Two years ago, the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority pulled off something of a municipal miracle. The agency learned that almost 200 corporate-owned houses in Cincinnati were in receivership and up for sale. Rather than forever forfeit all that single-family housing to yet another institutional investor, the Port launched a bold bid to purchase the homes, with the goal of fixing them up and creating affordable homeownership opportunities for the existing tenants and other Cincinnati residents.

Well into the project, the Port would discover that many of the 194 houses it had purchased were in worse condition than expected, and dozens were vacant. “When we bought the portfolio, we thought there were only going to be 10 vacant, but 60 were vacant, and those were in really bad shape,” says Laura Brunner, the Port’s president and CEO. “So that’s where we’ve been focusing our capital investment, getting those homes ready to sell.”

The Port has now started selling the first of those fixed-up homes—19 of them so far—at affordable prices, to owner-occupants who earn less than 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI). The agency also helped stabilize the housing situations of the 130 or so renters in the other properties, addressing a backlog of hundreds of repair requests, helping tenants get current on their rent, and offering them free homebuying and financial literacy education.

Given the state of the houses, repairs and essential upgrades have cost more than double what the Port expected—averaging $96,000 per house so far, compared to a projected $40,000. But the agency has been able to make up the difference with grants so it can still sell the homes affordably, at cost. Unlike a house flipper, the Port only needs to break even to fulfill its debt obligations, not turn a profit.

In reclaiming rental houses from institutional landlords and converting them into homeownership opportunities, the Port is helping low- and moderate-income residents build generational wealth. And the agency’s approach is supporting sustainable growth in other areas of the local economy, too.

Spreading the Wealth

While homeownership itself has historically been an engine of wealth creation for millions of Americans, the real estate market is also a massive driver of economic activity in a community. New homebuyers tend to also buy new home goods, from dishes to lawn mowers, and a whole suite of local service providers participate in a home purchase, from appraisers to contractors.

So as the Port rehabs and sells what it calls its CARE (Creating Affordable Real Estate) Portfolio, it’s been very intentional about involving local businesses throughout the process.

“We’ve been really conscientious in our contracting to use small minority- and women-owned businesses,” Brunner says. With the cost of renovations averaging almost $100,000 per house, “the project size is perfect to really help grow and scale a small business. . . .And we’re not just giving them a contract and hoping they do a good job; we’re doing some technical assistance along the way to help them scale and grow their businesses sustainably.”

Rather than list the homes through an internal real estate agent, as it has historically done to save costs, the Port has partnered with Black-owned brokerages through the Greater Cincinnati Realtist Association (GCRA) to handle at least a quarter of the sales. The Port pays agents a standard commission, which adds some costs, but is essentially just another expenditure supporting local small businesses, Brunner says. “It’s helping to grow the whole ecosystem.”

The GCRA is a local chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, the oldest and largest African American trade organization in the country. “Prior to 1962, African Americans were not allowed to be members of NAR, the National Association of Realtors—or to even be called a Realtor, because that’s a trademarked name,” says Marcus Parrish, president of the GCRA. So in 1947, a group of 12 Black brokers, including Cincinnati hotelier Horace Sudduth, formed their own real estate organization, NAREB, whose agents would be called Realtists. “Our mission is democracy in housing—representing the underserved and providing education and resources,” Parrish says.

Only a quarter of Black households own their home in Cincinnati—less than half the homeownership rate of the city’s white families—and both the Port and Parrish hope that converting investor-owned rental units to affordable homeownership opportunities can help close that gap. “The Cincinnati market is just as challenging as any other market in the nation,” Parrish says. “Low housing inventory just creates a challenge for anybody who’s purchasing, but specifically for our first-time homebuyers and our Black and brown communities.”

A GCRA selection committee chose a handful of Realtists to handle the Port listings, although Parrish and other board members listed the very first batch of CARE portfolio houses themselves so they could get a feel for the process and work through any kinks. Buyers need to prove their income eligibility, and the houses include a deed restriction that prevents owners from reselling them for the first five years.

As for the renovations, the Port isn’t trying to chase HGTV trends or install high-end finishes, Parrish says; they’re focused on making the homes safe, efficient, and functional for first-time buyers. “I listed and sold two of those properties, and for the most part, the updates and rehabs have been good,” Parrish says. “If it needs a new furnace, needs new central air, if the roof is beyond repair, they’re going to do that.”

Early this year, Parrish sold a Port-rehabbed house at its list price of $165,000, and he recalls the ripple effects of the sale: The mortgage lender at First Financial Bank, who helped the Latino homebuyers get a five-figure down payment grant, also belonged to the GCRA, and so did the title company representative. “Everyone involved in the process was a member of our organization,” Parrish says.

That’s important, because Black brokers, agents, and appraisers are underrepresented (and often underpaid) in the real estate industry. Nationally, only 6 percent of real estate agents are Black; less than 2 percent of appraisers identify as Black. “The main thing is, you want to have representation, so the push is to get more African Americans in the real estate profession,” Parrish says.

Rent, Renovate, Replicate

While it renovates vacant houses, the Port is also acting as a landlord for over 100 households. The agency holds its contractors to high standards and offers technical assistance to ensure they succeed; it’s also been careful in its hiring practices.

Brunner says the Port was very close to signing a contract with one property management company until a company representative referred to the renters as “these people,” a rhetorical red flag. “That’s obviously coded for the kind of practices we’re trying to fight against—that ‘these people’ are not trustworthy, just assuming the worst,” Brunner says. “We had to have somebody that we could trust.” They hired a different firm.

In addition to addressing hundreds of repairs that the corporate landlord had ignored, the Port has helped dozens of tenants catch up on back rent—some of them were over a year behind. “We were successful in working with our local community action agency to secure ARPA funding to bring 60 of them current,” Brunner says, adding that “there’s a whole psychological benefit to knowing you’re current. We’ve got a good collection record now, after people were able to kind of wipe the slate clean with grants.”

The Port also hired a local nonprofit called Working in Neighborhoods to offer financial literacy training and first-time homebuyer classes to interested tenants. Many of the renters still lack the financial stability needed to buy a home, and some have been hesitant to engage with these resources. But about 60 of them have participated in the classes, and that’s helping to create a pipeline of potential buyers. “We’ve got maybe half a dozen who will be ready [to purchase a home] in the next six months, and half a dozen who’ll be ready in the next year,” Brunner says.

Even if it takes longer than expected to convert existing renters into homeowners, what the Port has accomplished is remarkable, says Robert ‘R.J.’ McGrail, senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and director of its Accelerating Community Investment initiative.

“These are largely stabilized rental households now, and that is an extraordinary public policy outcome,” he says. Selling the rehabbed homes has enabled the Port to pay the debt service on its bonds, buying itself more time to move existing tenants along a track to homeownership. “It’s just win, win, win across the continuum of policy outcomes that you’d like to see from a financial intervention like this.”

Proof of Concept

Could the Port’s approach be replicated elsewhere? “Technically, transactionally, yes,” McGrail says. “There are debt-issuing authorities in other cities that have the powers to execute a financing transaction like this. There are fewer that have the rest of the Port’s powers around taxes and around landholding; they’re also a land bank, so they’re more empowered than your typical municipal financing-only entity. They can do it all in house.”

The Port also had plenty of previous experience hiring construction crews and managing properties, primarily for commercial properties. “That set of tools—the financing, the property management, plus the redevelopment expertise—is a unique set of competencies to have under one roof,” McGrail acknowledges, but there’s no reason this strategy couldn’t be replicated by a more typical financing entity working with civic and nonprofit partners. “You don’t need the one-stop shop to do this. You just need the will to tell three shops to do it together.”

Brunner says the Port has proven that the approach can be replicated and scaled. “We’ve shown that we can recover our costs, that you can buy a house, fix it up, and sell it for what you put into it,” she says. “We’ve established that, even in these poor neighborhoods, there is a market for ownership. And we’ve proven that, even with the highest interest rates in 20 years, many people can still own a home with a lower mortgage payment than what their rent was.”

What’s more, Brunner insists, it must be replicated. “We can all agree that our racial wealth gap is one of the biggest problems in our country,” Brunner says. “We can all agree that homeownership is the most direct way to increase wealth. So how can we not play whatever role we possibly can to make that possible for more people?”

Beyond the economics, she says, “there’s a moral imperative, for those of us in this country who can, to fight back against these institutional investors. It’s not a little thing, just every here and there a bad actor as a property owner; it’s become an epidemic. We cannot just give up on all these poor to moderate-income neighborhoods, and wipe out that potential of first-time ownership, largely for our Black and brown communities. We have to fight back.”

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

Lead image: The Port of Cincinnati bought 194 homes formerly owned by institutional investors in neighborhoods across the city. Credit: Port of Cincinnati.

Podemos rastrear los orígenes del Instituto Lincoln hasta un encuentro fortuito entre un inventor de Cleveland, un industrialista y un arrollador economista político en la década de 1890. John C. Lincoln, un ingeniero que inventó las soldadoras de arco, los motores eléctricos de alto torque, los sistemas de freno para tranvías, e incluso un auto eléctrico, se vio movilizado por el relato apasionado de Henry George sobre la terquedad de la pobreza urbana de cara a la riqueza sin precedentes generada por la Revolución Industrial. Así fue que Lincoln dedicó años de su vida, y gran parte de su fortuna, a fomentar las ideas de George para la mejora social.

George demostró de forma persuasiva y convincente que la pobreza era el resultado de injusticias en términos de distribución. El crecimiento económico estaba beneficiando a las personas indebidas. Los propietarios holgazanes podían sentarse a mirar cómo el valor de sus tierras crecía de forma exponencial, mientras que, a la clase productiva, tanto a la mano de obra como al sector del capital, se le imponían impuestos para apoyar al gobierno. George propuso reemplazar los impuestos a los ingresos y las empresas por un nuevo impuesto que expropiaba la plusvalía del suelo de sus propietarios. Calculó que la renta generada por impuestos territoriales sería suficiente para eliminar la pobreza y para financiar al gobierno.

Dada su propia inclinación hacia la justicia social, la ética, la eficiencia y la imparcialidad básica, a John Lincoln esta disposición le resonó. Pero el fracaso de las propuestas de políticas de George para obtener algún tipo de adhesión política lo desconcertó. Una razón que pudo observar fue que el análisis y las conclusiones de George no recibieron una aceptación académica general. Francamente, excepto por un puñado de universidades como Columbia, UC–Berkeley o la Universidad de Chicago, el trabajo de George se marginalizó, si es que se enseñó. Nunca se consideró como un componente troncal de la formación de economistas o politólogos. Para remediar esto, Lincoln decidió crear la Fundación Lincoln y asociarse con universidades para establecer programas sobre economía de suelo y tributación. Y eso es lo que la Fundación Lincoln hizo desde 1946 hasta 1974.

En 1974, el hijo de John, David C. Lincoln, examinó detenidamente el impacto de los esfuerzos de la fundación por difundir la economía del suelo y la tributación en los ámbitos de la economía y las ciencias políticas. Fue una gran decepción. Los programas respaldados con los recursos de la fundación eran efímeros y la economía del suelo seguía siendo una especialización en unas pocas universidades. Decidió intentar un abordaje nuevo y estableció el Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo para poner la investigación y formación bajo nuestra propia ala. Y David dejó bien en claro algo que repetía a menudo: “El trabajo de Henry George no se trataba de fomentar los impuestos territoriales, sino de eliminar la pobreza”. Por lo tanto, el Instituto Lincoln se fundó sobre la noción de que la política de suelo no era un fin, sino un medio para solucionar desafíos ambientales, sociales y económicos de mayor envergadura.

Con tal claridad, lo que siguió tuvo efectos cuantificables de inmediato. En la década de 1980, la llegada del abogado y conservacionista de Boston, Kingsbury Browne, como integrante del Instituto Lincoln provocó la creación de una red nacional de conservación del suelo privado que se expandió por todo el territorio de los Estados Unidos. Hoy en día, los miembros de la Land Trust Alliance, una organización que evolucionó a partir del trabajo de Browne, han protegido más de 23 millones de hectáreas de suelo privado a perpetuidad en los Estados Unidos. En la década de 1990, el Instituto Lincoln inventó un avalúo masivo asistido por computadora. Ahora, los gobiernos locales de todas partes usan los sistemas construidos sobre dicho legado. En la década del 2000, nuevos programas internacionales de América Latina respaldaron, evaluaron y documentaron modernas herramientas y técnicas de recuperación de plusvalías del suelo. Decenas de países y miles de jurisdicciones hoy están estudiando formas de usar estas herramientas para movilizar su propia renta pública. En la década de 2010, el Instituto Lincoln se globalizó, y estableció una Red Internacional de Conservación del Suelo para promover la conservación del suelo privado y compartir nuestro trabajo a escala global en lugares como Habitat III.

Este es un punto importante (y sé que demoré en llegar al grano): logramos décadas de trabajo significativo a pesar de que no podíamos definir con facilidad la disciplina en la que operamos. Durante los últimos años, intentamos rectificar eso. Esta primavera, la junta y la gerencia del Instituto Lincoln intentaron definir con eficacia el concepto de política de suelo. Con “eficacia”, quiero decir claridad, fácil comprensión y eficiencia. La tarea nos resultó tan abrumadora que incluso le pedimos ayuda a la inteligencia artificial. En la columna que escribí en abril, compartí nuestros desafíos y les pedí ayuda. Les pedí que enviaran sus mejores definiciones de política de suelo y ofrecí un premio.

Me complace informar que recibimos muchas respuestas de todo tipo, desde artísticas hasta teológicas. Llegaron desde cuatro continentes, y la más lejana fue de Nueva Zelanda. Provinieron, sobre todo, de personas individuales, pero también hubo un esfuerzo grupal de una red de 40 profesionales de América Latina. Su extensión varió de 12 a 548 palabras. Yo mismo envié mi propia definición. Si le interesa leerlas a todas, las encontrará en www.lincolninst.edu/land-policy-reader-submissions.

Si bien los miembros del jurado quedaron muy sorprendidos con el alcance y la creatividad de las respuestas, temo que tengo noticias desalentadoras para quienes sean luditas: consideraron que no superamos al bot de la inteligencia artificial (IA). A modo de recordatorio, esta es la definición de 85 palabras que nos ofreció ChatGPT:

Las políticas de suelo se refieren a las normas y regulaciones que rigen el uso, la propiedad y la gestión del suelo. Implican una toma de decisiones sobre cómo debe utilizarse el suelo, quién debe tener acceso a él y qué actividades se permiten en él. Las políticas de suelo pueden concernir una amplia gama de temas, desde la urbanización y la conservación medioambiental hasta los derechos de propiedad y la equidad social. Su objetivo es equilibrar los intereses de diferentes partes interesadas y garantizar que el suelo se utilice de maneras que beneficien a toda la sociedad.

Eso no significa, sin embargo, que no se merezcan elogios. A la vista de los miembros del jurado, la mejor respuesta fue la de Harvey Jacobs:

La política de suelo consiste en reglas, la cultura que subyace a dichas reglas y las expectativas sociales respecto del uso del suelo. Reúne al gobierno, el mercado y los actores privados. Tiene resultados formales e informales. Los resultados formales suelen ser planes, regulaciones y programas. Los resultados informales suelen ser patrones socialmente aceptados relacionados con el modo en que se debe utilizar el suelo y nuestro comportamiento respecto al suelo.

La respuesta más ahorrativa fue un haiku escrito por PD Blumenthal:

Usar, controlar, compartir suelo
Proteger la tierra, el agua y el aire
Para beneficiarnos todos

Y la respuesta más creativa fue un poema titulado A More Stealthy Georgist Cat (Un gato georgista más sigiloso), de David Harold Chester. Es muy largo para republicarlo aquí, pero puede verse en www.lincolninst.edu/land-policy-reader-submissions.

La respuesta más concisa fue la de Ben Brown:

La política de suelo es un conjunto de reglas a través de las que el gobierno formaliza el pensamiento ilusorio de responder a demandas enfrentadas de uso del suelo en un futuro que es inevitable e incierto.

A pesar de que no superamos a la inteligencia artificial, estoy muy feliz con el resultado del ejercicio. Confirma un par de cuestiones importantes. Primero, la política de suelo tiene un alcance amplio, y toca muchos aspectos de la vida. Viéndolo así, quizás está bien que eluda definiciones sencillas. Segundo, es posible pasar años haciendo algo que no se puede explicar con facilidad. Supongo que los expertos en políticas de suelo no son las únicas personas que no pueden explicar en reuniones familiares lo que hacen exactamente.

Se me ocurre que el problema puede ser taxonómico. En la taxonomía, puede ser más difícil definir una clasificación que dar un ejemplo de algo que está dentro de esa clasificación. En lo que a mi vida respecta, jamás puedo recordar las diferencias entre clase, orden, familia, género o especie, pero bajo presión puedo dar un ejemplo de cada término.

Al final, les voy a dar a todas las personas que participaron en la competencia un libro de su elección de nuestra impresionante biblioteca de publicaciones sobre políticas de suelo que está en constante expansión. Además, a cada uno de los autores de las cuatro respuestas distinguidas arriba les regalaré cinco libros de su elección.

Fue un ejercicio maravilloso y apreciamos el pensamiento y la creatividad puestos en todas las entregas. Valoramos aún más su cooperación como cuerpo colegiado y nos sentimos honrados de compartir este esfuerzo difícil de definir con todos ustedes. Lo que comenzó con un encuentro casual entre un arrollador reformador y un inventor más de un siglo atrás tiene incluso más relevancia hoy en día: encontrar respuestas en el suelo para mejorar la calidad de vida.

Crédito: Devonyu vía iStock/Getty Images Plus.

When Claudia López took office as Bogotá’s first elected female mayor and first openly gay mayor in January of 2020, she had big plans for the Colombian capital—literally.

Chief among her campaign pledges was a promise to finally update the city’s master plan, or Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (POT), a long-overdue goal that had eluded her predecessors for nearly two decades. López was also determined to address the city’s social debts to women and children, and to produce climate and mobility plans that would advance urban greening efforts and restart progress on the city’s metro system as part of a multimodal public transportation strategy.

Just weeks later, those ambitions took a backseat as a deadly pandemic swept the world, plunging Bogotá and so many other cities into a state of health and economic emergency.

In a matter of months, unemployment and extreme poverty tripled, wiping out two decades of socioeconomic progress. “Nobody wants to be in charge during such a crisis—it’s a nightmare, and it’s hard to do,” says López, who was term-limited out of office in 2023 and is now a 2024 Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow at Harvard University. “But every crisis opens up opportunities that were not there before.”

A citywide sense of solidarity in the face of those punishing pandemic impacts ultimately helped López galvanize support for her updated POT. And embedded within that plan was a simple yet revolutionary idea to improve gender equality—quickly, dramatically, and for years to come.

Caring About Caregivers

In 2020, Bogotá began to build a network of neighborhood Care Blocks (Manzanas del Cuidado). These facilities provide an array of services for nearby caregivers, most of whom are women, including access to free, professional care for their dependents—children, ailing elders, relatives with disabilities—and opportunities to take part in education, counseling, training, or wellness programs. While they are intentionally located in walkable areas, the city has also provided Care Buses for those who live farther away.

The underlying idea, initially conceived by Diana Rodríguez Franco, the city’s former secretary for women’s affairs, was to offer much needed relief, respect, and opportunity for the caregivers whose invisible labor keeps the rest of the city running.

Thirty percent of women in Bogotá, 1.2 million people, are full-time caregivers who average 10 hours a day of unpaid labor. Most live in poverty and haven’t had a chance to pursue an education beyond primary school or start a career, denying them the opportunity for economic autonomy.

“That, in Bogotá, seems normal, because of religion, machismo, cultural norms,” López says. “It’s so ingrained in society that this overburden is normal. So [we are] saying, ‘That’s not normal. That is not ethically normal, it’s not socially normal, it cannot be economically normal—it’s actually counterproductive for society that we lose 52 percent of the labor force. So we’re going to change that.’”

Colombia had passed a first-of-its-kind law in 2010 requiring the government to track the economic value of unpaid care work, finding that the care economy represents 20 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. A later Oxfam study estimated that, if women received even minimum wage for unpaid care work globally, it would amount to $10.8 trillion a year. “We are the basic economic sector that allows all the other economic sectors to function,” López says.

The crisis of the pandemic quickly brought even greater attention to the importance of caregivers, as offices and other formal workplaces shut down, the city’s informal economy ground to a halt, and children stayed home for remote learning. “We went from 900 or 1,000 full-time caregivers to 1.2 million full-time caregivers in four months,” says María-Mercedes Jaramillo, former secretary of planning for Bogotá and a 2024 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. “So this issue became very tangible.”

Planning and implementing a citywide caregiver support system without an existing model to work from—translating an abstract idea into physical reality—wasn’t easy. But López, Jaramillo, and Franco worked to get the entire city government behind the program. “And when the first Care Block actually got functional,” Jaramillo says, “it really changed, in a very concrete way, the lives of the women who were able to go there.”

Care, There, Everywhere

The Manitas Care Block was the first to open, in the fall of 2020, in Ciudad Bolívar—a low-income neighborhood in the hills of south Bogotá. Laura Mullahy, senior program manager at the Lincoln Institute, says she was “extremely impressed” when she visited the facility this spring as part of a Lincoln Institute course on urban finance and land policy.

“We took the TransMiCable gondola to get there,” Mullahy says, referring to the public cable-car system that connects the steep hillside neighborhoods of Ciudad Bolívar to the city’s bus rapid transit network kilometers below. “Passengers get on and off the gondolas on one floor of the building, and downstairs is the area where government services are offered.”

In addition to professionally provided care and recreational programs for children, elders, and people with disabilities, the free services available to caregivers include medical consultations, legal and psychological counseling, fitness and yoga classes, and educational opportunities. There are even certificate programs for caregivers, intended to formally recognize and elevate the role’s societal status and to train more men in the practice.

Available services also include “a community laundry, a computer center, and urban agriculture,” Mullahy says. “The menu of educational offerings is expansive; a few examples are flexible classes to earn high school degrees, job-oriented training, and financial education oriented toward purchasing a home.”

Nearly 50,000 people live in close proximity to the Manitas Care Block, including 5,416 female caregivers—but it’s not just women who benefit. The facility also serves the neighborhood’s 3,838 children under five years old, 3,516 elderly residents, and 2,448 people with disabilities.

Mullahy was also impressed by the employees she spoke to. “They were extremely passionate about their work—and in general, there was a palpable sense of pride in the Care Blocks, both from the staff and the community,” she says. “We were told that vandalism of both the Care Blocks and the associated transportation infrastructure is very low because the community values the system so much.”

Indeed, the Care Blocks have proven immensely popular, even among the politicians who campaigned to succeed López as mayor. And because the Care system is written into the POT, the master plan guiding the city’s urban development through 2035, its impact will outlast any one mayoral term.

All Part of the Plan

As of June, 23 Care Blocks were operating throughout Bogotá. More than 400,000 residents have received free services, including more than 800 women who have completed their high school diploma. The POT includes budgeting and specific plans to establish 22 more locations by 2035. “It’s not cosmetic, it’s really structural,” Jaramillo says. “The Care Blocks are not a marginal thing in the land use plan.”

López uses a more domestic metaphor: “It’s not just the cherry on the cake, it’s actually a strong part of the cake,” she says. “The Care Blocks are just one aspect of a new epistemology of the city, where we have been introducing a different perspective: the perspective of the oppressed. Except that the oppressed are the majority—more than 50 percent of the population.”

Embedding a social program into the master planning process “is very innovative—it’s a brand-new model,” says Anaclaudia Rossbach, the Lincoln Institute’s outgoing director of programs for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and soon-to-be executive director of UN-Habitat. “They are on the frontier of master plans—I think it’s something that the Global South can contribute to the Global North and to other areas.”

It also cemented into place a long-absent feminist perspective on development. “The cities that we have were not planned by, with, and for women,” Rossbach notes. “Incorporating the Care Blocks into the master plan means incorporating a strong gender perspective about the use of space, and it institutionalizes this social policy.”

Rossbach sees hope in the way Bogotá has successfully put abstract principles into practice. “It’s easy to say we need to plan cities so that they work better for women. But the how is more difficult,” she says. “With the case of Bogotá and the Care Blocks, we have a very concrete example that can inspire other cities. And it can also inspire cities to understand that they can be creative in their own way—that they can create something totally different.”

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

Lead image:
Caption: Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López, in light purple, celebrates with caregivers who have completed educational programs offered through the city’s Care Blocks. Credit: City of Bogotá Secretary for Women’s Affairs via Instagram.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is the most urbanized region in the developing world, with 81 percent of its population—539 million people—living in cities, according to UN-Habitat. While there are differences in urbanization patterns across the region—for example, countries in Central America are less urbanized, but experiencing one of the fastest urbanization rates in the world, while South America is already home to major cities—poverty and inequality have characterized this growth regionwide, leading to the creation of precarious settlements whose populations face multiple vulnerabilities. These settlements are the result of insufficient access to adequate housing and unjust distribution of wealth and opportunities. The resulting vulnerabilities get reinforced and magnified by external factors such as migration and climate change.

To reflect on and tackle these related challenges, the Lincoln Institute’s Program on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) co-organized a one-day workshop in early 2024. This event was part of an emerging initiative led by the Lincoln Institute and MIT that seeks to foster a call to action and build a regional vision that addresses critical challenges and advocates for systemic change.

Rooted in the experiences of team members from both institutions who have worked on these issues in their respective countries—Lincoln Institute LAC Program Director Anaclaudia Rossbach (Brazil), SPURS fellow Agustina Rodriguez Biasone (Argentina), and SPURS fellow Carina Arvizu Machado (México)—the workshop was designed to bridge the gap between academia and practical experience. It was an opportunity, said SPURS program director Bish Sanyal, to “theorize from practice.”

The workshop explored the multifaceted challenges facing vulnerable territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. One in five individuals in the region (110 million people) live in informal settlements. These areas face conditions of poverty and social exclusion, marked by inadequate housing, poor public services, and limited access to urban infrastructure and green spaces. In addition, the region is particularly vulnerable to climate change and has experienced significant migration flows in the past decades. LAC hosts approximately 3 million migrants from other areas and about 11 million internal migrants. Drawing inspiration from four case studies, the workshop explored innovative and integrated approaches that are paving the way for sustainable development and systemic change.

The workshop brought together over 50 individuals from diverse backgrounds, spanning academia, government, nonprofit organizations, and more, with a slate of speakers that included over 20 experts from Latin America and the Caribbean. Among them were former government ministers, executive directors, and professors from institutions such as Oxfam Mexico, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Yale University, The New School, Columbia University, and more.

The real-world cases showcased innovative approaches to addressing urban challenges. From the Neighborhood Integration program in Buenos Aires led by María Migliore (former Buenos Aires minister of Human and Housing Development), to México’s Urban Improvement Program spearheaded by Martha Peña Ordóñez (current head of the planning unit of the Secretariat of Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development, SEDATU), passing by the Utopias project for rehabilitation of public spaces in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, implemented by Raúl Basulto (current head of Urban Development of Iztapalapa), and the Manzanas del Cuidado, or care blocks, championed by Maria-Mercedes Jaramillo (former Bogotá secretary of Planning). After participating in discussions about the challenges in the region and exploring the four case studies, attendees imagined and discussed integrated strategies for effective solutions. Participants engaged in lively debates, shared best practices, and explored ways to leverage interdisciplinary approaches for positive impact.

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Participants also explored the relationships among interventions in informal settlements, city planning, and the broader urban system, reimagining the relationship between nature and cities. Rethinking planning scales and alternative territorial governance, such as through elements like water supply and management, was at the forefront of the discussions, especially on the panel about climate change, moderated by Amy Cotter, director of climate strategies at the Lincoln Institute. Looking back to move forward, the panelists and participants drew inspiration from the historical constitution of cities through migration, and past interventions in informal settlements.

The resounding commitment echoed among participants was a determination to forge a more equitable and sustainable future for urban communities in Latin America and the Caribbean. As Enrique Silva, chief program officer at the Lincoln Institute, mentioned, this workshop was a great opportunity to build upon similar events in the past, such as the 2018 symposium “Slums: New Visions for an Enduring Global Phenomenon,” held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and consolidate a more robust community of practice. The group agreed to continue this journey together, building bridges and creating lasting impact for the vulnerable territories of the region, forging new paths toward systemic change.

Key themes for future discussion based on the reflections at the workshop include:

1. Exploring further the links and interdependencies of informality and informal settlements with migration, climate change and inequality, and the implications and complication of political polarization in the region.
2. Connecting interventions in informal settlements to city planning, and the broader urban system.
3. Reimagining the relationship between nature and cities, considering and integrating indigenous communities and their concepts and practices.
4. Rethinking the scales of planning and alternative territorialities of governances, through alternative elements such as water.
5. Looking back to better move forward, including looking at indigenous knowledge, how migration has affected the growth and development of cities, and previous interventions around informal settlements.

This initiative was made possible thanks in part to a grant from MIT’s Office of Experiential Learning.

Carina Arvizu Machado is a 2024 SPURS fellow at MIT and former Cities Director for Mexico and Colombia at the World Resources Institute, Mexico. She is the former national deputy secretary of Urban Development and Housing for Mexico, sustainable urban mobility consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, and chief of urban projects for Mexico City.

Lead image: Utopía Aculco, part of the Utopía series of 12 parks and public cultural and sports facilities in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa neighborhood. The name doubles as an acronym for Unidades de Transformación y Organización Para la Inclusión y la Armonía Social (Units of Transformation and Organization for Inclusion and Social Harmony). Credit: Government of Mexico City.