Integrating the “Informal”:A Comparison of Land-Titling and

Urban Intervention Policies inLima and Rio de Janeiro

Natalie WestbergLatin American Politics8 December 2014

Image: Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil(Pulsa Merica, 2014)

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According the UN-Habitat, Latin America is the most urbanized place on

earth (UN-Habitat 2011, XV). Over three-quarters of the region’s population live in

cities, and this proportion is only increasing. The industrialization of agriculture and

rural depopulation are driving more and more people to Latin America’s urban core

and creating endless metropolises. The dramatic increase of a generally low-income,

unemployed population has made the provision of housing a primary issue. Many

argue that housing and shelter are a basic human right, but in Latin American cities,

this is not the case. In urban capitalist society, “quality of urban life has become a

commodity, as has the city itself” (Harvey 2008, 31). As a result, a large proportion

of the urban population live in informal settlements—densely packed into

peripheral urban space. In 2005, one third of Latin America’s total population lived

in slums (UN-Habitat 2011, XV).

Housing is arguably the most pressing issue of informality, as it is the basis

for community, stability, and security. The burdens of informality in the housing

sector impact both the overall city and the lives of individual residents. In a Lincoln

Institute of Land Policy report, Edesio Fernandes identifies the legal, social,

environmental, political, and economic burdens of informality (Fernandes 2012, 6-

7). These issues include a lack of legitimate citizenship, exclusion from public

services, safety and health hazards, discrimination and stigmatization, and economic

inefficiency (Ibid). In this paper I will examine the response to housing informality

through urban policy, and look specifically at the success of land-titling programs as

opposed to a more integrated type of upgrading program. To evaluate this issue, I

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will compare the outcomes of two large-scale approaches to addressing informality

in Lima, Peru and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Incorporating Informality into Urban Planning and Policy

Urban informality must be addressed through policy and urban planning.

However, a key issue in urban planning literature is the application of theory on

urban growth in the developed world to cases in the developing world (Roy 2005,

147). In “Urban Informality: Toward an Epistemology of Planning,” Ananya Roy calls

for scholars to focus on the intricacies of urban growth in the developing world,

particularly in relation to the dynamics of informality (Roy 2005). She identifies two

branches of scholarship on informality, one that views the informal sprawling of

cities as a crisis and another that looks as informality as entrepreneurial and heroic

(Ibid, 148). Roy argues that neither framework helps to incorporate informality into

urban planning conversation. One presents informality as a disastrous situation,

while the other provides an excuse for the state to remain uninvolved.

Along with the need to consider and incorporate informality as a new

epistemology, there needs to be a place-specific approach to developing policies that

tackle informal housing in Latin America. Social housing issues and solutions in

Latin America must be viewed apart from cases in advanced capitalist countries, as

the needs and demands are quite different (Balchin and Stewart 2001). In Latin

America, the relationship between formal and informal provides a unique dynamic

and tension. This polarity infiltrates into every aspect of life in Latin American

metropolises, “not only the physical aspect of cities, but also their entire socio-

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political fabric” (Hernández and Kellet 2010, 1). Within a single city there is both a

vibrant formal and informal city.

In order to address the pressing difficulties of informality, Latin American

countries have enacted policies to “regularize” settlements in slums and

shantytowns. However the implementation and successes of these policies have

been varied. The primary form of regularization is de jure legalization through the

granting of legal ownership of land and settlements. Two arguments are generally

used to justify the regularization of informal settlements and granting of land deeds.

The first is economic, as the formalization of housing gives these structures

commercial value and they can act as collateral for loans (Balchin and Stewart 2001,

337). The second is the level of stability and community investment that land titles

provide, “secure tenure allows access to socio-cultural facilities and the legal basis

for the provision of amenities including potable water, sanitary facilities, refuse

disposal and domestic security” (Ibid, 337). There is an underlying belief that

secured tenure will create sustainable communities and trigger resident-led

upgrades (Kiddle 2010, 890).

Peru’s Commission on Formalization of Informal Property (COFOPRI) is

known for its numeric success in granting over one and a half million land titles in

an efficient and quick manner. This program was one of the most extensive of its

kind and it provided legitimacy and security to a substantial part of the population.

In order to understand the application and outcome of policies that attempt to

address informality, I will examine the impact of COFOPRI in Lima, Peru as a

program that granted legal status in the hope of more comprehensive impacts. To

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compare an alternative approach, I will bring in the case the Favela-Bairro program

in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which intentionally steered away from “regularization” and

instead aimed to develop favela communities and infrastructure from an integrated

method with multiple approaches.

Lima and Rio de Janeiro are similar sized cities with comparable amounts of

informal housing and economic life, but these contrasting policies have shown

distinctive results. Through comparing the approaches and outcomes in these two

counties, I will address the question of whether legal titling can act as a stimulus for

socio-economic development. Is there is a need for a more integrated approach to

upgrading informal settlements? Lima and Rio de Janeiro illustrate the complexity of

implementing policy that will formalize populations in different ways. However,

they ultimately demonstrate that policies that attempt to address informal

communities must go beyond providing legal security through land titles, and must

take an integrative approach to community-wide development. However the

success of these policies will always be somewhat limited as they address only the

outcomes of poverty, while the sources are ignored.

Mass Titling in Lima, Peru

What is most sticking about it (Lima), for a city of nearly 9 million, is that it is

70 per cent informal. Away from the colonial center and the fancy

restaurants of Miraflores, the city stretches out in a seemingly endless swath

of dust-colored self-built housing (McGuirk 2014, 67).

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Lima’s “informal” communities, composed of self-built housing are known as

barriadas. As this quote illustrates, barriadas dominate the contemporary urban

landscape. The occupation of land and construction of informal housing has been

the primary driver of urban growth and development over recent decades (Golda-

Pongratz 2004, 40). This trend has forced the Peruvian government to respond to

the shifting nature of urban structure and growth through the creation of policy.

There were four policy changes in Peru that transformed the process for

informal settlements in need of land titles (Dosh 2010, 45). Three of these

alterations are laws that address the appropriation of land and settler’s rights in

lands they occupy. The other critical policy change is the creation of the Commission

on Formalization of Informal Property (COFOPRI) in 1996 by President Alberto

Fujimori and the World Bank (Dosh 2010, 45).

The formation of COFOPRI was inspired by the work of the Peruvian

economist Hernando De Soto, who speculated that two million land titles for

informal settlements would stimulate the economy by formalizing and integrating

low-income residents (Dosh 2010, 46). De Soto’s works focus on the creativity,

dynamism and assets of informality (Fernandes 2011, 27). “Informal economy is

people’s spontaneous and creative response to the state’s incapacity to satisfy the

basic needs of the impoverished masses” (De Soto 1989, 14). He refers to ability of

settlers who are granted land titles to use their homes as a financial asset, thus

activating about US$ 9.34 trillion of “dead capital” (Fernandes 2011, 27).

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The procedure for identifying and formalizing settlements requires research

and documentation of relevant plots and the naming of occupiers (Ibid). The

establishment of COFOPRI did not make the process of land titling simple or

tremendously accessible, but it did imply that “settlers often have the state

government in their corner…the granting of one million titles in five years suggests

that most settlers had a quite easy time with the process” (Dosh 2010, 46). COFOPRI

was also able to absolve previous landowners of rights if settlers had been

occupying the land for at least ten years. Although this process was not an assured

or common process, it “lent an air of legitimacy” to settlers in this situation (Dosh,

46).

Image: COROPRI workers

(El Comericio)

Peru’s approach effectively confronted the issue of “legitimizing”

undocumented, informal settlements. This is demonstrated by the reality of 1.6

million land titles granted by 2006 (Fernandes 2011, 28), along with an

environment of legitimizing the rights of “illegal” settlers. However there is evidence

to show that provision of land titles was not enough to catalyze meaningful change

in barriadas.

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There is an underlying assumption in this policy, along the lines of De Soto’s

scholarship, that low-income residents could access private loans to improve their

socio-economic opportunities and activate “dead capital” (Calderón 2004, 290).

However banks and private institutions have been reluctant to grant loans based

solely on home ownership to residents that don’t meet certain income requirements

(Ibid, 299). “At present, in spite of their legal mandate, COFOPRI has not been able

to achieve the objective of enabling those with title deeds to obtain formal credit”

(Ibid, 299). He also makes the case that improving quality of life and access to

resources is not guaranteed or even helped with the acquisition of a land title.

Decades have shown that urban residents are able to gain access to basic needs and

resources without land titles, “title deeds have not been instrumental in improving

access to services” (Calderón 2004, 299).

Calderón interprets these lessons from COFOPRI as a need for deeper change

to address the chronic poverty and low standard of living in informal settlements.

He argues that the case of Lima illustrates how “the policy of formalizing tenure

through titles is not the only way to fight poverty and that a new relationship

between the state, banks, and the poor is needed to improve access to services and

credit” (Ibid, 300). This claim prioritizes services and credit over granting land

ownership as a more sustainable form of addressing the precarious nature of life in

informal settlements.

Quality of life in barriadas remains relatively unchanged after regularization.

According to a housing quality study from 2006, metropolitan Lima is still a hyper-

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segregated city (Meng and Hall 2006). The lowest-income areas are those with the

poorest living conditions and housing quality, located on the urban fringes.

Conditions are overcrowded, with households constructing their own

dwellings from the cheapest and most easily obtained materials. Little

attention is paid to providing servicing such as water supply and sewage

disposal as the need for shelter takes precedence over all other concerns

(Meng and Hall 2006, 427).

The report also notes that these settlements are “often encouraged and actively

developed by various levels of government” as a form of addressing the desperate

need for housing (Ibid). The authors acknowledge the need for and perpetuation of

informal housing, but present a critical examination of the dire housing conditions

that persist in spite of policy changes.

The shortcomings of this program and specific case should not indicate that

land titling programs are inadequate or futile. Scholarship on the COFOPRI program

has indicated that political misconduct and a lack of commitment to comprehensive

quality of life improvement were significant contributing factors. Julio Calderón

argues that Fujimori used COFOPRI as a tool to gain electoral support in the 2000

election rather than supporting its mission and purpose (2004, 290). Despite his re-

election, Fujimori stepped down months later after being charged with corruption.

The interim government made significant changes to the structure and functioning

of COFOPRI, which were ultimately harmful to its success (Ibid).

Calderón is not alone in his critique of land titling as a limited form of reform.

In a report on the outcomes of the formalization program Edésio Fernandes

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synthesizes conclusions of international assessments on Peru’s approach. He

identifies access to credit, investment in housing, and poverty alleviation beyond

titling as the three necessary steps to improve the outcomes of Peruvian policy

(Fernandes 2011).

Lima exemplifies that legalization is not enough to catalyze comprehensive

socio-economic development. The answer is not always to formalize. Several

authors argue that as regularization in general can make owners susceptible to

harmful market forces or that it puts owners at an economic disadvantage as they

are plunged into the formal sector (Davy and Pellissery 2013, S81). For this reason,

many turn to address what is a growing and pervasive sector of the urban Latin

American population through working with the existing infrastructure that has been

developed through informal means. Informality has become the norm. It was

initially met with resistance, but now provides more housing units than the public

sector is prepared to supply (Balchin and Stewart 2001, 336).

Favela-Bairro and Integrated Development: Limited Scope, Broader Impact

Brazil presents a larger scale case of urban informality than Peru. In Peru, the

urban population is concentrated in Lima, which far exceeds the population of any

other Peruvian city. In contrast, Brazil is home to seventeen cities with a population

over one million. Similar to Peru, Brazil has been recognized for its attempt to

provide innovative solutions to integrate informal settlers and alleviate poverty.

However, in contrast with the work of COFOPRI in Lima, the upgrading program

that I will focus on in Brazil, attempts to address informality beyond its legal sense.

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This case provides an alternative approach that ultimately yielded more ingrained,

sustainable results. I will examine the case of Rio de Janeiro’s Favela-Bairro

program, an example of one program that aimed to address informality in favela

communities through targeting multiple avenues for infrastructural and community

development and improvement. The lack of focus on land titling within Favela-

Bairro was intentional. This was an effort to protect low-income residents from the

pressures of entering the formal, aggressive housing market, and reduce the

possibility of gentrification in upgraded areas (Handzic 2010).

The municipal government’s housing department in 1994 established Favela-

Bairro with financing from the Inter-American Development Bank. At its time, the

Favela-Bairro program was the largest slum-upgrading program of its kind. The

program was influenced by the ideals of “urban acupuncture,” which looks to solve

large-scale urban issues through a holistic approach to targeted issues within a

community-based, local scope (Segre 2010, 168). Improvements include basic

infrastructural and sanitation development, road paving, the reconstruction of

unsafe housing, and the creation of quality public spaces (Fiori and Brandao 2010,

193).

Favela-Bairro was the first upgrading program to incorporate design as a

tactic to integrate favela communities into the greater city (McGuirk 2014, 114).

This change came alongside the international shift towards accepting and working

with informality in urban development. The program operated on upgrading costs

of about $4,000 per household. In an Intra-American Development Bank report on

the economic benefits of various settlement upgrade programs, Fernando Cuenin

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found that investments from Favela-Bairro reaped significant rewards. “The cost-

benefit analysis of the programme for each of the beneficiary informal settlements

yielded rates of return that ranged from 13 to 71 percent (an average of 42

percent)” (Cuenin 2010, 207).

Favela-Bairro operated on the platform of connecting informal networks to

the rest of the city and building upon and improving what already existed. This

principle extended to both physical and social impacts of the program. The first

stage of the program was a competition among architects for proposals on design

and technique. The program framed improvements as “urban interventions” (Segre

2010, 170).

The aim of the Favela-Bairro program was not just to improve the quality of

life in favelas, it was to raise the perception of the favelas in the urban

imaginary. In this respect it was far more complex and nuanced than any

upgrading program that has come before (McGuirk 2014, 118).

Favela-Bairro resulted in better infrastructure and the physical quality of favelas, a

stronger sense of urban citizenship and unity, and increased home values (Ibid,

118). By 2008 the program had made improvements in 168 of Rio’s favelas, and the

assessments indicated their success and a lack of displacement or rising cost of land

(Osborn 2012).

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Image: Before and after Favela-Bairro improvements (Sérgio Magalhães Consultoria)

In spite of these undeniable improvements Favela-Bairro has also received

negative assessments in relation to its execution and approach. The program

received criticism for failing to deliver on the participatory structure that it

proposed, and many of the improvements were reportedly carried out in a top-

down and “paternalistic” manner (McGuirk 2014, 119). The perspective in an article

from the community organization Rio On Watch supports this notion: “Favela-Bairro

upgrades were largely administered from the top down” (Osborn 2012). However,

this has been identified as a result of the failed reform of democratic governance in

Rio rather than a specific inadequacy of Favela-Bairro (Riley et al 2001, 529).

Another critique was that this program alleviated the effects of living in

poverty, but did not address the roots or factors that perpetuate poverty (Osborn

2012). The program’s emphasis on aestheticism has been challenged and some have

argued that design elements were prioritized over social, economic, and cultural

considerations (Broudehoux 2001). This focus on artistic qualities has also been

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criticized as an interjection of a Western notion of urban design, “some critics felt

that the aesthetic approach of inserting symbols of urbanity smacked of

authoritarian planning and threatened to weaken the identity of the favelas”

(McGuirk 2014, 116).

Similarly to Peru’s program, this development model assumed that

investments would spur community-led initiatives and improvements, which did

not occur (McGuirk 2014, 119). Another incorrect assumption was the idea that

these community improvements would impact or challenge the drug-trafficking

culture which dominates many favela communities (119). The Favela-Bairro

program was established with the goal of reducing inequality and class-based

segregation, but embedded, structural issues in Brazil hinder this aspiration.

The economic and social reality of the country, the acute contradictions

between different social groups and the progressive segregation and

separation of residential areas make the coexistence and connection between

the rich and poor hard to achieve (Segre 2010, 175).

This point should not diminish the widely agreed upon successes of the program,

which provided innovative and community-wide improvements, and marked

increases in the socio-economic status of involved residents (Ibid). Neither Favela-

Bairro nor COFOPRI managed to dramatically reduce inequality in Lima and Rio de

Janeiro, for this structure is perpetuated by larger systems.

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Lima and Rio: Short Term Efficiency vs. Long Term Sustainability

A 2010 article that evaluates the success of Favela-Bairro as a program

provided secure tenure without legal rights claims that programs that seek full

regularization of informal settlements make low-income residents vulnerable to an

aggressive market (Handzic 2010). The lack of displacement and gentrification in

areas that were upgraded through Favela-Bairro is commonly associated with the

lack of legal formalization and the commodification of this housing in an aggressive

market. Widespread legalization is rooted on the ideal that informality with not be

tolerated, and so those without access to the exclusive, expensive formal market are

forced to remain surviving in illegality (Ibid, 16). They are essentially forced out of

the system completely rather than incorporated into a hybrid model.

Lima and Rio de Janeiro have both received international recognition for

developing policy that works to improve the situation of residents living in informal,

urban housing. In numerical comparison, Favela-Bairro reached about 253,000

residents, a far cry from Lima’s 1.6 million land titles (Fernandes 2011). However

unlike COFOPRI, Favela-Bairro focused on a more integrated approach to addressing

more than just legal informality. The outcomes in Rio de Janeiro showed the

creation of more lasting security for impacted residents. These policies have

diverging theoretical underpinnings, and ultimately they exemplify the debate that

exists in literature about how to address informality in growing Latin American

mega cities. COFOPRI impacts legal tenure in the hope of catalyzing greater

development, whereas Favela-Bairro looks to “urban acupuncture” as the means for

creating large-scale urban change. One focuses on the power of an individual to

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activate greater change whereas the other develops the community as a whole in

order to improve the situation and morale of the area’s residents.

A critical distinction between these two policies is in the way in which they

value housing. The system of land titling and De Soto’s writing prioritizes the

market, exchange value of housing (McGuirk 2014, 68). There is an expectation that

giving residents a way to utilize their home as an economic asset will improve their

situation. Conversely, a program like Favela-Bairro emphasizes the use value of a

home, and insuring stability and security through investing in community

improvements. As I mentioned above, Favela-Bairro received criticism for focusing

too heavily on urbanism, design, and trying to impact more conceptual, spatial

injustices in the city.

Another point of assessment is the overall contributions of these two

approaches to the international community. Reports and reflections on the

outcomes of Favela-Bairro are wholly positive, as it challenged and reshaped the

way in which policymakers and planners think about addressing issues of

informality. It uniquely responds to the complex dynamic between informal and

formal in Latin American cities.

The guiding concepts behind the Favela-Bairro program, those which made it

one of the most important experiences of slum upgrading and poverty

alleviation in the developing world, remain extremely relevant today (Fiori

and Brandao 2010, 203).

In contrast, the primary lesson from COFOPRI is that the process of legal titling can

be successfully streamlined. The program managed to reduce the time to receive a

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title from 7 years to 45 days, the procedural steps from 207 to 4, and practically

eradicate the financial cost (Guerinoni 2004). However Lima’s program does not

provide an instructive legacy or clear understanding of the socio-economic impact

of a land-titling program. This is could be due to either the lack of clear assessment

or the lack of a significant influence.

Another consideration is the financials of the two programs. Brazil is an

outlier in Latin America based on their liberal social spending (Fernandes 2012, 33).

Favela-Bairro was far from an inexpensive or simple solution, and it is framed as in

investment towards creating a different urban structure and dynamic. In contrast,

COFOPRI is a relatively inexpensive approach to securing tenure. Between 1996 and

2004, one and a half land titles were granted for US$66.3 million (Ibid, 34). Although

it is a challenge to evaluate, it is worth factoring in the cost-efficiency of solely

addressing legal tenure.

There are clear benefits and drawbacks to either program. Favela-Bairro

exemplifies that a well-funded, innovative program can only do so much in an

extremely unequal society where uncontrolled forces perpetuate poverty and its

isolation. However, given the goal of providing security and integrating the informal

and formal within a city, the far-reaching, extensive nature of the Favela-Bairro

program accomplishes holistic stability for both individuals and communities. “The

Favela-Bairro program paid more attention to infrastructural improvements and

standard of living conditions of those that resided in favelas, which proved to be a

much better use of limited resources in what is a very large and complex issue of

incorporating favelas in to the formal city” (Handzic 2010, 16). Land titling

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programs add a degree of legitimacy to life in informal settlements, but they do not

provide concrete access to greater security or resources.

There is no simple solution that will fix issues associated with informality in

cities across Latin America and the world. Countries must instead consider lessons

and successes from other cases in relation to their own resources and

particularities. Some argue that the best approach is to diversify and invest in a

variety of approaches to legitimize and upgrade the communities that have begun to

define urban life in Latin America (Balchin and Stewart 2001, 340).

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