Service provision in the slums: the case of La Perla in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Abstract

This thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master’s in Urban Planning from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in May 2015. It won the Charles Abrams Thesis Award, awarded within Columbia Awarded for the urban planning master’s thesis that best exemplified a commitment to social justice. As urbanization rates across the developing world increase, urban slums and informal settlements expand in order to absorb the influx of new residents; by 2030, the number of people residing in slums worldwide could double to 2 billion (UN-HABITAT, 2003). Slum dwellers live under squalid conditions: inadequate housing, little infrastructure, poor sanitation and a lack of access to basic public services such as water, sewage and garbage collection. Despite these circumstances, slums continue to grow, thrive and survive for generations. Though by no means a recent phenomenon, their increasing proliferation is causing changes in the fields of planning, development and governance in favor of slum upgrading and policies that benefit slum dwellers.