aggregated at the regional and national levels.

A centralized model, on the other hand, can facilitate the unified design and structuring of the cadastre and guarantee the integration of geodetic and cartographic systems with the identification of parcels. The difficulties in accessing and distributing information for local needs might be solved by using the Internet to organize land data and maps through the central cadastre. Some countries, such as Jamaica, Chile and Uruguay, are beginning to structure their eCadastres in this way. (This term is derived from the eGovernment concept introduced by the World Bank.)

When considering the varying development stages of Latin American cadastres, we can conclude that each jurisdiction must analyze which type of system is most appropriate for its own circumstances. It is worth considering the Common Principles on the Cadastre in the European Union, a document that affirms that “there are no intentions to unify the cadastral systems of the member states; however, there is interest in standardizing products” (Permanent Committee 2003). If it is possible to work with different cadastral systems across Europe, it must be possible to do so within a single country.

Public versus Private Cadastres

After the publication of Cadastre 2014 by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), one of the new visions that provoked much discussion was the proposal that the cadastre should be “highly privatized; public and private sectors are working closely together, reducing the control and supervision by the public sector” (Kaufmann and Steudler 1998). For example, in Japan private companies have almost total control of the cadastral base of some cities, whereas in the member states of the European Union the cadastre resides within the government sphere.

In Latin America, cadastres remain primarily in the hands of public institutions; the private sector normally participates in the processes of implementing cartographic updates and information systems, but not in the administration itself. The Mexican municipality of Guadalajara, for example, did a comparative study of costs, concluding that managing the cadastre with its own public employees and equipment would yield a savings of 50 percent in investments, which was confirmed after one year of implementation.

In spite of the positive results obtained from such projects developed entirely within public administrations, the private sector cannot be ignored, particularly in the context of the privatization wave that has hit Latin America in recent years. For example, telephone, water and electric companies need up-to-date land information in the same way as the public institutions. Their common interest in maintaining databases is leading the cadastre offices and the utility companies to work together and share investments, as well as to look for ways to standardize data and define common identifiers for the parcels.

Conclusions

The majority of Latin American cadastral systems are still registering three kinds of data following the traditional economic-physical-legal model: the economic value, the location and shape of the parcel, and the legal relationship between the property and the owner or occupant. However, there is increased interest in utilizing multipurpose information systems. In this transition process, some administrators have decided to implement new cadastral applications based only on technology; evidently, this has not been as successful as they imagined. This incorporation of new technologies must be accompanied by necessary changes in procedures and legislation and by professional training of public employees.

In recent years international institutions such as the World Bank, the Lincoln Institute and many European and American universities have been collaborating to help improve Latin American cadastres. They support educational programs, academic events and concrete projects for implementing reliable and updated land information systems. As the transition to multipurpose cadastres continues, changes will be implemented through a careful revision of relevant legislation, more accessible forms of customer service, stronger collaboration between private and public institutions that generate and use cadastral data, and the application of contemporary international standards. Territorial cadastres in Latin America will become even more efficient and valuable if they generate information that allows the development of projects oriented to fundamental social concerns such as land regularization and identification of vacant land.

Diego Alfonso Erba is professor of advanced GIS applications and digital cartography at UNISINOS (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos) in São Leopoldo-RS, Brazil, and a visiting fellow of the Lincoln Institute.

References

Hyman, G., C. Perea, D. Rey, and K. Lance. 2003. Encuesta sobre el desarrollo de las infraestructuras nacionales de datos espaciales en América Latina y el Caribe. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT). (Survey on the development of national infrastructures of spatial data in Latin America and the Caribbean. International Center for Tropical Agriculture.)

Kaufmann, Jürg, and Daniel Steudler. 1998. Cadastre 2014: A vision for a future cadastral system. Frederiksberg, Denmark: International Federation of Surveyors (FIG). Available at http://www.swisstopo.ch/fig-wg71/cad2014.htm.

Permanent Committee on Cadastre in the European Union. 2003. Common principles on the cadastre in the European Union. Rome. December 3. Available at http://www.eurocadastre.org/.

Diego Alfonso Erba is a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, on leave from his position as professor in the Graduate Program of Geology at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos–UNISINOS, Brazil. He received undergraduate training as a land survey engineer from Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, and later earned two master of science degrees and taught in several universities in Brazil. His early professional experience was in regularization of informal settlements in Santa Fé, Argentina, and he headed the GIS department for an agricultural cooperative in southern Brazil. He also earned a doctorate in Surveying Sciences from Universidad Nacional de Catamarca, Argentina, and did postdoctoral research in GIS for Water Bodies at the Natural Resource Center of Shiga University, Otsu, Japan; and in GIS for Urban Applications at Clark Labs-IDRISI of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Land Lines: What is a territorial cadastre?

Diego Erba: The institution of a territorial cadastre does not exist in the United States, at least not in the same way as in many countries around the world. Although the term “cadastre” has more than one meaning, in general there is consensus that it comes from the Greek catastichon, which can be translated as “a list of parcels for taxation.”

This kind of list exists in the U.S., but the profile of the institutions that manage the data are different from those in Latin America and in many European and African countries, where the territorial cadastre encompasses economic, geometrical, and legal data on land parcels and data on the owners or occupants. The institutions that manage this data, also often named territorial cadastres, are closely connected with the Registry of Deeds or Register of Land Titles because their data complements each other and guarantees land property rights. These longstanding connections reflect the cadastral heritage of Roman and Napoleonic legal systems.

LL: Why do urban public administrators need to know about territorial cadastres?

DE: The cadastre and the register should be connected for legal reasons, if not for practical reasons, and there are many models of how cadastres could or should relate to public institutions. Unfortunately, the norm is still an isolated or nonintegrated cadastre, which dramatically reduces its potential usefulness as a tool for urban planning and land policy.

For example, irregular settlements (slums) are generally developed on public or environmentally protected areas, or even on private parcels, and are neither taxed nor registered in territorial cadastre databases. These areas are represented in cadastral cartography as “blank polygons” as if nothing happened inside them. The paradox is that data and cartography about irregular settlements normally exist, but that information is often in institutions that are not related to the cadastre and consequently are not registered.

There is a growing perception of the cadastre’s importance as a multipurpose information system serving not only the legal and financial sectors of cities, but also all of the institutions that make up the “urban reality,” including public services agencies, utilities, and even certain private providers of urban services. The move to this new concept and improved urban information systems has not been easy or without resistance in developing countries, however.

LL: Why is a multipurpose cadastre so difficult to establish and use?

DE: The implementation of a multipurpose cadastre typically requires administrations to allow for more horizontal exchanges of information. It also frequently requires changes in the legal framework and the establishment of more fluid relationships between the public and private agents to share standardized data and ensure continuous investments to keep the databases and cartography up-to-date.

This sounds like a simple process, but in practice it is not easy because many administrators still consider that “the data is mine,” and they are not ready to collaborate. At the same time, some overly zealous administrators convinced of the potential value of a multipurpose cadastre may skip stages and jump from a traditional cadastre to a multipurpose model without due attention to effectively implementing the exchanges of information.

Even when operated privately, territorial cadastres are treated as a public service, which means they depend on public funding and political decisions for approval to update the land valuation system or the cartography. At the same time, this kind of public service is not visible and therefore is not as interesting for the politicians who wish to demonstrate their accomplishments through more tangible projects such as a new bridge or school.

The updating of cadastral data impacts land value and consequently the amount of property taxes, which is not popular with voters. Nevertheless, new government administrators who seek to improve their jurisdiction’s fiscal status may decide to update the cadastre in an attempt to increase property taxation revenues. This has a strong political impact at the beginning of the official’s term, but the data on property value may not be touched for years afterwards and will grow more and more inaccurate compared to the actual market value. In many Latin American jurisdictions legislation imposes the obligation of cadastral updates on a regular basis, although compliance is inconsistent.

Another frequent mistake is to consider that the solution is to implement a modern geographic information system (GIS) to manage the cadastral data. In the ideal situation we would like to see integrated systems that use coordinated and standardized databases, but some municipalities are ill-equipped, and those that do have sufficient infrastructure do not have enough well-prepared employees to accomplish the tasks. The notion that “one size fits all” is not really applicable to a region in which there are such significant differences among jurisdictions. I like to say that the problem with cadastral institutions is not hardware or software but “people-ware.” Even when financial resources exist, the lack of trained professionals and technicians is a significant obstacle.

LL: In this context, is it possible to consider a multipurpose cadastre for Latin America?

DE: It is possible, but the concept is still new and frequently is not well understood. There are many good cadastres in Latin America, as in some Colombian and Brazilian municipalities and in some Mexican and Argentinean states. In some jurisdictions the fusion of the territorial cadastres with public institutions and geotechnological systems generates cadastral institutes that are better structured in terms of budget and technical staff and consequently are better able to identify illegal settlements and monitor the increment of land value using modern tools.

However, from my viewpoint the region still does not have a full-fledged operational multipurpose cadastre. A common assumption is that implementing a multipurpose cadastre requires adding social and environmental data to the existing alphanumeric databases available in the traditional territorial cadastres, which consider economic, geometric, and legal aspects of the parcel, and then connecting all that data with a parcel map in GIS. While this is very important it is not essential, because the implementation is not a technological problem as much as a philosophical one. Most municipal administrations do not think about putting institutions that traditionally manage different social (education and health), environmental, and territorial (cadastre) databases under the same roof.

LL: How is your work with the Lincoln Institute helping to broaden awareness about territorial cadastres?

DE: I have been working with the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean since 2002 to explore the relationships among multipurpose cadastres and the program’s four topical areas: large urban projects; land valuation and taxation; informal settlements and upgrading programs; and value capture. It is always a challenge to tailor the curriculum for educational programs, but we believe strongly that it is important to facilitate the widespread sharing of knowledge in each country and to prepare public officials and practitioners with different levels of expertise. The participants, including cadastre administrators, urban planners, lawyers, and real estate developers, gain a common language and vision of the urban cadastral applications, and they can start a process to improve the system in their own countries.

Our pedagogical strategy for this year involves the dissemination of knowledge through a combination of distance education and traditional classroom courses at different levels. We plan to develop training seminars followed by a tailored distance education course in those countries that demonstrate the conditions necessary to implement this new vision of the multipurpose cadastre. Finally, we will organize a regional classroom course for the best distance education students in three neighboring countries.

This plan contrasts with many training programs offered by other international institutions, which contemplate concepts and the use of tools that may not be applicable in countries with different legal frameworks and technological levels. We will begin this cycle with seminars in Chile and Peru, working with the Chilean Association of Municipalities and the Institute of Regional Economy and Local Government in Arequipa, Peru. These and other partners in Latin America have committed to disseminate and increase local capacity on these issues.

Another component of our strategy is the dissemination of resource materials. We will be publishing two books later in 2006 about the concepts and implementation of cadastres that can be applied in most countries. One book describes in detail the cadastral system in each Latin American country, and the other conceptualizes the juridical, economical, geometrical, environmental, and social aspects of the multipurpose cadastre, highlighting the relationship between the territorial cadastre and the four topical areas of the Institute’s Latin America Program.

In 2005 we made a DVD, which is currently available in Spanish and Portuguese. It includes a documentary film about multipurpose cadastres and some taped segments from classes and discussions on the relationships between the multipurpose cadastre and complex urban issues.

LL: What is the long-term goal of the multipurpose cadastre?

DE: The problems that have been raised here should not discourage urban administrators from reorganizing their cadastres and their legal land policy frameworks in their cities and countries. On the contrary, they should try to change the reality by developing new laws that shows the spirit of an updated land policy. Data on Latin American cities exist, but they are fragmented and not standardized.

The best way to build a multipurpose cadastre is to integrate all the public and private institutions that are working at the parcel level and to develop a unique identifier to define standards for the alphanumeric and cartographic databases. It is a very simple and clear concept, but its implementation is not. To reach that objective it is necessary for administrators, practitioners, and citizens to understand the cadastre’s potential for improving land management practices and the quality of life in urban areas. Many times simple solutions can help to solve complex problems such as those presented by cadastral systems.

Although vast differences in standard of living exist among the native-born residents of Chinese cities, the distinction between all urban natives and rural migrants runs deeper. It is, in fact, the fundamental social division in Chinese cities for several reasons, including labor market segmentation that sees migrants doing dirty, dangerous, and low-paying work; institutional rules that favor urban residents in everything from health care access to university entrance exams; and cultural ideas about the backwardness of rural areas and rural people.

In the housing sector, it is therefore not surprising that migrants’ housing quality is quite low in an absolute sense and relative to that of other urban residents. What is less clear is the source of these differences. Research that we recently completed for the Lincoln Institute leads us to question the conventional wisdom that institutional rules linked to the hukou system are primarily responsible for the differential (Li, Duda, and Peng 2007). We believe that hukou status is only one of several factors responsible for migrants’ differential housing outcomes, and that the research literature has not spent enough time assessing the relative importance of these factors. While not definitive, our empirical results provide several reasons to question a hukou-centric modelof the sources of urban housing inequality.

Canfei He earned his Ph.D. degree in geography from Arizona State University in 2001, and then moved to the University of Memphis, Tennessee, where he taught as an assistant professor. In August 2003, he returned to China as an associate professor in Peking University’s College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and was promoted to full professor in 2009. In addition to his academic duties at Peking University, Dr. He has served as associate director of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy since 2007. He is also the associate director of the Economic Geography Specialty Group of the China Geographical Society.

Dr. He’s research interests include multinational corporations, industrial location and spatial clustering of firms, and energy and the environment in China. The World Bank invited him to write a background paper on industrial agglomeration in China for the World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Global Economic Geography.

Dr. He has authored four academic books and his work is published widely in English journals including Regional Studies, Urban Studies, Annals of Regional Science, International Migration Review, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Post-Communist Economies, and China & the World Economy. Dr. He also serves on the editorial board of three journals: Eurasian Geography and Economics, International Urban Planning, and China Regional Economics.

Land Lines: How did you become associated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and its programs in China?

Canfei He: I learned about the activities of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s recently established China Program from one of my colleagues at Peking University in 2003soon after I returned from the United States. At that time, the Lincoln Institute was working in China on a number of specific programs, and I became involved in several associated research projects.

My official relationship with the Institute began with the establishment of the Peking University–Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC) in October 2007. The Institute had been exploring a more long-term partnership with Peking University for some time, and as those discussions progressed, my previous contacts offered opportunities for me to serve as a liaison between the two institutions. I was nominated by Peking University to serve as the associate director with its director, Joyce Yanyun Man, who is also a senior fellow of the Lincoln Institute and director of its Program on the People’s Republic of China. Over the past two years or more, I have been helping to develop the center and coordinate its work with other partners at Peking University, as well as serving as a research fellow of the center.

Land Lines: Why are urban development studies so important in China?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization during the past three decades has been remarkable. As an overwhelmingly rural population in 1978 when reforms began, China is now 45.7 percent urbanized, and the country is projected to be 60 percent urbanized by 2020. This means that China’s cities will need to accommodate more than 100 million new urban residents in this decade.

Market forces, local forces, and global forces are all conspiring to influence the pattern of China’s urbanization and development. Accompanying large-scale and rapid urbanization are revolutionary spatial, structural, industrial, institutional, and environmental changes in an incredibly brief span of time. The multiplicity of these driving forces makes the study of urban development in China both complex and challenging. The next wave of urbanization will have far-reaching implications for the country’s future development, and thus there is a critical need for more high-quality, objective research on the subject.

Land Lines: What are some of the most unusual aspects of urban development in China?

Canfei He: China’s current urban development is quite different institutionally from that of most Western countries. Urbanization in China has occurred at the same time that its economy has become market-oriented, globalized, and decentralized. Whereas most Western urbanization occurred in a period of greater economic isolation, China’s urban development has been directly influenced by international investment and global economic trends.

A second factor is China’s hukou system of personal registration that limits the mobility of its people in part by linking their access to social services to the location of their registration. This system thus presents an institutional barrier that inhibits rural-urban migration despite ongoing reforms.

Regional decentralization is another important aspect that, combined with the state and collective ownership of land, has allowed local governments to play a distinct role in China’s urban development. Land acquisition fees resulting from the sale of multi-decade leases for the use and development of state-owned lands have generated enormous revenues, and have been a critical source of municipal financial resources for urban infrastructure investment. This fee-based revenue, in turn, creates incentives that have promoted even more intense urbanization. On the other hand, the major planning role afforded to local governments in China means that urban planning practice lacks consistency across the country’s diverse regions, and is often hostage to local interest groups.

China is facing increasing global challenges and pressures from many sources including multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, global environmental standards, and rising energy prices. These challenges may increase the costs of urban development, but at the same time they may encourage a more sustainable process of urbanization.

Land Lines: How do you approach urban development studies in China through your own research?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization goes hand in hand with its industrialization, and foreign investment has played a significant role in the country’s growth. Urbanization demands labor, land, capital, and technology, as well as supporting institutions. Consequently, there are myriad approaches to studying urban development in China that focus on a particular factor or set of factors.

My own research interests fall within the capital and institutional approaches. Specifically, I investigate industrial agglomeration and foreign direct investment in Chinese cities by highlighting the institutional environment of economic transition. Investigating the elements driving industrial agglomeration in different cities and understanding the locational preferences of foreign and domestic firms are crucial for designing coherent and focused urban planning policies.

For instance, my research on foreign direct investment in real estate development and the locational preferences of international banks found that local market conditions and regional institutions largely determine the locational preferences of multinational services. This type of observation can be of use to planners and politicians in China seeking to foster the growth of the service industry.

With the increasing emphasis on global climate change and acknowledgement of the environmental impacts of China’s first 30 years of reform and development, I am also becoming more involved in research on the environmental impacts of urbanization, including energy consumption and carbon emissions. China has made a commitment to reduce its CO₂ emission by 40–45 percent per unit of GDP by 2020, relative to 2005. This means that building low-carbon and energy-efficient cities is another goal on the already lengthy list of challenges that includes servicing, housing, and employing the country’s millions of future urban dwellers.

Land Lines: Given this ongoing international dialogue, how can China best learn from Western urbanization experiences?

Canfei He: We recognize that there is much to learn from the West, including alternative approaches to land policy, housing policy, transportation policy, environmental policy, suburbanization, and the development and planning of megacity regions. China has the benefit of using the West’s experience as a roadmap to help it avoid many of the problems that have arisen in Western cities, such as urban sprawl and gridlock. That economic, political, and geographic diversity offers a wealth of reference points for China’s cities that should not be ignored and can help China avoid problems that have plagued many Western metropolises.

However, it is necessary to research the applicability of particular international experiences, considering the uniqueness of China’s history and culture. Too often analyses of Western urbanization are presented as a blueprint for China, when in fact institutional, economic, and political differences mean that, for one reason or another, those solutions are impractical or unfeasible.

Land Lines: Why is China’s urbanization and urban development so important to the West?

Canfei He: China’s urbanization will be one of the most important dynamics of the twenty-first century, not only for China but also for the West and the rest of the world. Millions of newly affluent consumers and empowered global citizens will exert significant new demands on the world’s finite natural resources in several ways.

First, with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, China and the world committed themselves to halving the number of people living on less than $1 per day by 2015. Given China’s large number of rural poor, the country’s urbanization and economic development will be instrumental in meeting this important goal, as well as in achieving other goals such as those related to education and improving children’s health. Only cities have the institutional reach and financial capacity to meet these goals on a large scale.

Second, much has been made of the gulf in understanding between China and the West in recent years. Urbanization and urban development will help to integrate China further into the global community, but it may also create more opportunities for cultural friction. The West has a vested interest in seeing that China urbanizes in an atmosphere that encourages openness and intercultural exchange.

Third, history demonstrates that urbanization entails a much greater demand for energy and other resources as living standards rise and as consumption and dietary patterns change. It has become a cliché to say that “as China goes, so goes the world,” but China’s urbanization and its related environmental impacts will have direct implications for the West and the rest of the world.

The recent memory of $150 per barrel of oil shows that this future demand is likely to put great stress on international energy markets and the global economy. This latent demand also has broad implications for China’s CO₂ emissions and for global climate change. The United States and China are key to any real hope of keeping the increase in average global temperatures less than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, as proposed at the recent climate conference in Copenhagen. Whereas the high level of development in Western countries means that changes happen incrementally, China’s rapid urbanization offers hope to limit the world’s future emissions by making significant changes now as the country develops.