Three hypotheses analyzing limited predominance of slum upgrading policy

Abstract

Latin America has been regarded as the breeding ground of the “urban informality” concept, literature, and policy implementation (AlSayyad, 2004). Despite growing planning efforts and market contributions, urban informality is a predominant feature in Latin American urbanization. Either measured economically -by share of firms or employment- or spatially -by housing supply or built-area-, it is consistently above 50%. This indicates that it is indeed a predominant, majoritarian phenomenon. Today, urban informality is normal (OECD, 2009), and will continue to be so for some time. The relevance and predominance of urban informality (slums -in short-) has deserved it a policy subsystem of its own. In 1975 UN General Assembly established UN Habitat, and today we see an active policy arena where local communities network globally and are able to participate in decision-making instances together with international finance institutions and leading knowledge management brokers. Even though this would seem like a healthy policy environment, local slum upgrading programs are marginal and national policies are scarce. Furthermore, policy responses do not match the scale of this “problem”.