Informal Housing in Caracas - Essay Example

Informal housing in Caracas Introduction paragraph The urban squatter settlement that is known as a favela in Brazil is termed as barrio in Venezuela. Different barrios have different names derived from the name of a famous event or hero. The capital city of Venezuela is Santiago de Leon de Caracas, whose population in the metropolitan area consisting five distinct municipalities is over 5.9 million (Peters, 2008, p. 7). Caracas is densely populated and the growth generally occurs vertically over the mountainside. The number of barrios in Caracas exceeds 400 while new barrios keep forming as well. Factors that play a role in the formation of new barrios are migration of the people from rural to urban areas, and growth of population (Karst, 1971, p. 552). The processes of globalization have generated a distinct pattern of spatial urban organization that is typified by people’s segregation in the extension informal settlements. Urban restructuring has led to rising metropolitan fragmentation and increased socio-territorial inequality (Peters, 2008, p. 1). This paper explains the way globalization has changed the production of housing in Caracas. In spite of being located in the most urbanized and the wealthiest country of Latin America, Caracas accommodates numerous rancho settlements that are distributed all across the city. These settlements are characterized by invasions of squatter land. Disinvolvement of the government has perpetuated self-help housing techniques in Caracas. The aspects of informal housing in Caracas discussed in this paper include regulation of informal housing, housing production, exchange and consumption in the barrios of Caracas, the influence of globalization on housing, and the role of different actors in the developmental process. Informal housing in Caracas is quite politicized, with the demand exceeding the supply. Commodity forms dominate the production, exchange, and consumption of the informal settlements in Caracas. Globalization caused political and economic restructuring thus altering the metropolis’s fabric. Slum upgrading and microcredit are some of the factors that have played a role in the development of housing in Caracas. Regulation of informal housing in Latin America The mobilized and generated type of squatting is the most common in Latin America. Development of the informal housing in Latin America engages the political organizations. The state is somehow involved in the process. Informal housing in Latin America is quite politicized. The squatter communities are collectively involved in the process of settlement development and shelter acquisition. Such settlements are politically not isolated whether the political connections are with the opposition parties or the parties in rule. The scale of popular participation plays an important role in the likelihood of occupation of land in Peru, Colombia, or Venezuela (Al-Sayyad, 1991 page#?). The poor urban population in the transitional and developing world lives in unsafe, squalid environments in which they are exposed to different kinds of threats to health and safety. The squatter settlements and slums are deprived of the most basic services and infrastructure. The populations of these settlements are disenfranchised and marginalized. People are exposed to crime and disease and are frequently affected by the natural disasters. The squatter settlements have grown rapidly and their growth is estimated to double in almost the next two decades. “[R]apid urban growth in the context of structural adjustment, currency devaluation, and state retrenchment has been an inevitable recipe for the mass production of slums” (Gilbert, 2007, p. 697)(there is a green line under this sentence is this a problem?). (No that is no problem) In many poor countries, efforts directed at improvement of the slum have displaced the beneficiaries. Slums can be defined as building structures with substandard housing conditions and lack of basic services in overcrowded areas, insecure tenure, unhealthy conditions of living, and minimum size of settlement. The shanty accommodation in Santiago, Caracas, and Rio de Janeiro were knocked down by the supposedly benevolent leaders. Since the 1970s, the governments have tried to justify the clearance of slum as a way to combat the crime (Gilbert, 2007, p. 707). Recent studies suggest that almost 40 to 70 per cent of the urban residents of the developing countries live in slums and this trend is likely to continue for a long time in the future (Sietchiping, 2005, p. 2). According to the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE cited in Fernandes, 2011, p. 7), almost 15000 people from 15 Latin American countries have been evicted from 2004 to 2006. The number of people evicted from Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico was 70637, 42728, 6848, and 10374 respectively. The policies of regularization deal with complex realities of urban and socioeconomic environment and different aspects of the financial, environmental, and urban laws. These policies are meant to prevent the relocation of the consolidated informal settlements’ residents so that they can remain over the occupied land and have better access to the living conditions. In addition to that, the policies of regularization tend to compensate for the historical inequalities (Fernandes, 2011, p. 19). Housing Production in Latin America The demand of housing in Latin America exceeds the supply almost exclusively. The demand of housing in Caracas in particular has exceeded the supply for a long time. As a result of this, massive squatter settlements have formed on the cities’ urban peripheries in the region. About one-fourth of all housing in the Latin America is informal housing (Peters, 2008, p. 3). The prime source of housing is the informal markets. They are not accustomed to the services and regulations that are obtained by the housing through the formal markets. Informal settlements tend to steal the basic utilities and services until the utility companies install permanent connections. The municipal governments utilize tilting as a tool to provide the barrio residents with increased tenure security that lends them a sense of permanence as residents. Informal housing in Caracas accounts for 44 per cent of the city’s housing of which, 42 per cent is self-help (Gilbert, 1998, p. 82). People build rancho houses with the cooperation of friends, neighbors, and families. Sometimes, the nuclear family assumes the complete responsibility of constructing the house. The first form of housing that emerged was the shack. A popular way to obtain a parcel for building a community or a house is land invasion. Residents erect a shack during night to demonstrate their power and existence against the authorities. Sites that the residents invade are usually unused municipal land over the city’s periphery. The government cannot make these people evade the land because of their large population and the resources required to displace them (Peters, 2008, p. 10). Exchange and consumption in the barrios of Caracas Millions of citizens in the developing countries of the world apparently exchange, produce, and consume the housing irrespective of the state intervention or market relations (Ramirez et al., 1991, p. 1). The development of housing production as a general process, consumption, and exchange in the squatter regions of Caracas is characterized by the commodity forms’ strong domination. The production, exchange, and consumption of housing in the barrios of Caracas are defined by eight processes that include development of house as use value; provision of land; house construction; exchange relations; technical assistance and administrative framework; development of neighborhood as use value; costs, affordability, and finance; and community organization (Ramirez et al., 1991, p. 10). In Caracas, the process of production of housing, exchange, and consumption resumes with violation of the principles of capitalism occupation of the land of others so that the order can be recomposed “and the objectives of the same system commodification and the rule of market relations where the decisive support of the state is indispensable, yet for the success of which the withdrawal of the state is eventually necessary” (Ramirez et al., 1991, p. 72). Impact of globalization “[G]lobalization exercises an important indirect impact on the Latin American city in terms of socio-spatial segregation” (Roberts, 2005, p. 118). (which page? Can I have the article). (Sorry, it’s a book not an article) Near the end of the 1980’s, Venezuela implemented a neoliberal economic program that improved its integration into the new global economy. Nevertheless, Caracas experienced many problems because of globalization like many other major cities of Venezuela. The involvement of government in shaping Caracas has altered the housing production’s nature. The government ignores the illegal land invasions and thus does not assume complete responsibility for providing a high level of service or high quality of housing to the residents of Caracas (Peters, 2008, p. 9). According to Lacabana and Cariola (2006, p. 180), three main trends in cities reflect in the process of globalization; first, spurring of the continued fragmentation of the city because of the urban mega projects executed by the transnational and national real estate capital, second is the restructuring of the labor markets because of changes in the internal structure, and the third is erection of abstract and physical social barriers that demonstrate growing residential segregation and changes in the internal structure. In addition to that, globalization has increased the informal employment that has in turn restructured the labor markets. The biggest sufferers of this are the poor since they fundamentally rely upon labor. Although globalization encouraged the establishment of a democratic system, yet it did not help the poor (Peters, 2008, p. 6). “The return to democracy in Brazil brought neither inclusion of the poor nor bargaining power to poor communities” (Perlman, 2010, p. 311). Finally, the political and economic restructuring that has occurred as a result of globalization has altered the metropolis’s fabric and has also increased the socio-territorial segregation (Peters, 2008, p. 13). “Symbolic oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are central to the construction of an identity within the representation of space” (Jones, 1994, p. 7-8).(can I have the article?) (you had yourself requested me to include this quote; you didn’t provide me with the article) Different actors in the developmental process One of the recent attempts of the government to fix the squalid circumstances of the barrios of Caracas is slum upgrading. Elements needed in slum upgrading including involvement of the public and community sectors to provide the basic services, adequate standards of development, effective regularization of land and definition of schemes of improvement to minimize the vulnerability to the natural catastrophes, and feasibility of upgrading and financial sustainability. Microcredit was another neoliberal program run in Caracas that facilitated the poor people with the production of housing. Microcredit provides them with the chance to develop or extend their existing houses at market rates that are affordable for them. Loans given to them are usually small in amount and can be anywhere between $500 and $5000 that the poor people are required to return within two to five years (Peters, 2008, p. 12). The lower-income groups in Caracas can easily access the microcredit and improve their quality of housing without depending upon the government. The ongoing decentralization of Caracas has created independent municipalities with specific tax revenues for the municipality. The government needs to take objective measures to provide the residents of Caracas with a high quality of living and housing (this was a conclusion drawn by myself based on the content of the paper, so it can’t have a reference, you may omit this sentence if you want). Perlman (2010) suggests some ways in which this can be achieved: The knowledge and wisdom of the marginalized population are essential to successful problem solving and policy making. Inclusion of the informal sector will release valuable resources for production, consumption, and citizenship that the city needs to thrive. Even the best policies and programs will require popular as well as political mobilization and ultimately depend on the degree of willingness to consider the underlying issues of resource allocation and redistribution. (Do we need a quote? Because is copy) (Quotations are not included with long indented quotes in APA) (Perlman, 2010, p.314). Conclusion Morphology of the barrios of Caracas reflects that a certain pattern of spatial organization has taken place that is heavily influenced by the areas’ hilly geography. As Caracas is divided into five municipalities, the city’s governments have become segmented. The Venezuelan governments developed a sophisticated framework of agencies to resolve the issues of the barrios of Caracas. As a result of this, the squatters got the resources, though the households hardly acknowledged any significant contribution of those agencies in the process of housing production. Nevertheless, the households did acknowledge the contribution of these agencies in the upgrading of works and especially, in providing them with the building materials that they could use to improve their neighborhoods. The Latin American countries have generally started to recognize their residents’ individualistic and collective rights of staying in the informal settlements that they have occupied. This is their social right to acquiring adequate housing. Land regularization in Venezuela and Columbia is a basic element of the residents’ social right to adequate housing granted by the constitution. The intervention of the state in the exchange, production, and consumption of the barrios of Caracas comprises a paradigmatic case of the employment of policies of nonconventional housing in the context inspired by populism. It is, indeed, a resourceful intervention in the field of housing on the part of the state without involvement in the houses’ provision that was usually advantageous for the people residing in the settlements. This implies that a modification in the nonconventional policies of housing promises a redefinition of the process of housing in these settlements. References: Al-Sayyad, N. (1991). Informal housing in a comparative perspective: On squatting, culture, and development in a Latin American and a Middle Eastern context. USA: University of California. Fernandes, R. (2011). Regularization of Informal Housing in Latin America. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Gilbert, A. (1998). The Latin American City, 2nd Edition. London: Latin American Bureau. Gilbert, A. (2007, Dec.). The Return of the Slum: Does Language Matter? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 31(4), 697-713. Jones, G. A. (1994). The Latin American City as Contested Space: A Manifesto. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 13(1), 1-12. Karst, K. L. (1971). Rights in Land and Housing in an Informal Legal System: The Barrios of Caracas. The American Journal of Comparative Law. 19(3), 550-574. Lacabana, M., and Cecilia, C. (2006). “The Processes Underlying Caracas as a Globalizing City.” In, Relocating Global Cities: From the Center to the Margin. Ed. M. Mark Amen, Kevin Archer, and M. Martin Bosman. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 179-199. Perlman, J. E. (2010). Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio De Janeiro. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 11. “Reflections on Public Policy”, pp. 264-315. Peters, P. (2008, April 14). Housing Production and the Role of Development Actors: The Case of Caracas. Retrieved from http://brightpryde.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Caracas-Paper.pdf. Ramirez, R., Fiori, J., Harms, H., and Mathey, K. (1991). The Commodification of Self-help Housing and State Intervention. Household Experiences in The "Barrios" Of Caracas. Roberts, B. (2005). Globalization and Latin American Cities. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 29(1), 110-127. Sietchiping, R. (2005, April 4-6). Prospective Slum Policies: Conceptualization and Implementation of a Proposed Informal Settlement Growth Model. 3rd Urban Research Symposium on land development, urban policy and poverty reduction. Brazil. Read More