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How to overcome slum upgrading bottlenecks?

August 26, 2024 por Enrique Peláez Leave a Comment

Este artículo está también disponible en / This post is also available in: Spanish


Over the last decades, many of the people who moved to cities in pursuit of a better life ended up living in informal settlements or slums with inadequate living standards. Urban growth has happened very rapidly in developing countries, and both the government and the private sector have struggled to respond to this huge increase in housing demand. Without affordable units, millions of city dwellers have been left with no other choice than informal housing options. Consequently, slums have become an ever-present part of most cities in the global south, resulting in spatial concentrations of structural poverty. Although integral slum upgrading has proven to be the most effective approach to address this issue, investment is way below from it is needed. Re-thinking slum upgrading bottlenecks is, therefore, crucial for urban sustainability and poverty reduction in the region.

In this sense, the IDB Cities Lab hosted a series of thought-provoking conversations on how to overcome three decisive slum upgrading bottlnecks. First, how to scale up upgrading investments and effectiveness to close the investment gap? Second, as we find more ways to effectively scale up, are there solutions to improve slum living conditions today? Third, how can we close the informal data gap to promote better policymaking?

To begin with, we have identified initiatives that find ways to channel more funding or modify the execution approach to scale up slum upgrading. We hosted conversations with the protagonists behind an Urban Integration Special Purpose Vehicle in Argentina, a community real estate developer in Brazil, and a social real estate operator in Chile. Additionally, in Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo we found a set of very interesting initiatives re-thinking urban planning regulations to adapt them to the particularities of the “informal city”.

There are promising initiatives in two of the main flaws that affect informal settlements: lack of access to public services and poor housing quality. Social enterprises such as Litro de Luz, Isla Urbana, or Modulo Sanitario, are working tirelessly to unlock the power of innovative technologies to bring electricity, internet, water, and sanitation to people all over Latin America without access to basic services. They do this by providing off-the-grid solutions while the trunk infrastructure gets built. Other organizations like Vivenda, Habitat for Humanity, and Build Change are also deeply vested in developing and executing programs to improve their informal houses.

Finally, we looked at the issue of the lack of information that limits local governments’ ability to carry out effective policies in informal settlements. These informal neighborhoods are, by definition, generally excluded from official statistics and maps, hampering local governments’ ability to diagnose and address their main issues. That is why we wanted to highlight digital initiatives that leverage satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, community participation, and data science to map and characterize settlements faster and cheaper.

If you would like to hear the stories of these incredible initiatives, told from the point of views of their protagonists, check out the new five episodes of Inteligencia Urbana, now available in English. Do you know other people who are working on innovative ways to improve lives in informal settlements? Let us know in the comments section below! 

Listen to the our new episodes and latest content here on: Amazon Music / Audible, Apple Podcast & Spotify:

Episode 1: Slum Upgrading: Innovative Strategies for Scaling Up. Within urban planning practice, integral slum upgrading, promoting interdisciplinary actions in infrastructure, land regularization, and social and productive development, has become the mainstream approach. However, given the current investment pace and magnitude, it is falling short. In this episode, we explore three innovative initiatives that aim to overcome the financial and institutional bottlenecks of neighborhood upgrading programs. Sebastian Welisiejko reflects on the need to leverage more financial resources and shares the potential of a Socio-Urban Special Purpose Vehicle.

Episode 2: Informality-Friendly Urban Planning Regulations. In addition to the physical, social, and economic barriers to social and urban integration, there are legal barriers which oftentimes hamper well-intentioned public or community upgrading initiatives. These barriers make it difficult for settlement inhabitants to access public services and complicate the execution of neighborhood upgrading plans. Among the legal norms, the one with the most significant impact is access to housing tenure. In this episode, we discuss with Anaclaudia Rossbach how to mainstream informality-friendly urban planning regulations and highlight crucial innovations in Bogotá and Buenos Aires. 

Episode 3: Off-The-Grid in Informal Settlements. The lack of access to public services such as water, sanitation, electricity, or internet connection is one of the main problems in informal neighborhoods. In general, slums are excluded from public utility companies’ coverage and expansion plans. Therefore, off-the-grid solutions emerge to meet the need while waiting for these more permanent solutions to arrive. In this episode, we showcase three examples of off-the-grid services at the housing scale: Modulo Sanitario (sanitation), Litro de Luz (electricity and internet), and Isla Urbana (water).

Episode 4: Informal Housing: How to Improve Self-Production Quality. The main housing challenge in Latin America and the Caribbean is how to improve existing homes that have poor quality building materials, structural deficiencies, or overcrowding, among others. This is known as the qualitative deficit, which includes most of the housing deficit in the region, and particularly affects people in informal neighborhoods, where most of the houses are self-produced. In this episode, we focus on the work of three organizations that aim to address the qualitative housing deficit and improve the quality of self-production: Habitat for Humanity, Vivenda, and Build Change.

Episode 5: Neighborhoods, Big Data & Artificial Intelligence: Technology for Urban Integration. One of the main limitations faced by local governments is the lack of reliable and up-to-date information for decision-making. This is particularly noticeable in informal settlements, often invisible to official statistics, making it difficult to diagnose shortcomings and plan upgrading programs. In this episode, we analyze the potential of various technological and data science tools to contribute to the visibility and work in informal neighborhoods. We present three projects that use different technologies and data to map informal neighborhoods in a novel and participatory way.


Filed Under: LAB Ciudades

Enrique Peláez

Enrique Pelaez is a full-time Consultant at CSD/HUD, where he provides operational and technical support to the IDB Cities Lab. He specializes in urban governance and management, municipal infrastructure, and neighborhood upgrading programs. Enrique holds a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning with a concentration in International Development from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has previously worked at the Buenos Aires Government, the Georgetown Global Cities Initiative, and as a consultant at the IDB (INE/TSP). the World Bank, and AECOM/WMATA

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Este es el blog de la División de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Súmate a la conversación sobre cómo mejorar la sostenibilidad y calidad de vida en ciudades de América Latina y el Caribe.

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