No Time to Lose: Fostering the Predominantly Informal City in Latin America

Abstract

Latin America is a highly urbanized region presenting high social inequity manifested in two different forms of urbanization: the formal and the informal or self-constructed city. In many countries, informal urbanism has become the dominant component. However, politicians, public agencies, professional practices, and academia still focus on the formal city. As cities grow larger, the disparities magnify, social tension rises, and the performance of the entire urban system is affected. While some successful programs and projects have been directed to improve living conditions of existing settlements, they can still be considered isolated cases as they are laborious and time-consuming or require interdisciplinary skills, onsite work, careful phasing, and proactive communal participation. All of these conditions seem to collide with the political agenda. While a widespread, inevitable, and ongoing process, informality is still considered by the establishment as negative, illegal or, in most cases, simply tolerable and neglectable. The clock is ticking. The COVID-19 pandemic has only further revealed the social and urban inequalities, but also the resiliency, resources, and malleability of the informal. We require new paradigms and effective action. This chapter is an urgent call to foster and accompany the emergence of new settlements as the seed of more equitable and balanced urban systems. It addresses pivotal territorial and performative conditions that could make a substantial difference in the future of the Latin American city. It also provides examples to illustrate how these new paradigms and effective responses can be deployed to adapt them to different site conditions.