Building Cities; Neighbourhood Upgrading and Urban Quality of Life

Building Cities analyzes the outcomes and lessons from recent upgrading projects in Latin America that were funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The editor’s introduction traces changing approaches to urban informality and identifies priorities for future upgrading projects. These focus areas include promoting economic development, improving access to low-income housing and preventing degradation of social housing. Interagency coordination is crucial, and the authors argue that integrated upgrading programmes can build citizenship and confront challenges facing the whole city (page 5). Wider-scale interventions and multi-sectoral approaches are recommended, with the goals of enhancing quality of life, creating jobs, preventing new informal settlements and improving housing in other low-income areas.
Written by project specialists or other IDB staff, the chapters are organized thematically, with brief editorial introductions and recent case studies. Chapter 2 discusses the need to promote security and income generation, with Michael Cohen sharply criticizing past job creation efforts.
Nathalie Alvarado and Beatriz Abizanda give an overview of urban violence and the IDB’s projects to improve security. Chapter 3 focuses on land, and contributors argue for new strategies to increase the availability of serviced lots and prevent future slum formation. Case studies highlight some innovative projects in El Salvador and Porto Alegre, Brazil. Chapter 4 provides an interesting discussion of how to upgrade deteriorated social housing. In tackling this second-generation problem, policy makers are improving services, connectivity and community facilities (paralleling efforts in troubled British or EU housing estates). The case studies examine initiatives in Montevideo and Chile, which have ranged from enhanced public spaces and social support to new computing and sports centres. Montevideo has separate agencies for upgrading informal settlements and deteriorated formal housing, although the two types of shelter are sometimes difficult to distinguish (page 121).

Chapter 5 considers neighbourhood upgrading, and an overview by José Brakarz traces the IDB’s 37 upgrading projects since 1986. Initiatives in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico are profiled, including contributions by Elisabete Franca (on São Paulo’s Guarapiranga Drainage Basin Programme) and Ramiro Brugos (on La Paz’s True Neighbourhoods Programme). In Chapter 6, the authors explore community participation, using examples from Ecuador and Brazil. Ecuador’s Integrated Neighbourhood Upgrading Programme was implemented by contractors, but it also featured participatory planning and shared responsibility for operation and maintenance between residents and the municipality (page 185). The final chapter discusses methods of economic analysis and cost-benefit studies, using IDB projects in Ecuador and Colombia. With upgrading projects ever-more ambitious and complex, it is essential to synthesize lessons as in these detailed Latin American studies.