Margarita Greene

Incremental Construction: A Strategy to Facilitate Access to Housing

The “enabling” approach to housing markets promotes financing systems based on family savings, public subsidies and mortgage loans to unleash the potential of individuals and communities to produce and improve dwellings. However, the approach failed to benefit lower-income households, as they have less ability to generate savings or make mortgage payments. These households are forced to use informal mechanisms to access housing, such as purchasing land in illegal sub-divisions or squatting on public land and incrementally building their dwellings. The present work argues that supporting the incremental housing construction undertaken by poor households through an enabling approach can make a significant contribution to solving the housing problem in Latin America. The paper discusses the challenges and opportunities in executing this new type of programme, which requires coordinating the resources and capabilities of the beneficiaries with those of the different levels of government and the civil society. While this paper draws on experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean, the proposed approach is also relevant in other settings.

Willingness to Pay for Social Housing Attributes: A Case Study from Chile

In the past 25 years social housing programmes in Chile have taken three basic forms. During the military regime the traditional basic housing and a neighbourhood upgrading programme operated, while in 1990 the new democratic authorities added the progressive housing line of action. As there was scope for improving these programmes, a research project was set up with the aim of first identifying, and then finding, the relative importance of social housing attributes for different types of dwellers. Three surveys were considered in the project: a two-wave Delphi survey to specialists in the field and a focus group survey to current and potential beneficiaries, in order to identify the most relevant housing attributes, and a stated-preference survey to a sample of five types of social housing dwellers. With the latter data discrete choice models were estimated, which allowed the relative weight of (and subjective valuation, or willingness to pay for) each such attribute to be determined. The methodological features of the project are presented and its main results are discussed.

Cuantificando la Percepción de Inseguridad Ciudadana en Barrios de Escasos Recursos

Urban safety has become a key issue for life in the city. A strategy that may positively affect quality of life is the urban design of public spaces; howeve...

Las autopistas urbanas concesionadas: Una nueva forma de segregación

Resumen es: Si es que existiera el modelo de ciudad automovilistica, sin duda seria el referente que ha determinado las intervenciones urbanas en Santiago durante lo...

Implicancias en la actividad física y la salud del Programa CicloRecreoVía en Chile

Background: With approximately 66% of the population overweight and nearly 90% with sedentary lifestyles, obesity has become a major public health problem in Chile. Thus, in the last fifteen years health policies have promoted active lifestyles. An interesting initiative in this context is the CicloRecreoVia program, which closes a set of public streets on Sunday mornings, allowing people to carry out PA in streets free of vehicles. Aim: To characterize PA and mobility patterns of participants of the CicloRecreoVia program in Santiago. Material and Methods: 401 participants of five circuits of the CicloRecreoVia surveyed on the type, frequency and durantion of the PA carried out, their daily mobility habits, motivations for attending the CicloRecreoVia, self-perceived health condition, among other aspects. Results: Participants spent 113 minutes in the CicloRecreoVia, 77% declared walking or bicycling at least 10 minutes per day and 56.7% traveled actively (bicycling or walking) at least four times per week. Finally, 69.1% perceived their health condition “better” or “much better” than one year ago. In addition, it was noted that CicloRecreoVías attracted different type of participants depending on their location in the city. Conclusions: In line with previous studies, most users achieve about 75% of the weekly PA recommended by attending the CicloRecreoVía, and the main motivations to attend the program were to make PA, to be outdoor and to socialize. As a result, the CicloRecreoVía has the potential to become an effective public nationwide health policy to combat obesity. (Rev Med Chile 2018; 146: 451-459)

How do we densify and socially integrate our cities?: On the efficiency of urban property incentives in the vicinity of mass transit stations

Stated choice methods was used to quantify the effects of different types of incentives (direct, indirect, changes in building regulations, etc.) in the willingness to increase density and reduce social segregation through residential projects in the vicinity of mass transit stations. A sample of 52 professionals from building companies and real-estate firms was asked to evaluate a series of urban scenarios under various incentive schemes and choose, in each case, when would they be prepared to start a conventional residential project (i.e. for buyers belonging to the same socio-economic group) or a socially integrated one (i.e. mixing buyers from different socio-economic groups). Results show that at an aggregate level, only 16% of developers would be interested in starting new residential projects at those locations. However, the availability of incentives could have a significant impact in the willingness to initiate increased density projects around the stations and also, but to a smaller degree, in the willingness to initiate mixed-housing projects.

De la casa al barrio

Como componente estructural de la realidad urbana, la calle suele tomarse como un hecho dado y hasta cierto punto, obvio. La reflexion sobre las primeras normativas que regularon su naturaleza da pistas sobre los destinos y roles que, en nuestra realidad contemporanea, la calle puede asumir.

On the perception of safety in low income neighbourhoods: using digital images in a stated choice experiment: The State of the Art and the State of Practice

Choice modelling has been one of the most active fields in economics over recent years. This valuable new book contains leading contributions from academics and practitioners from across the different areas of study where choice modelling is a key analytical technique, drawn from a recent international conference.