Squatters, Pirates, and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis?

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, Vol. 40, p. 239, 2009

22 Pages Posted: 29 Aug 2008 Last revised: 15 Sep 2014

See all articles by Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Date Written: August 27, 2008

Abstract

Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogota, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto's claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto's analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. Second, de Soto constructs informality as a uniquely Third World phenomenon, and neglects to address the growth of poverty, inequality, and informality in both the global North and the global South as a consequence of deregulation, privatization, and other neoliberal economic reforms that de Soto advocates. Third, de Soto's attribution of informality to the failure of law in the global South reinforces the narrative of Latin American inferiority, thereby justifying the imposition of disadvantageous market-oriented legal reforms on Latin American nations and discrediting Latin America legal innovations that might better alleviate poverty and address the shortage of affordable housing. Contrary to de Soto's policy prescriptions, the advantages and disadvantages of formality and informality will vary from location to location, and must be evaluated on a case by case basis. De Soto's ideas are dangerous to the extent that they persuade policy-makers that the free market will solve the problem of poverty and housing scarcity if the urban poor are simply given legal title to the lands they currently occupy informally.

Keywords: informality, housing, land use, World Bank, property law, neoliberalism, privatization, deregulation, informal sector, squatters, economic and social rights, human rights, law and development

JEL Classification: A12, K00, K11, K42, N46, O17, R31, R38, R52

Suggested Citation

Gonzalez, Carmen G., Squatters, Pirates, and Entrepreneurs: Is Informality the Solution to the Urban Housing Crisis? (August 27, 2008). University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, Vol. 40, p. 239, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1260040

Carmen G. Gonzalez (Contact Author)

Loyola University Chicago School of Law ( email )

25 E. Pearson
Chicago, IL 60611
United States

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