Housing Rehab for Consolidated Squatter Settlements in Latin America’s First Suburbs: Policy Approaches

Housing Rehab for Consolidated Squatter Settlements in Latin America’s First Suburbs: Policy Approaches

The Wilson Center’s Comparative Urban Studies Project invites you to a policy discussion forum on:

Thursday, May 30, 2013
9:00 – 11:45 am
4th Floor Conference Room
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Featuring:

• Peter M. Ward – University of Texas, Austin; LAHN Coordinator
• Edith Jiménez – Team Leader Universidad de Guadalajara
• Mercedes di Virgilio – Team Leader Universidad de Buenos Aires; CONICET

Since the early 1980s upgrading and tenure regularization have been widely accepted policies to assist owner self-help housing construction in informal settlements that have come to make up between 20-60 percentof the built-up area of Latin American cities. Today many of these first suburbs are fully integrated into what is now the intermediate ring of the city. However, few researchers and even fewer policy makers have these consolidated settlements on their agenda. Fully serviced, after thirty years or more of intensive use these areas are facing intensive deterioration of the physical fabric, utilities, and community.

Since 2007 the Latin American Housing Network (LAHN www.lahn.utexas.org) has been studying these areas through independent research groups working to a common methodology in nine Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay).This year we are organizing a series of regional policy roll outs as we begin thinking about a new generation of housing policy that will focus upon housing and community rehabilitation of the existing housing stock. This path breaking study is expected to inform multilateral agencies, NGOS, central and local governments, and other housing and community development researchers leading up to the UNHABITAT III Conference in 2016. At the meeting hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center LAHN researchers will brief participants on the principal findings from our comparative studies, emphasizing the principal policy lines for debate and discussion.

Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW (“Federal Triangle” stop on Blue/Orange Line). A map to the Center is available at WilsonCenter.org/directions. Note: Photo identification is required. Please allow additional time to pass through security.

Want to attend but can’t? Tune into the live or archived webcast at WilsonCenter.org (not every event is webcast live; archived webcasts go up approximately one week after the meeting date).

Media guests, including TV crews, are welcome and should RSVP directly to allison.garland@wilsoncent er.org. Media bringing heavy electronics MUST indicate this in their response so they may be cleared through our building security and allowed entrance. Please err toward responding if you would like to attend.