Informality in the City: a Theoretical Analysis

This thesis theoretically studies the relationship between the informal sector (both in the labor and the housing market) and the city structure.

Spatial Inequalities and Social Utility: Mobility Efforts and Accessibility in Greater Santiago

Emergent phenomena such as urban sprawl, travel intensification and loss of cohesion in contemporary metropolises, impose stronger constraints on its inhabitants. Among them, travel and location capabilities become a fundamental factor of social integration and a multiplier of income inequalities. The simultaneous analysis of housing-travel efforts and accessibility to urban opportunities in Greater Santiago shows that these dimensions are closely related and exert an important influence on spatial mobility and inequalities among its inhabitants. Furthermore, a theoretical model of displacements, considering income and location, confirms the importance of proximity and non-motorized transport in order to optimize daily mobility strategies of households. Overall, the empirical and theoretical results presented show the need to implement coordinated planning strategies between the housing and transport sectors, addressing not only travel acceleration, but mainly the consistency between accommodation and opportu  ties location. The creation of such planning tools could be a more sustainable alternative than current growth trends in Greater Santiago.

Análisis del proceso de expansión del oriente de Cali: el caso de Ciudadela Desepaz

Los resultados morfológicos del Programa de Vivienda de Interés Social Ciudadela Desepaz se caracterizan por la desarticulación y baja funcionalidad del espacio urbano. Esta condición urbanística no deriva de una falta de planificación integral, ya que el Municipio de Santiago de Cali evidenció la intención de desarrollar una porción de ciudad bien articulada, sino más bien de un conjunto de factores de los procesos de gestión urbana y urbanística llevados a cabo en este Programa. A partir de una investigación juiciosa de estos procesos, y del análisis morfológico de cada de uno de los proyectos que conformaron la Ciudadela, se definieron 6 factores principales de la gestión que incidieron en que la intención inicial del Municipio no se pudiera materializar.

Análisis de la influencia del programa de mejoramiento integral de barrios de Bogotá en el territorio del API El tesoro de la localidad de Ciudad Bolívar

La expansión urbana mediante asentamientos de origen informal ha ido aumentado en los últimos años debido al déficit en la oferta de vivienda formal, el costo del suelo urbano y factores económicos, sociales y culturales. Estos asentamientos no cuentan con infraestructura básica y los terrenos que generalmente son invadidos se encuentran en zonas de riesgo y no ofrecen las condiciones físicas y habitacionales adecuadas para el habitar de las personas. El distrito a través del Programa de Mejoramiento Integral de Barrios (PMIB) busca intervenir sobre los aspectos críticos en cada barrio, habilitar la infraestructura básica que permita su integración a la ciudad y mejorar la calidad de vida de los habitantes. Este proceso parte de delimitar las zonas críticas y definir las intervenciones físicas, sociales y ambientales que deben ser llevadas a cabo por diferentes entidades distritales. En este estudio se hace un análisis de las intervenciones que se han llevado a cabo en la Área Prioritaria de Intervención (API) El Tesoro, para analizar cuales intervenciones llevadas a cabo han sido exitosas y cuales requieren de ajustes para lograr un mejor impacto. Se encontró que estas intervenciones no han sido suficientes para mejorar las condiciones habitacionales de las personas, razón por lo cual es necesario revisar la política y formas de intervención.

Vereda Crucero Puelenje: interfaz periurbana ante a urbanização em Popayán, Colombia

This article is the result of a work of research conducted on the peri-urban interface of Popayan to detect its potential, restrictions and pathologies regarding the urbanization process. The Crucero Puelenje village, taken as a case study, is located in the south of the town center and it is recognized as one of the agricultural pantries of the city.The territory reading was focused on the macro-landscape as a result of the relationship between social groups and their physical and natural environment. Hence, this research process articulated technical and participatory methodologies that allowed determining the socio-cultural, environmental, physical-spatial, economic and political-administrative particularities of the territory with respect to urbanization and local development. Thus, the participatory component with the Crucero Puelenje community, both in the participatory workshops and in the census, gave feedback to the technical component considered as the guiding thread.This research found knowledge applicable to spatial planning and regional development from the study of the socio-environmental and territorial transformations impact caused by the urban sprawl of Popayán, and at the same time, it offered the Crucero Puelenje community the possibility of interpreting its territory and gaining insights about its planning.

Elementos de reflexión sobre la resiliencia urbana: usos criticables y aportes potenciales

El propósito de este texto es discutir el concepto de resiliencia y buscar su interés heurístico para los análisis de vulnerabilidad urbana. El término resiliencia es omnipresente en la retórica de las declaraciones internacionales, de las políticas públicas y en las reflexiones académicas en el campo de los riesgos y desastres en ciudades. Se discute esta noción con el fin de entender sus raíces y desvelar sus presupuestos ideológicos. Al mismo tiempo, el término resiliencia presenta el interés de fomentar debates y cuestiones teóricas en el campo científico y en el sociopolítico de la formulación de nuevas políticas públicas. Más allá de los enfoques focalizados sobre el fortalecimiento delas capacidades locales, los aportes heurísticos del concepto de resiliencia para los análisis de riesgos en el medio urbano provienen de sus fundamentos en la teoría de los sistemas complejos. Así, se resaltan nuevos enfoques y soportes conceptuales que permiten entender mejor la vulnerabilidadde las grandes aglomeraciones urbanas.

Instrumentos de financiación deldesarrollo urbano en colombia: la contribución por valorización y la participación en plusvalías. Lecciones y reflexiones

La participación en plusvalías (PPV) es el instrumento de política de una reforma de gran transcendencia en Colombia: la recuperación de las rentas del suelo y su movilización social. Durante la fase de implementación de la PPV se han venido estableciendo esquemas operativos fragmentados que propician una visión procedimental y atomizada del tributo, la cual promueve lógicas institucionales que potencialmente retardan su evolución plena como instrumento de política de suelo. El análisis de la trayectoria de varias décadas de las ciudades colombianas con la contribución por valorización (CV) sugiere que la continuidad y evolución de este instrumento y sus instituciones se derivan en gran parte del manejo “ingenioso” de esta política frente a su entorno de implementación. Por tratarse de un instrumento de recuperación parcial de plusvalías, constituye un precedente para la PPV a partir del cual es posible derivar valiosas lecciones. Este artículo presenta para discusión los factores de viabilidad y sostenibilidad identificados a través del análisis de la experiencia de implementación y del proceso general de consolidación de la CV; así como reflexiones que de allí surgieron sobre la dirección que en el mismo contexto debería dársele a la implementación de la PPV, de manera que se propicien condiciones de entorno favorables a la evolución institucional y sostenibilidad de la reforma.-----Participation in Land Value Increments (participación en plusvalías-PPV) is an essential policy instrument of the urban Reform in Colombia designed to capture and socially mobilize land rents originated by public decisions and investments. The analysis of its recent implementation process in Bogota provides evidence that current institutional arrangements are creating a general tendency amongst the institutions involved towards isolated procedural management, which potentially hinders the integrated vision required to manage the instrument at the policy level. Special Assessment (contribución por valorización-CV), an earlier form of partial value capture, has a long history in Colombia as an effective financialinstrument for urban management. Analysis of the factors that have contributed to successfully consolidate CV show that its technical evolution, continuity and political legitimacy have been strongly supported by integrated institutions and strategic management. Through comparative analysis, the experience with CV is used to draw some useful parallels and insights for a discussion about how PPV´s implementation process should be redirected towards strategic policy thinking and “smart value capture”.

Análisis de la relación entre los componentes: urbano y económico del proyecto 22@Barcelona

Generalmente las intervenciones urbanas son sectoriales y carecen de un enfoque transversal, lo que dificulta el ejercicio de la planificación y la gestión, y afecta negativamente la construcción de una visión de ciudad de largo plazo. Es por ello que esta monografía busca establecer la importancia de diseñar y ejecutar intervenciones urbanas estratégicas, por medio del análisis de un proyecto. El proyecto 22@Barcelona es un ejemplo de una intervención urbana estratégica porque logra, entre otras cosas, dar respuesta a distintas necesidades y problemáticas a través de una propuesta: urbana, económica y social. En esta ocasión se analizará la relación entre los componentes: económico y urbano del proyecto, a la luz de los postulados de la Planeación Estratégica Urbana; lo que permitirá concluir que éste no es ni un proyecto urbano, ni económico, sino ambas cosas, y es precisamente esto lo que lo hace loable.

Overcoming Gender Disadvantages. Social Policy Analysis of urban middle-class women in Colombia

The World Bank Report 2012 starts with this statement: “Gender equality matters in itself andit matters for development because, in today’s globalized worlds, countries that use the skillsand talents of their women would have an advantage over those which do not use it.” With theframe that suggest that gender equality matters, this paper describes some policy alternativesoriented to overcome gender disadvantages in the formal labor market incorporation of theurban middle class women in Colombia. On balance, the final recommendation suggest that itis desirable to adopt policy alternatives as Community Centers, which are programs orientedto a social redistribution of the domestic work as a way to encourage women participationin the formal labor market with the social support of the members of their own community.The problem that the social policy needs to address is the segregation of women in the formallabor market in Colombia. Although the evidence shows that the women overcome theeducational gap by showing better performance in education that their male peers, womenare still segregated of the labor market. The persistence of high rates of unemployment on thefemale population, the prevalence of the informal labor market as a women labor market, andthe presence of the payment difference between men and women with similar professionaltrainings are circumstances that sustain the segregation statement. These circumstances areinefficient for the society because an economic analysis shows that the cost of maintain the statuquo is externalized in the social security system that includes health, pension and maternityleave regimens. Therefore, the women segregation involves a market failure.This paper evaluates five policy alternatives each directed to the progress of a different causaldimension of the problem: (i) Quotas in the private market, (ii) Flexible working hours,(iii) replace the maternity leave with a family leave, (iv) Increase the Community Centers forredistributing the care work, and (v) Equal payment enforcement. The first alternative looksto increase women’s participation in the formal labor market. The second, third, and fourthalternatives constitute a package addressed at redistributing care work by reducing women’sresponsibility for reproductive work in the household with the help of husbands and the localgovernment. The fifth alternative intervenes to resolve the equal payment problem.After a four criteria evaluation that measure effectiveness, robustness and improbability inimplementation, efficiency and political acceptability or social opposition, the strongest alternativeis the fostering of Community Centers that promote a redistribution of care work. Thispolicy performs well in the assessment process because it combines gender focus with importantindirect effects: child support and human capabilities. The policy also shows a bottomup implementation process that overcomes the main adoption difficulties in the gender focusprograms and is supported by strong evidence of success in the Colombian context; this evidenceis produced by both transnational actors as a World Bank and also in local accountabilityreporters executed by local institutions like Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF).

Administrative authorization for the demolition of urban rental units pursuant to the law of 1964: a spanish example of problematic over-activity in the application of transitional laws

Transitional provisions are defined as the set of regulations that rule juridical relationships on the occasion of a legislative change. Out of this context of law succession, their indiscriminate application can lead to serious inconsistencies. The analysis of a Spanish private law example is offered to illustrate this fact. It concerns the administrative authorization for the demolition of rented buildings in the cities. A regulation repealed more than fifteen years ago and however widespread utilised on ancient constructions that, after recent urban development, have acquired great economic value; something that in the end explains the current importance of such provisions. What is happening in Spain: denaturalization of the original  figure due to a mixture of formalist interpretations and speculative market interests, is presented here to call the attention on the necessary limitation of transitional provisions’ effects.

Qualifying urban outskirts and public areas A refl exion from Bogata’s public policies

This article presents the results and conclusions obtained from an investigation into the possibilities of qualifying urban outskirts of Bogota with regard to the construction of public areas. The discussion presents the results obtained in previous investigations which give reason to conclude that the city’s outskirts are currently equipped with insuffi cient basic urban services and equipment. Questions are raised in regards to the proposals of the Plan for Territorial Organization (POT as abbreviated in Spanish) according to now known facts. From analysis both of currently known facts as well as the proposals of the Plan for Territorial Organization advancement is made in the analysis of the existing possibilities in the latter scenario to improve the condition of the admittedly unarticulated and defi cient urban outskirts, especially for the development of low cost housing.

The avatars of housing in Latin American urban and regional research (1990-2012)

The review of the terms used as keywords in three journals (published in Mexico and Chile) and the Brazilian meetings of regional and urban research are used to analyze the trends in housing research. Their dynamics are interpreted in the light of the general changes identified for urban and regional  research, synthesized by other authors as the emergence of new research topics and agents of urban change (civil society, participation, environment, gender) and the process of globalization (in its facets  of productive restructuration, job flexibility, social exclusion) as a general framework of analysis. It is found that the central themes of research in housing relate primarily to government action in  housing. New concerns, such as citizen participation, the environment or gender are linked to these actions as normative elements to the evaluation of programs or policies, but not as autonomous fields of study of the housing.In addition to this central concern, a significant growth of academic  production and  ome indication of the internationalization of research are mentioned