Broken Cities. Deborah Potts

more than almost anywhere else in the world, would be to support the rights of landowners to do as they wish. By selling subdivided plots, farmers could get at least double their value as agricultural land but still sell at prices ‘that very-low-income people could afford’.²⁹ Often the farmers sold to developers who then sold the plots on. The conditions of sale were highly exploitative at first, under the terms of the ‘Contract for Deed’ system that was widespread in the USA. This meant that, although initial payments to start the contract could be extremely small, the land could be forfeited back to the seller at any point if any payments were missed, even if the buyer had been paying regularly for years. Land title was available only once the full purchase price had been paid. This could not be regarded as ‘security of tenure’. Several improvements began to be introduced after 1995, however; for example, once 40% of the price or 48 monthly instalments had been paid, the contract conditions changed to those for a proper mortgage, with far more protections for the purchaser. Originally, the plots were also sold without any services – ‘unimproved’. This was also legal at first, and anyway, rural counties, under whose jurisdiction the colonias fell, had few powers to enforce building codes. However, again in 1995, there were legal changes in some counties where colonias were developing, which meant that developers had to get county approval for subdivisions and, crucially, had to supply water, sewerage and drainage to them. This ushered in the double edge of the sword of decent, regulated standards because, of course, this would have made any new plots too expensive for the poor people who were the only ones ‘interested’ in buying in these distant spots that remained unintegrated into the towns. Indeed, ‘stopping the proliferation of new colonias’ was the aim of the new laws.³⁰

      

      On the Mexican side of the border, colonias were very much larger, much more common and representative of low-income urban housing ‘solutions’ across the country, although at root caused by the same issue of unaffordability – it was just that the scale of the problem in a country with much lower typical incomes was very much larger. As Ward argues, they ‘respond to a common logic’.³¹ However, in line with processes across much of urban Latin America from around the 1970s, gradually they tend to be integrated socially and politically into the nearby municipalities, crucial infrastructure (water, electricity, etc.) is extended to these areas, and tenure is regularised. In many ways, local authorities and political processes are much better at dealing with colonias in Mexico than in Texas, and the outcomes for their residents are more positive in terms of addressing the issue of housing affordability. One key difference between the two sides of the border – one that is of special relevance for the theme of this chapter – relates to approaches to and understandings about the significance of building standards. Colonias, with their lack of ‘proper’ infrastructure for clean water, sanitation and electricity, and their often poor-quality housing that did not meet urban standards, were an embarrassment in Texas, representing ‘Third World conditions in a First World country’.³² In Mexico they are seen as an ordinary, if not ideal, housing solution for the working poor and it is assumed ‘that the government is required and expected to provide water and sewer services’.³³

      

      In common with historical colonial attitudes to low-income settlements around the ‘European’ cores of the main cities of Africa and Asia that ruled and channelled the products of European colonies, Texas saw colonias in terms of a ‘sanitation syndrome’³⁴ and as hazards. And, again in a historically similar process, the settlements were largely ignored and not perceived as a responsibility of ‘the city’ (which had financial implications) until ‘health problems bred by unsanitary living conditions in the colonias threatened to spread to non-colonia populations’.³⁵ The responses tended to be technical – to address water issues, for example. However, the entrenched norms of monitoring and implementing building standards and sticking to regulations, as in the UK, were actually hindrances to improving the situation. As Ward notes, where there was non-compliance with various housing planning regulations and standards, or with environmental and health rules, ‘Texas regulations prevent[ed] service provision’.³⁶ By the 1990s, legislative change provided public funds to improve water provision in the colonias, because of health concerns, but this had been predicated on new laws to prevent further colonias developing. Also, houses could not get new gas or electricity services unless they complied with water and sewerage regulations. Ward made the logical recommendation that housing in the colonias would improve faster, because house consolidation by inhabitants and infrastructural upgrading would be easier, were minimum standards temporarily reduced either for these settlements only or even for ‘certain submarkets of housing production statewide’. The issue of building standards in this debate has been existential, in a sense, for both the residents and the regulators: in 1999, had the various codes relating to the construction of houses been enforced, ‘most colonia homes … [would have been] subject to demolition’.³⁷ But accepting lower standards means that officials have to think about why this is happening, which swiftly leads to an acceptance of the highly uncomfortable truth (for American officials) that market forces and private enterprise are incapable of housing many members of society. And, if lower standards are regarded as anathema, then the next realisation is the need for mass public-sector housing programmes, which, in the US today, are also anathema. As in many other parts of the world, it is therefore easier to stick to a technocratic response, which ignores the ‘root cause of colonias’ [or any informal settlements’] creation in the first place: poverty’.³⁸

What standards are appropriate?

      It has been established that housing and building standards are key elements of the affordable housing dilemma. However, it is important to keep in mind that they are not the root cause, unless it is argued that there should be a return to the urban death and disease rates of the nineteenth century. There are some ways in which fiddling with standards may help affordability and instances where local legislation may be inappropriate for income levels or climatic conditions. Even a seemingly objective measure as per capita space requirements can be adapted to local circumstances. The impact of overcrowding on residents is affected by a variety of factors, including architecture, but important aspects are the prevailing weather and the availability and nature of outside space. Sleeping in a crowded environment is hazardous to health, but if many other household activities can often occur outside the physical building where people are accommodated, the stress and discomfort of overcrowding are mitigated and requirements about light in rooms are less important. On the other hand, in cold climates or tall apartment blocks, the physical confines of the available built living space become hard limits. The availability of electrical power is a wonderful thing for any home but may be far from the top-ranked need for poor households. Yet it is close to existential for those in high-rise apartments: if the lifts and water-pumping arrangements do not work, an informal one-storey home may seem more comfortable and far less stressful. Thousands of years of architectural design experimentation to reduce indoor temperatures and keep air circulating in homes in cities where temperatures get very high, such as in North Africa and the Middle East, may be ignored by the imposition of ‘modern’ standards that are often shaped by Eurocentric climatic norms. Rather obviously, with climate change making heat a major hazard in far more cities, housing standards need to learn from these adaptations. Standards also need to consider local cultural norms; these may be reflected in the way homes are constructed, such as having rooms looking inwards onto central courtyards, away from roads and alleys, as was traditional in many Islamic cities. Indeed, households lucky enough to be allocated public-sector housing in many cities in the GS often reshape their internal arrangements so that they reflect their needs more closely, although some of this relates to squeezing in extra bedspace.³⁹

      

      There is much research and experimentation all over the world to find cheaper building materials, sometimes with a second objective of trying to reduce the environmental impacts of housebuilding. Sometimes laws need changing to allow these to be used in towns. Cement, for example, is a significant source of greenhouse gases during its production, is used in commercial house bricks and blocks, and is expensive. As already noted, mud bricks, which are often used in rural areas, can be used for one-storey houses,