improving irregular settlements. ... or settlement conditions than by government .... or not a community association is established. Land invasions, for example,.
World Development, Vol. 12, No. 9, pp. 913-922, Printed in Great Britain.
1984.
0305-750X/84 $3.00 + 0.00 0 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Community Participation in Upgrading Irregular Settlements: The Community Response* ALAN GILBERT
University
and PETER WARD?
College, London
action in Bogota (Colombia), Mexico City Summary. - This second paper on community (Mexico) and Valencia (Venezuela) examines levels of direct community involvement in improving irregular settlements. Our surveys reveal that family involvement in activities such as lobbying officials, attendance at community meetings or providing labour for neighbourhood schemes was quite limited - no more than two-fifths of owner households in survey barrios participated. Participation varied with tenure and the project; owners participated more than tenants and water and electricity programmes generated high levels of support. Despite these findings we argue that the extent and form of community participation is shaped less by local or settlement conditions than by government needs and policies.
1. INTRODUCTION In an earlier paper we examined the rationale behind state-community action programmes, the official channels through which communities petition for neighbourhood improveand their levels of effectiveness in ments, Bogota (Colombia), Mexico City (Mexico) and Valencia (Venezuela). In this paper, we focus attention on particular settlements and examine the nature of community organization, the extent of popular involvement in neighbourhood associations, the methods used to lobby the state for settlement improvements and the degree to which the community has contributed labour to help improve settlement servicing. Implicit in this discussion, therefore, is a narrow interpretation of the ambiguous ‘community participation’. Here we phrase are referring only to ‘active’ participation, that is to say direct involvement in community development affairs. We are also predominantly concerned with official channels of statecommunity contact. Unofficial organizations, such as church groups, are not explicitly considered mainly because they played only a limited role in the study settlements. In addition, we do not deal here with the ‘passive’ forms of participation discussed in the earlier paper. Information was collected from a variety of sources. Several interviews were held with local leaders and, where community associations were active, we sometimes participated
observers. A household survey was applied to a random selection of 1169 households in 13 barrios across the three cities (Gilbert and Ward, 1984). Using structured questionnaires we asked which members of the household had actively participated in community affairs. Had they attended community meetings, helped to deliver petitions, gone to public rallies, lobbied officials or participated in work? How frequently and community intensively had they been involved and under what circumstances had they become active? The main features of the 13 settlements are summarized in Table 1. The results varied between the cities and even between communities. The variations between cities, we will argue, are a result of different forms of state involvement and as
*The first part of this paper was published in the August issue of this journal. The findings presented in this paper form part of a major ODA (UK) funded research project ‘Public intervention, housing and land use in Latin American cities’ (PIHLIJ), codirected by the authors. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and are not those of the ODA. The authors are grateful to Sheldon Annis for his detailed comments and criticisms on an earlier draft of this and the previous paper. tAlan Gilbert is Reader in Geography at the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Department of Geography, University College, London. Peter Ward is Lecturer in Latin American Geography in the Department of Geography, University College, London. 913
25 82
14 33 70 13 12
11 25 81 4 14
(1’2;)
15 29 63 15 18
(1::) (1;;)
56
11
10
15
$1
100 (601
10
74
34
11
98
6.0 Sub.
Chalma
5
13
6
0
2.2 Inv.
6.8 Sub.
1.4 Inv.
12.0 Inv.
Liberales
El Sol
Santo Domingo
Isidro Fabela
100 (35)
0
11
(lZ,
11
19
25
52 89
0
14
66
24
21 56 43
23 51 42
100 (74)
c’s:)
0
15
12
1
50
12.1 Sub.
Atenas
44
9.5 Sub.
3.0 Sub/Inv$
9.1 Sub.
32
Casablanca
Juan Pablo I
Jardines
Bogota
$1
0
28
71
23
6
23
2.9 Sub.
Britalia
(ZZ)
0
2 100 (84)
2
97
99
6
75
5.2 Inv.
Nueva Valencia
43
55
22
11
24
9.2 Sub.
San Antonio
a points churches.
recorded
that it is
100 (84)
0
I
93
52
13
58
7.6 Inv.
La Castrera
Valencia
*On 1 January 1979. Birth of barrio defined as the mean of month in which owners arrived excluding those who bought from third party. Given a mean value all settlements are likely to have been established a little earlier than the age suggests. t Inv. = invasion; Sub. = subdivision. $It is unclear whether Juan Pablo I began as an invasion or subdivision. 5 ‘Third party’ is the original lot owner or someone who is not the subdivider. In Chalma almost all owners brought from an ejidafario which was as a third party sale. IlClear criteria were established before making our final selection of barrios. These cover variables such as age and minimum size, and include system to grade the level of services: water, electricity, drainage, paved roads, public telephones and utilities such as markets, schools and A total range of O-20 points was possible and barrios were selected with a minimum of six and a maximum of 15 points.
Age of settlement* Origin of settlement? Per cent of households that bought from a third party 5 Services and utilities score II Density: average lot space per person (m’) Per cent households who are owners Per cent households who are renters Per cent households who share with kin, etc. Sub-total: excludes ‘others’. Absolute numbers in brackets
Variable
Mexico City
Table 1. Comparative data for the barrios sampled in each city
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN UPGRADING IRREGULAR SETTLEMENTS control. The variations between communities in the same city are partly a consequence of differences in the ages, structures and methods of formation of the settlements, and partly a result of different leadership personalities. In general, however, we will suggest that levels of active participation are quite low, not because of apathy but because the chances of achieving improvements are perceived to be quite low.
2. THE FORMATION OF LOCAL COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS Community associations evolve in various ways. Their presence relates both to characteristics of the settlement itself (history, security of tenure, class or ethnic composition, leadership, etc.) as well as to the attitudes adopted by the authorities; such attitudes vary from ‘supportive interest’ to ‘repressive hostility’ (Nelson, 1979, p. 264). The form of land acquisition is a key determinant of whether or not a community association is established. Land invasions, for example, require an organized group to arrange the capture of land; leaders sometimes screen potential residents, preferring young married couples and families with resources and excluding those who already own land (Mangin, 1967; Fisher, 1982, p. 15). Elsewhere, settlement formation is often sponsored by politicians or government officials hoping to make money or to develop a personal power base; sometimes opposition parties form settlements hoping to embarrass the government. Whatever the motive, an incipient organization is almost certain to exist from the outset of an invasion. Where land is sold a barrio junta may be created by the developer to promote land sales, to help further political ambitions or to co-ordinate the installation of services. Although the stimulus to organize collectively usually comes from below, the need to create formally an association with a constitution, rules and elected representatives is generally stimulated from above. This has occurred in Bogota, Valencia and Mexico City as well as in other Latin American cities. Today, most settlements in Bogota, Mexico and Valencia have a formally constituted community organization, although the level of confidence in that organization varies greatly. Junta membership, and indeed the effectiveness of the juntas, will vary according to the leader, the extent of partisan political intervention, the age of the community, and the proximity of elections.
915
According to the results of our survey, participation in junta activities was much more common in Bogota than in the other cities; with the exception of Atenas, around half of all owner-occupier households in the communities had been members at one time or another. (See Table 2.) The low level of membership in Valencia must be understood in the context of the close links between the political parties and community action. Given that barrio leadership is linked to the party in power, formal affiliation with the barrio junta is likely to be low among supporters of the opposition parties. When government and barrio leadership change, many previously passive residents become active and many currently active members limit their participation. In Mexico City, only Isidro Fabela, Jardines and Liberales had ever created a formal junta structure, though elsewhere a few respondents declared that they had ‘belonged’ to an informal barrio grouping. We conclude, therethat formal community associations fore, are not ‘spontaneously’ created by residents as an integral part of the mobilization process. Rather they emerge either in exceptional circumstances or where the city-wide rules of ‘petitioning’ demand it.
3. RESIDENT PARTICIPATION DEMAND MAKING
IN
Earlier descriptions of irregular settlements have given the impression that the large majority of households are actively involved in some form of community participation (Handelman, 1975; Goldrich et al., 1970). In recently formed settlements where services are lacking and physical conditions are difficult most residents will be active. The same is true of older settlements facing a crisis, for example, the threat to bulldoze it out of existence. It is also noted that, as conditions improve and some services are installed, the propensity for involvement declines (Goldrich et al., 1970). Only in radical left-wing barrios does community participation continue at a high level; in those settlements leaders demand active involvement from residents and may even introduce internal policing and judicial systems such as the campamento ‘courts’ in Santiago during the early 1970s (Handelman, 1975, p. 40). Despite these general statements, however, few studies have attempted to quantify levels and forms of involvement. In that sense our survey is distinctive.
Source:
Survey of 1169 households
(35)
Total number of households interviewed (owners, tenants and sharers) conducted
(74)
(42)
during
(88)
(48)
0
0
0 (31)
of
(7)
83 15 2
Absolute number participants
Participant in residents association (%): Never participated Constantly involved Involved mostly in the past Involved mostly at present time
(13)
83 71 15 14
55 36 10
(9)
Absolute number participants
68 92 8 0
(49)
6 4
4 4 (44)
0 4 4
Atenas
4 18 25
Casablanca
32 65 3
61 44 55 0
Principal participant (%): No one Male head or husband Female head or wife Male and female jointly
of
(31)
6 3
3 13 10
of replies
Number
School facilities Health Centre
Owner households (%) in which a member participated on: Land regularization Installation of electricity Installation of water
Juan Pablo1
Bogota’
(84)
(45)
7
47 42 4
(24)
48 71 21 8
the ‘Public Intervention,
(79)
(62)
7
60 31 3
(28)
54 75 11 14
(45)
2 2
3 0 (62)
2 13 18
San Antonio
5 26 32
Britalia
(120)
(60)
(48)
2
0 (84)
4 92 2
(44)
4 32 20 48
(47)
29 6
96 70 60
Liberales
77 6 17
(37)
53 57 22 21
(84)
15 5
29 20 12
El Sol
(73)
(54)
0
82 11 8
(25)
53 56 16 28
(54)
7 0
33 22 31
(114)
(75)
8
68 19 5
(48)
35 56 4 40
(75)
19 1
44 28 33
Jardines
cities’ project.
Chalma
and land use in Latin American
(120)
(97)
0
78 14 7
(5 8)
36 33 38 29
(97)
19 5
50 26 34
Santo Domingo
housing
(144)
(85)
0
66 8 26
(45)
47 60 18 22
(90)
12 3
36 24 24
Isidro Fabela
Mexico City
Table 2. Participation levels among owners by settlement
(94)
(91)
2
80 15 2
(29)
68 79 21 0
(91)
3 1
4 21 20
Nueva Valencia
(84)
(78)
3
81 14 3
(27)
65 70 30 0
(78)
1 3
6 10 18
La Castrera
Valencia
COMMUNITY
PARTICIPATION
IN UPGRADING
Our household survey included questions about the extent to which residents had participated in securing different community services. The data are interesting because they suggest that many households take little active part in community affairs. This confirms Fisher’s (1977) evidence, collated from 19 neighbourhoods in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela which showed that in all but three of those neighbourhoods less than 40% of respondents had taken part in communal efforts to influence the authorities (quoted in Nelson, 1979, p. 305). In three recently established irregular settlements in Queretaro, Mexico, around half the households had actively participated in demands for services (Chant, 1984).’ Similarly, data collected by Portes and Walton (1976) show that participation in different neighbourhood associations in Lima, Santiago (Chile) and Managua varied from 2 1 to 42%; only in Ciudad Juarez did participation reach 57%. Once again we must emphasize the need for care in our interpreting the term ‘participation’; our data relate primarily to involvement in community participation for services. Levels of participation in our cities were moderate in Mexico City and low in Bogota and in Valencia. In Bogota, participation rates were high only in Juan Pablo I, a settlement faced by recurrent threats from the police and with very high levels of ‘ownership’. In the rest of the city participation rates were low mainly because of the large numbers of renters living in the settlements. In both Bogota and Mexico City, in fact, there was a marked reluctance among renters and sharers to participate. This is not surprising given that most arrive when the community is well established and few have much stake in winning improvements. While Portes and Walton (1976) found a different pattern in certain settlements in Santiago, it is a finding that is supported by evidence from Bucaramanga, Colombia (Edwards, 1982), and work by Nelson (1979, p. 253): ‘neighbourhood associations are rare in older, more central, heavily rental lowincome neighbourhoods’. The presence of renters means that many people within a community are less committed to its improvement. There may even be a conflict of interests between renters and owners in so far as the former recognize that legal title or the improvement of services may lead to rent increases that they cannot afford. In settlements with a significant number of non-owners there is likely to be less intensive petitioning for services and a reluctance to contribute to self-help
IRREGULAR
SETTLEMENTS
917
programmes. High levels of renting may also weaken the potential for radical social movements focusing on community issues. However, this point is uncertain in the light of our finding that many owners never become involved either.2 Some 64% of owners in Bogota and 67% in Valencia declared that neither they nor any member of their family had ever helped petition for services. In Mexico City, levels of participation were consistently higher, even if 40% had taken no part in servicing activities.3 Participation appears to vary not only by city and by tenure, but also with the age of the settlement and the service sought. Table 2 suggests that in two Mexican settlements, Isidro Fabela and El Sol, participation was much higher when servicing and regularization problems were greatest. Similarly, the fact that more people in the older settlements of Bogota declared themselves to have been more active in the past than now suggests that the peak of mobilization in these settlements had passed. If community participation tends to decline through time, however, our evidence shows that this is not inevitable. San Antonio, where most of our interviewees had lived for some time, had high levels of continuing participation as did Casablanca. Clearly, community mobilization can be maintained in certain circumstances, specifically when there is a strong community leader and the community lacks internal conflicts. Strongly politicized left-wing settlement organizations in Bogota and Mexico were much more successful at generating and sustaining high levels of participation. Recently formed settlements or those with intractable servicing problems also tend to have higher levels of participation4 Portes and Walton (1976, pp. 94-S) are clearly right when they argue that community participation is not necessary all of the time: ‘there are upsurges of interest and collective spirit followed by periods of individualism and apathy. . . From the point of view of the poor, communal organizations are not artificial entities to be maintained for their own sake but instruments to be employed when necessary’. It is interesting to note that there are important differences between the cities with respect to the issues which maximize community participation (Table 2). In Mexico City, land regularization is of fundamental importance to the continued existence and future servicing of the settlement and therefore leads to active collaboration and petitioning. Concern over the securement of land title is both a product of the form of land alienation and the degree
918
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
to which the government regards it as a major issue. Insecurity of tenure and governmental concern to regularize illegal land holdings in Mexico have made it inevitable that residents mobilize first and foremost around this issue. The variations observed between settlements in Mexico City are explained by local conditions: in El Sol illegality of land tenure was a current issue when most residents arrived, whereas many owners in Isidro Fabela arrived after legalization. By contrast, the security of land tenure in the pirate urbanizations of Bogota explains why this is a non-issue there. In addition, the service agencies in Bogota are often prepared to provide services even when land has not been legalized (Fuentes and Losada, 1978), and, once services have been provided, one of the principal barriers to legality has been removed. Only in invasion settlements is security of tenure and regularization of the land situation likely to rank as a major issue. Here, however, it may not give rise to mobilization because it is well known that the authorities are reluctant to regularize tenure. Very few invasions have been regularized in Bogota and, therefore, there is little point to negotiations between invasion leaders and the authorities. The leaders indeed may not wish for regularization (Castells, 1983, p. 198). In Valencia, the lack of participation over the land issue, is at first sight surprising, even though both of our settlements were founded through invasion. Low levels of participation on this issue, however, are probably linked to the fact that relatively few of the households lived in the settlement at the height of the invasion and to the fact that besides purchase there is no mechanism for regularizing land tenure in Valencia until all services have been provided and a 20-year period of occupation has elapsed. In Nueva Valencia, where there was a clear need to legalize land tenure, the community only had the alternative of purchasing the land, an alternative that hardly appealed. Why mobilize when there is no clear objective? Mobilization for services elicited much greater involvement in Bogota and Valencia, although mobilization levels were still highest in the Mexican settlements. What is clear for all three cities is that the demand for certain services attracts higher levels of participation than others. The installation of electricity and water is an important mobilizing element in all three places. However, variations in intensity of demands between settlements in each city reflect differences in local conditions; water was obtained with little difficulty in Atenas
but both electricity and water continue to be the subject of major struggles in Britalia. Because of such differences it is difficult to establish from these kind of data whether there are universal patterns of settlement needs. Previous studies have suggested that water, electricity and drainage elicit greater community interest than services like schools, health centres and paving (Daykin, 1978, pp. 351, 356). Our results suggest that this is correct but that local variations are clearly also important. If electricity comes of right there is little need to mobilize; if it comes only as the result of petitioning it is likely to generate widespread community support. Whichever services were involved, however, mobilization was limited in all three cities. Even when we sum such diverse settlement activities as attendance at community meetings, signing and delivering petitions to appropriate offices, and pressing influential outsiders to act on the community’s behalf, community activities rarely involve more than one-third of the owners in any of the cities. And yet, mobilization would seem to be important, for petitioning draws attention to the settlement and may help to move it up the queue for servicing. Admittedly, it does not appear to be a critical element in installation, nor does it always, or even usually, improve the rate of installation; only under abnormal circumstances, such as environmental crises, does petitioning gain major benefits for the communities. In BogotB, the flooding of nine pirate urbanizations in 1979 created danger of a local crisis for the administration. Official reaction was rapid and effective; the settlements were rapidly serviced, the populations received help and the tenants were offered serviced sites in a specially developed government programme (Losada and Pinilla, 1980).
4. COMMUNITY
SELF-HELP
A continuing theme underlying communityaction programmes worldwide has been the belief that settlements should mobilize to provide their own services (Dore and Mars, 1981, p. 18). Numerous attempts have been made in Bogota, Valencia and Mexico City to encourage this process, either through the provision of materials, the offer of collaboration by the servicing agencies, or publicity given to the virtues of community self-help. Various directors of the Department of Community Action in Bogota stated that one of their main aims was to mobilize settlement inhabitants
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
IN UPGRADING IRREGULAR
to put their efforts into collective projects. In Bogota, the water company has an office of community development which negotiates with settlements about servicing and encourages settlements to contribute work to installation an interesting question is projects. Thus, whether the settlements in each city actively worked, as communities, to improve the physical environment? In Bogota, the broad answer to this question is “no”. While a recent register of the Department of Community Action shows that most settlements had done something, few had done as much in the way of service provision as communist settlements such as Nuevo Chile. In Atenas, the community had contributed labour to some parts of the drainage and water systems and had built the community hall with the help of auxilios (small cash handouts from councillors). In Britalia, there has been a great deal of petitioning but very little work in terms of the construction of facilities. In Casablanca, collective action has been more highly developed. The community had worked together to provide water and, in some parts, the drainage network. Self-help community action was most highly developed in Soacha. Community action had built much of the drainage system in San Antonio, had dug the holes for the electricity posts, had helped install the water, had contributed work on the neighbouring El Chico school and was currently building a communal hall, office and theatre. The community had received numerous grants from the Council and the United States government but had an impressive record none the less. This was due in part to the fact that Soacha is outside the area of the Special District and is therefore less eligible for help from the larger and better financed Bogota service agencies. The Bogota service agencies supply Soacha under contract. These contracts sometimes specify that the communities must provide community labour. The general outcome of this situation is that the settlements in Soacha feel there is no alternative but to contribute to the installation of the services. In general, the state in Bogota has increasingly sought to provide services through the technical agencies and to rely upon the communities to collect the money to pay for them. Hence, most juntas are concerned with the sometimes difficult task of collecting money from every household to pay for the cost of installing water or electricity. In this sense, community organization is a prerequisite for achieving services in Bogota. Water, electricity and drainage are usually not provided unless
SETTLEMENTS
919
a minimum of 30% of the total cost is paid to the respective agency. In Mexico City, widespread resident involvement in physical improvements tends to occur only during the early phase of consolidation. The total absence of services encourages participation; difficulties over vehicular access prompt a community programme for street levelling; the lack of water leads to cooperation over the introduction of standpipes. Isidro Fabela during the late 196Os, Santo Domingo between 1971 and 1972 and Liberales between 1978 and 1979 were typical in this respect. Nevertheless, it is clear that continuing coordinated involvement in community improvement is exceptional. Once residents have achieved a minimum level of services and are reasonably certain that the settlement will not be demolished mutual aid atrophies and people concentrate on upgrading their own houses (Nelson, 1979, p. 255). This does not mean that they are no longer interested in collaborative efforts to improve services, only that they recognize the marginal returns such action brings. They are aware that henceforth better services are more dependent upon favourable government decisions than on community action. In Valencia, community action is very limited; a characteristic that Ray (1969, p. 74) notes about Venezuelan barrios in general. ‘One of the prominent features of barrio politics is the extreme infrequency with which residents take the initiative to alleviate common problems through direct, cooperative action. When several of them do resolve to seek improvements, they invariably proceed by making a petition to a municipal or state government office.’ The limited amount of work contributed by local communities is probably best explained in terms of the traditional expectation among the people in Venezuela that it is the job of government to provide services. While government often fails to perform this role, the expectation remains, and so long as people expect services to be provided from above they decline to work hard themselves. In general, therefore, community action is relatively limited and most participation in community affairs is directed to petitioning the service agencies. Certainly, there were few community works in either La Castrera or Nueva Valencia. In addition, Bua and Guerra (n.d.) found in a study of seven Valencia barrios that there was little belief in the practice of collective action. When asked which organizations had helped the settlement, in two barrios less than 10% mentioned groups of
920
WORLD DEVELOPMENT
neighbours, in four others it was less than 25% and only in one did virtually all people mention the junta. Indeed, the lack of community solidarity and unity was the main explanation given in all but one settlement. Recent government statements in Valencia have begun to recognize not only the limited community contribution to physical projects but also that they fall to contribute to decisionmaking about works in their settlements. Thus recent government activity has sought to stimulate greater community participation. For example, in 1980 the Governor of Carabobo State announced 40 million US dollars worth of investment in the marginal areas but demanded that the communities help provide labour (El National 25/l/80).
5. RESIDENT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT COMMUNITY INFLUENTIALS The fact that only a minority of residents, and even of owners, are constantly active in community development affairs does not mean that residents are unaware of what is going on or who best represents their interests. The question: ‘Which person within the barrio has most helped the community?’ elicited generally well-informed responses in every settlement, though the extent to which they were prepared to name particular individuals varied greatly. In some settlements in Bogota, two-thirds or more of the households mentioned someone by name, and among owners the proportion varied from a low of 71% in one settlement to a high of 100%. In Bogota, therefore, even renters were aware of the personalities prominent in the community. In Mexico City and Valencia, the rates of recognition were much lower than in Bogota; approximately one-half of the respondents failing to name a barrio leader. In Mexico, although recognition rates were higher among owners the data showed marked variations between settlements. Why should the recognition of leaders be so variable between cities and between settlements? Certainly, higher recognition figures are associated with smaller settlements. In Bogota, for example, the three smallest settlements recorded high levels of recognition, especially for all households, but the difference was not marked when the replies of non-owners were excluded. In Mexico, the three largest settlements had low response levels; Liberales, the smallest, had very high rates, while Chalma, the second smallest settlement, had the lowest
level of response. Small size clearly eases the problems of leadership but does not ensure recognition; in the large settlements splits between groups within the community are much more common. These data confirm the existence of major qualitative differences in the nature of leadership, community mobilization and external linkages between the three cities, differences that can only be explained in the context of the demand-making and political structures in each city analysed in the previous paper. But effective leadership also depends on individual characteristics and we found certain leaders with great energy and determination who succeeded in mobilizing their communities. Most of the communities with high levels of participation had strong leaders. Even if community participation and strong leadership are self-reinforcing, leadership characteristics are important (cf. Dore and Mars, 1981, p. 33).
6. THE IMPORTANCE OF EXTERNAL POLITICAL SUPPORT An issue of real importance in the process of community participation and petitioning is the degree to which community organizations are linked into the wider partisan political system. The fact that community organizations are, perhaps with the exception of church groups in some barrios, the only common level of social organization above that of the household, means inevitably that they act as a magnet for supra-local political parties which seek to gain an advantage by working through them (Nelson, 1979, p. 292). However, the critical issue is whether communities are likely to enhance their chances of securing outside help or servicing if they use party political linkages? In the first paper we observed that, with the exception of Venezuela, the apparatus of the political parties in each city did not appear to overlap significantly with the bureaucratic linkages between state and community. In our study we examine the degree to which party political activity was prevalent in our sample of barrios. In Bogota, our impression is that while political contacts are useful they are not essential in the process of obtaining services. In Mexico City, affiliation to the governing party (the PRI) has never been a sine qua non for obtaining services (Cornelius, 1975, p. 182; Eckstein, 1977), although patron-client links to bureaucrats or to leading politicians have often been used successfully. In Valencia, political contacts through the political parties
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN UPGRADING IRREGULAR SETTLEMENTS are indispensable in obtaining services, although they do not guarantee full servicing. The invasion of private land, for example, may well preclude or substantially limit help from political allies, as in the case of Nueva Valencia.
7. CONCLUSION In the three cities, owners were the principal participants in barrio campaigns to secure services or the legalization of tenure. Yet even their involvement was limited; only 39% of owner households across the three cities declared that they had been active in one way or other. Petitioning helps secure servicing but is not the critical determinant. Participation was higher in Mexico than elsewhere reflecting the greater need in that city to put pressure on agencies for services and for recognition of land title. Participation obviously varies in the three cities according to the service required. The lack of water and electricity generates higher levels of community participation than the lack of utilities such as health centres and schools. These findings have important policy implications for recent government-led initiatives to formally incorporate community participation into a wide variety of local development programmes. If the majority chose not to be active in the past, in our view they are unlikely to show great enthusiasm for government requests for collaboration in the future. Despite low levels of participation, the communities were well aware of the major personalities within the settlements. What varied was the number of leaders mentioned in each settlement; in general, factionalism of leadership was most marked in Mexico City and least marked in Bogota. There were low recognition rates for extra-community personalites in all three cities. In general, most people agreed that few major politicians or government officials had helped them. Party affiliations were very different between the three cities.
921
In Bogota and Mexico City, partisan politics were not critical in the servicing process and therefore the communities did not demonstrate marked support for the major parties. By contrast, in Valencia where the petitioning process is highly partisan, petitioning was directed to friendly political links within the bureaucracy. In that city technical routines are secondary to political contacts (Gilbert and Ward, 1984, Chapter 5). In the course of these two papers we have observed that the regimes in each city have been successful in deflecting opposition, by making concessions, by providing services, and by coopting leaders. Only in the last resort do they turn to repression. This reflects the perpetual awareness on the part of local and national elites that they must respond to and channel community demands. Although the nature of that response has varied through time, the need for social control has consistently conditioned the form of communitygovernment relations. Our general conclusion is that the nature of barrio politics and its relative importance in determining service provision in each city is shaped more by governmental constraints and needs than by local or settlement conditions. Better servicing is often achieved by higher levels of community mobilization but the authorities are well accustomed to handling even well-organized and vociferous demands. This conclusion is discouraging if not unexpected. It will satisfy few who believe in community participation as a force for neighbourhood improvement and offer little hope to those who believe in participation as a form of raising class awareness. The truth seems to be that in Bogota, Mexico City and Valencia the state has developed highly effective methods of channelling and controlling participation. There is certainly little sign of participation in the sense of growing control by poor people over the resources and institutions that determine their quality of life. The state in each city has been successful in containing discontent.
NOTES 1. This finding was valid for later arrivals
even when to the settlements.
we controlled
2. Fagen and Tuohy (1972, pp. 88-9) note that with the possible exception of Cuba, Mexico more than any other Latin American country encourages structured, 3. But
controlled this
political
was in part
contact
biased
that
4. The Patio Bonito area was flooded at the end of October 1979. The barrios had little in the way of services at the time of the flood 1980).
by citizens.
by the fact
were talking to current owners in these settlements and not to past owners who had left the settlement as in the case of the older barrios.
we
(Peralta
and Vergara,
922
WORLD DEVELOPMENT REFERENCES
Bua, C. E. de and A. R. de Guerra, ‘Factores sociales y economicos de las barriadas marginales en Valencia’ (Universidad de Carabobo, CEPLANDE, n.d.). Castells, M., The City and the Grass Roots (Edward Arnold, 1983). Chant, S., ‘Las Olvidadas: a study of women, housing and family structure in Queretaro, Mexico’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation(University of London, 1984). Cornelius, W. A., Politics and the Migrant Poor in Mexico city (Stanford University Press, 1975). Daykin, D. S., ‘Urban planning and quality of life in Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Vanderbilt University, 1978). Dore, R. and Z. Mars (eds.), Community Development (Croom Helm and UNESCO, 1981). Eckstein, S. E., The Poverty of Revolution: The State and the Urban Poor in Mexico (Princeton University Press, 1977). Edwards, M. A., ‘Cities of tenants: renting as a housing alternative among the Colombian urban poor’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Department of Geography, University College London, 1982). Fagen, R. and W. Tuohy, Politics and Privilege in a Mexican city (Stanford University Press, 1972). Fisher, J., ‘Political learning in the Latin American barriadas: the role of the Junta de Vecinos’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Johns Hopkins University, 1977). Fisher, J., ‘Creating communities: squatter neighbourhood associations in Latin America’, Grassroots Development: Journal of the Inter-American Foundation, Vol. 6 (1982), pp. 13-17.
Fuentes, A. L. and R. Losada, ‘Implicaciones socioeconomicas de la ilegalidad en la tenencia de la tiena urbana de Colombia’, Coyuntura Economica, Vol. 8 (1978), pp. l-28. Gilbert, A. G. and P. M. Ward, Housing, the State and the Poor: Policy and Practice in Three Latin American Cities (Cambridge University Press, 1984). Goldrich, D., et al., ‘The political integration of lower-class urban settlements in Chile and Peru’, in B. Horowitz (ed.), Masses in Latin America (New York, 1970). Handelman, H., ‘The political mobilization of urban squatter settlements: Santiago’s recent experience and its implications for urban research’, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 10 (1975), pp. 35-72. Losada, R. and L. Pinilla, ‘Los barrios ilegales de Bogota: su desarrollo historic0 y su impact0 sobre la ciudad y la Sabana de Bogota’, mimeo (Pedro Gomez y Cia., 1980). squatter settlements: Mangin, W., ‘Latin American a problem anda solution’, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 2 (1967), pp. 65-98. Nelson, J. M., Access to Power: Politics and the Urban Poor in Developing Nations (Princeton University Press, 1979). Peralta, -G. and A. J. Vergara, ‘Informe sobre la zona de Patio Bonito’. mimeo (Pedro Gdmez y Cia., 1980). Portes, A. and J. Walton, Urban Latin America (University of Texas Press, 1976). Ray, T. The Politics of the Barrios of Venezuela (University of California Press, 1969).
