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Mind the Gap: Monitoring Spatial Inequalities in Quality of Life Conditions (Case Study of Rosario)

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Indicators of Quality of Life in Latin America

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 62))

Abstract

Unequal quality of life conditions are one of the most visible forms of uneven and fragmented urban development. In several cities of the Global South and in Latin America in particular, there is concern about the gap between areas with low and high quality of life conditions. This concern usually carries the intention to reduce those spatial inequalities by targeting and improving areas with low quality of life conditions. This chapter presents a methodological approach to map, analyze, and monitor intra-urban quality of life variations. This approach is informed by a social justice perspective focusing on (1) how to critically select indicators, (2) how to communicate and visualize gaps, and (3) how to avoid cartographic misrepresentations of unjust situations. It draws from a case study in the city of Rosario, Argentina, where this approach has been empirically applied combining several data sources including census data from 1991, 2001, and 2010 as well as administrative data. The combination of both objective and subjective quality of life condition indicators proved to be useful to identify where some cartographic representations were underrepresenting people with low quality of life conditions. Critical and reflective selections of indicators and data sources have an influence in the way variations in quality of life conditions are represented. Moreover, the results show the importance of the recognition of the different scales at which quality of life inequalities are mapped in order to make gaps visible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Needs should be differentiated from wants and rights. To say that people have rights, according to D. M. Smith (1994, p. 34), is “to require them to be treated in a certain way, to get something to which they are entitled or at least to raise this expectation.” Furthermore, rights (which are respected and guaranteed) should be differentiated from wants (which can be met and are related to personal desires) and from needs (which can be satisfied and quantified). To demonstrate the existent of a need “is to appeal to some external standard, however implicitly, which may legitimate something that would otherwise merely be a want” (D. M. Smith 1994, p. 36).

  2. 2.

    Steinberg did a comparative study of different strategic plans in Latin America (Steinberg 2005) and considers Rosario’s strategic plan to be an “example of a very advanced and fully developed case in Argentina.” He also regards the use of urban indicators within the plan as an innovative practice in Latin America (Steinberg 2005).

  3. 3.

    Definition of “overcrowded”: Percentage of households with three or more persons per room. The rationale behind this indicator is that when households live in a house with a number of bedrooms inadequate for the type of family, it represents a critical level of housing need. This indicator also measures the mismatch between the housing needs of the households and the house size.

  4. 4.

    The census in Argentina takes place every 10 years and is a complete count census, which means that every household in the country is visited. The population data obtained in the census correspond to the de facto population, which refers to all persons present in the household on the night of the census. The 2001 census took place on the 17th and 18th of November 2001, and no sampling methods were used, using a single questionnaire (INDEC 2003). The 2010 census took place on the 27th of October 2010 (INDEC 2012), and sampling methods were used to collect some variables (included in a separate extended questionnaire for those sampled households). For comparability reasons the variables of 2010 used in this chapter are part of the basic questionnaire where no sampling methods were used.

  5. 5.

    INDEC calculates overcrowding per room (hacinamiento por cuarto) by dividing the total number of persons living in the household by the total number of rooms “of household exclusive usage.” INDEC defines cuarto as a “[r]oom separated by walls (from floor to roof) that can have a bed for an adult. The kitchen and the bathroom are not considered rooms, neither garages, corridors, or laundry rooms. In houses with more than one household, the common rooms are not counted as rooms.”

  6. 6.

    INDEC distinguishes two types of inadequate housing: viviendas deficitarias (a house that meets at least one of the following conditions: it has no indoor water plumbing connection, it has no toilet with water flush, and it has a floor made of soil or any other material that is not ceramic, tiles, wood, carpet, plastic, cement, or brick) and viviendas precarias (hut-shanty, pensions, rooms not built for housing, and mobile houses).

  7. 7.

    The test was performed using the full set of points representing the expressed need locations and the polygon representing the urbanized area of Rosario. The null hypothesis is rejected (R = 0.76, n = 9665), showing that a tendency toward clustering exists.

  8. 8.

    Two classification methods were used, natural breakpoints and standard deviation, resulting in five classes ranging from very low to very high housing needs. Independent of the classification method used, a higher proportion of the households living in less deprived housing areas express their housing needs.

  9. 9.

    With some variation in these two classes depending on the classification method used.

  10. 10.

    In the case of Rosario, every district is subdivided into approximately six or seven neighborhood areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Javier Martinez

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  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Lomas de Zamora, Buenas Aires, Argentina

    Graciela Tonon

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Martinez, J. (2016). Mind the Gap: Monitoring Spatial Inequalities in Quality of Life Conditions (Case Study of Rosario). In: Tonon, G. (eds) Indicators of Quality of Life in Latin America. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 62. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28842-0_6

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