Abstract, The Occupation of the Parque Indoamericano in Buenos Aires: Discourse Dynamics and Stakeholder Practices

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Occupation of the Parque Indoamericano in Buenos Aires: Discourse Dynamics and Stakeholder Practices
by Corinna Hölzl                                         


In 2010, some 13,000 people occupied the second-largest park in Buenos Aires, located in the most deprived area of the city. The city and state governments reacted with violent repression leading to three deaths. After government officials promised that a housing program would be provided, the problem was viewed as “solved.” However, four years later not a single home had been built. Interpretive frames and political practices in Buenos Aires were influenced by the conflict, and this ultimately strengthened the positions of the national and local governments. This, in turn, intensified structural discrimination against lower-income groups in Buenos Aires. Thus, far from bringing about sustainable housing solutions, the occupation reinforced policies of security and sanction.

Abstract, Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago
by Nicolás Angelcos and María Luisa Méndez                                              


A critical analysis of two conflicts associated with the displacement resulting from gentrification in Santiago, Chile, reveals that this displacement affects both the urban poor and the middle classes and that the common adversary is the real estate sector. The subjective experience of the groups involved can be understood in terms of the concept of territorial disqualification, a threat both to their positions in the social structure and to the recognition of the identities, personal and collective, that have been constructed about particular neighborhoods. The subject defended in struggles against territorial disqualification is the community. While class positions, specific demands, and territorial claims differ significantly, the structural framework in which neoliberal urbanism develops makes possible a confluence of class organizations that are susceptible to generating interclass strategies of opposition.

Abstract, The Memory of Inhabiting Modern Architecture: Villa Portales, 1955–2010

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Memory of Inhabiting Modern Architecture: Villa Portales, 1955–2010
by Rosanna Forray and Francisca Márquez                                                


Villa Portales is an icon of modern architecture and urban planning of the 1950s and 1960s in Santiago de Chile. It embodies the political and institutional project of the time, which sought to respond to the need to establish a balance—although tenuous—in a fragile and strained economic and political system. This fact is crucial to understanding its socio-spatial objective, the administrative model it employed, and especially the crisis it has endured. The testimony of current Villa Portales dwellers points to a deterioration of its residents’ quality of life beginning in the 1980s with the changes in the role of the state introduced by the military dictatorship, the privatization of public services, and the termination of the Caja de Previsión de Empleados Particulares (Private Employees’ Pension Fund). Despite all this, the community was able to make this space a place of resistance and new meaning based on the sense of belonging arising from its architecture and its history.

Abstract, “A New Poblador Is Being Born”: Housing Struggles in a Gentrified Area of Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

“A New Poblador Is Being Born”: Housing Struggles in a Gentrified Area of Santiago
by Miguel Pérez                                                     


Since the early 1990s, Chilean democratic governments after Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship have made an effort to allocate publicly subsidized housing to the lower classes. Nevertheless, the dominance of market principles in urban policies has contributed to the formation of highly segregated neighborhoods and the gentrification of peripheral neighborhoods. As a result, Chilean public opinion is witnessing the rearticulation of what in the mid-twentieth century was known as the pobladores movement—social mobilizations demanding housing solutions for the poor. In the old working-class municipality of Peñalolén, severe gentrification since the late 1980s has triggered the appearance of autonomous grassroots organizations such as the Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha (MPL). The movement has been able to fight social and spatial injustice in Santiago through a subversive appropriation of state policies. Its experience reveals the potentialities of such mobilizations for democratizing cities under a neoliberal regime.

Abstract, Gendering the Urban Social Movement and Public Housing Policy in São Paulo

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Gendering the Urban Social Movement and Public Housing Policy in São Paulo
by Charmain Levy, Anne Latendresse, and Marianne Carle-Marsan                                                             


A deteriorating economic scenario, a critical mass of unmarried female heads of households, and the institutionalization of the São Paulo housing movement in the 2000s contributed to women’s taking on a new public role within the movement. The strong presence of women at different levels of this social movement was a necessary but not determining factor in generating public awareness about gender-differentiated needs and claims for access to housing. Female leadership and a strategic alliance with the women’s movement and with nongovernmental organizations and local elected officials contributed to the development of gender-specific public housing policies.

Abstract, Building Citizenship: The Struggle for Housing in Eastern Mexico City

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Building Citizenship: The Struggle for Housing in Eastern Mexico City

by Luisa F. Rodríguez Cortés                                


Urban social organizations have played a crucial role in the definition of political relations and the transformation of urban space. The practices established by a social organization working under conditions of poverty and vulnerability in the dispute over access to housing in eastern Mexico City produce an urban citizenship that is both weak and precarious, marked by tensions between autonomous practices and bargaining with state institutions, a rift between leaders and the grassroots, and targeted struggles that prevent the development of a shared sense of citizenship on a larger scale.

Abstract, The Occupation of the Parque Indoamericano in Buenos Aires: Discourse Dynamics and Stakeholder Practices

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Occupation of the Parque Indoamericano in Buenos Aires: Discourse Dynamics and Stakeholder Practices
by Corinna Hölzl                                         


In 2010, some 13,000 people occupied the second-largest park in Buenos Aires, located in the most deprived area of the city. The city and state governments reacted with violent repression leading to three deaths. After government officials promised that a housing program would be provided, the problem was viewed as “solved.” However, four years later not a single home had been built. Interpretive frames and political practices in Buenos Aires were influenced by the conflict, and this ultimately strengthened the positions of the national and local governments. This, in turn, intensified structural discrimination against lower-income groups in Buenos Aires. Thus, far from bringing about sustainable housing solutions, the occupation reinforced policies of security and sanction.

Abstract, Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago
by Nicolás Angelcos and María Luisa Méndez                                              


A critical analysis of two conflicts associated with the displacement resulting from gentrification in Santiago, Chile, reveals that this displacement affects both the urban poor and the middle classes and that the common adversary is the real estate sector. The subjective experience of the groups involved can be understood in terms of the concept of territorial disqualification, a threat both to their positions in the social structure and to the recognition of the identities, personal and collective, that have been constructed about particular neighborhoods. The subject defended in struggles against territorial disqualification is the community. While class positions, specific demands, and territorial claims differ significantly, the structural framework in which neoliberal urbanism develops makes possible a confluence of class organizations that are susceptible to generating interclass strategies of opposition.

Abstract, The Memory of Inhabiting Modern Architecture: Villa Portales, 1955–2010

:::::: Abstract ::::::

The Memory of Inhabiting Modern Architecture: Villa Portales, 1955–2010
by Rosanna Forray and Francisca Márquez                                                


Villa Portales is an icon of modern architecture and urban planning of the 1950s and 1960s in Santiago de Chile. It embodies the political and institutional project of the time, which sought to respond to the need to establish a balance—although tenuous—in a fragile and strained economic and political system. This fact is crucial to understanding its socio-spatial objective, the administrative model it employed, and especially the crisis it has endured. The testimony of current Villa Portales dwellers points to a deterioration of its residents’ quality of life beginning in the 1980s with the changes in the role of the state introduced by the military dictatorship, the privatization of public services, and the termination of the Caja de Previsión de Empleados Particulares (Private Employees’ Pension Fund). Despite all this, the community was able to make this space a place of resistance and new meaning based on the sense of belonging arising from its architecture and its history.

Abstract, “A New Poblador Is Being Born”: Housing Struggles in a Gentrified Area of Santiago

:::::: Abstract ::::::

“A New Poblador Is Being Born”: Housing Struggles in a Gentrified Area of Santiago
by Miguel Pérez                                                     


Since the early 1990s, Chilean democratic governments after Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship have made an effort to allocate publicly subsidized housing to the lower classes. Nevertheless, the dominance of market principles in urban policies has contributed to the formation of highly segregated neighborhoods and the gentrification of peripheral neighborhoods. As a result, Chilean public opinion is witnessing the rearticulation of what in the mid-twentieth century was known as the pobladores movement—social mobilizations demanding housing solutions for the poor. In the old working-class municipality of Peñalolén, severe gentrification since the late 1980s has triggered the appearance of autonomous grassroots organizations such as the Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha (MPL). The movement has been able to fight social and spatial injustice in Santiago through a subversive appropriation of state policies. Its experience reveals the potentialities of such mobilizations for democratizing cities under a neoliberal regime.

Abstract, Gendering the Urban Social Movement and Public Housing Policy in São Paulo

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Gendering the Urban Social Movement and Public Housing Policy in São Paulo
by Charmain Levy, Anne Latendresse, and Marianne Carle-Marsan                                                             


A deteriorating economic scenario, a critical mass of unmarried female heads of households, and the institutionalization of the São Paulo housing movement in the 2000s contributed to women’s taking on a new public role within the movement. The strong presence of women at different levels of this social movement was a necessary but not determining factor in generating public awareness about gender-differentiated needs and claims for access to housing. Female leadership and a strategic alliance with the women’s movement and with nongovernmental organizations and local elected officials contributed to the development of gender-specific public housing policies.

Introduction, Planning Latin American Cities: Housing and Citizenship

:::::: Introduction ::::::

Planning Latin American Cities: Housing and Citizenship
edited by Clara Irazabal and Tom Angotti                                                                


After the 1973 coup in Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship, aided by advisers from the United States, became a proving ground for neoliberal reforms in Latin America. Its efforts to minimize the public role and maximize private initiative have strongly influenced social housing programs in other countries in the region. In effect, Chile’s housing reforms were recognized as best practices. The massive social housing program it launched in the early 1990s has been emulated throughout the Americas, most notably in Brazil’s Minha Casa, Minha Vida program. Following its developer-driven and neoliberal approach to housing, Chile produced a significant volume of new housing units. However, from the larger vantage point of community development and citizenship rights, the new housing has been deficient. It has generated new urban ghettos and peripheral neighborhoods and contributed to suburban expansion, auto dependency, unevenness in the provision of services, and a new form of poverty.

Abstract, Failed Markets The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Failed Markets
The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico
by Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera


A confluence between the state, the housing market, and the rationale of financial capital has led to excessive growth of social housing in Mexico in the past two decades. This growth has been one way of channeling excess capital into global financial markets rather than the result of a public policy to address the housing needs of the low-income population.

Abstract, Failed Markets The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Failed Markets
The Crisis in the Private Production of Social Housing in Mexico
by Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera


A confluence between the state, the housing market, and the rationale of financial capital has led to excessive growth of social housing in Mexico in the past two decades. This growth has been one way of channeling excess capital into global financial markets rather than the result of a public policy to address the housing needs of the low-income population.

Political Report # 1167 Defeating Fear: Lessons From Mexico's Housing Movement

By Liam Barrington-Bush, ROAR Magazine

"The biggest challenge was to defeat our fears," proclaimed Mexican housing activist, Enrique Reynoso on a recent visit to London. As one of the epicenters of the European and North American housing crisis, London was an important stop on his recent European tour of grassroots movement spaces. Enrique has been active in the Francisco Villa Popular Independent Leftist Organization (FPFVI in Spanish) since the 1980s. With even a glimpse into what Los Panchos (a shorthand for the FPFVI, based on the nickname of the Mexican revolutionary for whom the organization is named) have achieved since the mid-80s, this quote can sound like an oversimplification of some magnitude. Can the creation of an alternative society of many thousands, built over decades on the principles of solidarity, cooperation and mutual aid, within what has been called "the perfect dictatorship," really be chalked-up to "defeating fear"? But as simple as it sounds, the statement holds a profound and fundamental truth -- that for most of us, collective power is daunting, even if we intellectually desire it and want to work towards it. Wherever we find ourselves in the world, fear is a barrier to change. But as Los Panchos have demonstrated, it is not an insurmountable one.