By Mahnoor Shah

Urban Development Planning MSc graduate

Urbanisation has caused slums to rapidly spread worldwide (Panday, 2020; Mansoor and Iram, 2023). Like many countries in the Global south, Pakistan has a preponderance of slums (Shafqat, et al., 2021). While most slums In Pakistan are typically situated on the outskirts of cities, Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, stands out as an exception, with slums dotted across its centre, primarily along the banks of riverine nullahs (drainage canals) (Hasan et al., 2021; Mansoor and Iram, 2023). These slums are commonly referred to as ‘colonies,’ a euphemism for informal settlements that are primarily inhabited by religious minorities, specifically Christans (Shafqat, et al., 2021).

This housing story follows the journey of Maria (pseudonym), a 30-year-old woman and her family, residing in one of these colonies, colloquially known as France colony. My acquaintance with Maria began through her mother, who previously worked as an occasional domestic helper in our home before taking on a full-time role elsewhere. Maria frequently accompanied her mother, and due to our similar age, we developed a friendship over the course of her visits. Through the years, Maria’s stories unfolded like fragments of a larger narrative, offering glimpses of the intricate challenges woven into her everyday existence within the colony. Despite their ‘’some-what formal status’’, the residents of France colony continue to grapple with tenure insecurity, displacement, loss, and exclusionary urban governance, all to serve the interests of the elite (Samuel and Nisar, 2021; Rehman, 2015). Maria’s story offers an entry point to explore the broader narrative of beautification, urbanity, order, and illegality that are repeatedly used to further marginalise and displace the religious minorities residing in informal settlements, in favour of the interests of elite housing and real estate development (Aqeel 2016). The story also sheds light on how the inhabitants of these settlements have come to resist these inimical forces and create conditions for a more secure future.

Disorder within Order

Islamabad was founded upon the principles of ‘’Dynapolis- ‘’the city of the future’’ by Doxiadis (Imran and Maria, 2015; Hassan et. al, 2021). The city aimed to embody structure and administrative efficiency, in line with the tenets of modernist ideals (Imran and Maria, 2015; Hassan et. al, 2021). An essential aspect of this vision was the deliberate exclusion of the poor, reflecting a commitment to order and beautification, as well as preventing the formation of slums (Hassan et. al, 2021).

Nestled on the foot of the lush green Margalla hills, Islamabad is laid out over a meticulously planned grid, comprising tree-lined avenues and larger ‘signal-free’ urban highways. Lining the streets are spacious single-family detached houses and pocket parks frequented by middle-aged individuals leisurely strolling for their evening walks (Hassan et. al, 2021).

This setting initially evokes the idyllic suburban American dream, seemingly devoid of any hint of poverty (Hassan et al, 2021). However, in the very heart of the city, tucked away behind an affluent neighbourhood, is an altogether different reality. On the periphery of F/7, an elite sector, lies one of the 50 katchi abadis (a local word for slums, which loosely means unpaved settlement), known as “France colony’’ (Samuel and Nisar, 2021). Here, the meticulous order observed throughout Islamabad gives way to a densely chaotic landscape and irregularly constructed buildings, evoking the sense of entering an entirely different realm.

This densified growth is a response to urbanisation and unaddressed population pressures (Panday, 2020). Over recent decades, Pakistan has experienced a ‘’population bomb’’, making it the ‘fifth most populated’ country globally. This has been accompanied by the rapid urban influx of migrants in search of employment and improved living standards (Mansoor and Iram, 2023). Cities such as Islamabad, which are characterised by stringent, largely outdated regulations that prioritise single-family dwellings, have naturally been unable to cope with the increased housing demands of such rapid rural-urban migration (Hassan et. al, 2021). Consequently, the real estate market in the city has become exceedingly unattainable for low-income groups, leading to a rapid growth of katchi abadis throughout the city. (Mohsin, 2020; Hassan et. al, 2021).

Fig 1 | Original Masterplan of Islamabad 1960 (Imran and Maria, 2015).

Fig 2 | Revised Masterplan of Islamabad 1991 (Imran and Maria, 2015).

Fig 3 | Contextual mapping of France colony

 

Fig 4 | Aerial view of the France colony (Source: Islamabad City)

 

Home amidst adversity

Maria’s life and the life of her parents have been profoundly shaped by these developments. Maria was born in 1994, in France colony. Her parents had migrated from Sialkot, a nearby town, to Islamabad only a year after the regularisation of the katchi abadis under the Punjab Katchi Abadi Act in 1992 (Naqvi, 2023). This Act provided a legal framework to allow the formal lease of land as well as access to state services for the inhabitants of the colonies (Naqvi, 2023). Maria describes the conditions of the colony when her parents had moved here compared to now:

“When my parents came here, they had nothing. Both my parents have worked all their life, my father as a labourer and my mother as domestic help in the adjacent sector of F-7. We were a family of 4 and they built the house using mud and wood with the help of fellow residents of the colony. Over the years, the home has expanded as our needs grew, from a single room of 200 sqft to a 10 marla home (2525 sqft). It now has 3 rooms and is 3 storeys high. My parents and I live on one of the floors and my brothers and their families on the rest. The entire community is similarly close-knit.’’

Fig 5 | Maria’s home showing one of the additional floors added.

The contingent, stop-start growth of Maria’s house symbolises the growth of the colony itself, which has become increasingly dense since its inception. The colony is one of the many colonies that emerged through the demand for workers and labourers required to construct the inaugural planned capital city of Islamabad in the 1960’s, leading to a significant influx of mainly male Christian workers from various regions of the country (Aqeel, 2016). Gradually, the makeshift work camps became permanent homes and were soon inhabited by immediate families, wives, and children, followed by other relatives, leading to rapid expansion and densification of the settlement over time (Mansoor and Iram, 2023).

Fig 6 | Densification of France Colony Overtime (Shafqat et al., 2021)

Even though the colony is regularised, its densification has brought with it many challenges that cannot be seen in other more planned parts of the city. As Maria narrates:

“Even after it (home) was regularised, nothing (planning regulations and building codes) was ever implemented by the CDA, leading to a (haphazard) growth of the area as more people and relatives of families moved here in search of jobs. The land is still owned by CDA, but we have an official stamp paper that proves our right to ownership of this house. We have formal access to the more expensive amenities such as electricity and gas, but no access to services like sewage and cleaning. We handle all the waste disposal ourselves. There is no space for the colony to grow outwards, so all new building is happening on top of the nullahs (drainage canals). There is more dirt on the streets. Our neighbours (4 households), clean and sweep the street together and dispose of all trash but there is not much we can do about the sewage issue other than to dispose of it in the nullahs like the rest of the colony.’’

The absence of municipal sanitation and sewage services in the colony is not merely an oversight. Unlike utilities such as electricity and gas in Islamabad, residents are not charged for these services. However, the Capital Development Authority (CDA), which provides municipal services across the city, does not extend these services to the colony (Naqvi, 2023). This neglect results in the obstruction of drains and nullahs, which are interconnected with the broader city stormwater drainage network. Even though the katchi abadis were ‘regularised’ decades ago, the CDA makes no efforts to enforce building standards while new construction is taking place (Shafqat, et, al., 2023). It does, however, use the lack of adherence to these standards, particularly related to waste disposal and construction on the top of the nullahs (drainage canals), as a pretext to initiate demolition of the katchi abadis, which has brought several sets of challenges, like fear of displacement and loss for Maria and her family (Asad, 2015; Iqbal, 2015).

Islamabad’s officialdom prides itself on administrative efficiency (Hasan, et, al. 2021). Compared to other parts of the country, state intervention is notably more pronounced. The tendency towards ‘over regularisation’ has led to a dismantling of the colonies inhabited by Maria and others like her (Hasan, et, al. 2021). Back when these colonies were being established on government land in the 1960’s, the state didn’t exert any pressure on these neglected areas because the Christians living there provided labour and domestic services to the neighbouring sectors (Aqeel, 2016). However, as the population and land prices have increased, the state has hardened its stance and become increasingly preoccupied with clearing the land to make way for elite housing or commercial ventures (Haider, 2015).

In 2015, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) launched a four-phase demolition strategy for the informal settlements, with the ‘regularised’ France Colony slated for removal in the final phase (Asad, 2015). Presenting the demolition proposal to the Islamabad High Court (IHC), the CDA contended that residents of these settlements had ‘’ruined the landscape of the capital’’ and ‘’occupied posh land’’ and that the ‘’pace of occupation of land by the Christan community” could threaten the capital’s Muslim majority (Aqeel, 2016).

However, this was not the first time the inhabitants of France colony had lived under the threat of displacement. Maria and her neighbours are the descendants of Christians expelled from their villages at the time of the Partition of (colonial) India in 1947 (Aqeel, 2016). Before Partition, the Christian community worked for Sikh landlords who provided them with wages and shelter (Aqeel, 2016). Following Partition, the land abandoned by Sikhs was allocated to Muslim immigrants who had fled different parts of colonial India to make a home in the newly created state of Pakistan (Aqeel, 2016). To make way for this influx, thousands of Christians were driven out by force from their villages. This included the forebears of the communities now residing in Islamabad’s colonies (Aqeel, 2016). Hence, the fear of displacement has loomed over this marginalised community for generations, first under the pretext of religious nationalism and nation-state development, and now in the interest of commercial and residential real estate developers. Maria hesitantly quotes an attack in 2013 on a majority Chistian settlement, the Joseph colony, another settlement like her own that was burned down by an extremist mob in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and a few hours’ drive away from Islamabad. This assault led to several casualties and displacement of hundreds of Christian families, who were forced to take up residence in other informal colonies across the country (Rehman, 2013). The Supreme Court of Pakistan later found that while the mob had ostensibly been gathered in response to an alleged case of blasphemy within the Christian community, the assault and arson was primarily motivated by local real estate development interests that wanted to occupy the land for commercial use without having to pay for it (Raja, 2013; Aqeel, 2016).

“That really shook us. We had so many relatives living in that colony. Thankfully none of them (Maria’s relatives) got injured but not everyone was that lucky. They lost everything and came to stay with us for a few months, after that they moved to a village with their other relatives. We fear the same happening to our colony. If something happens to our home, where will we go?” 

Holding on

While the fear of displacement and communal loss has been woven into the fabric of this community since the country’s inception, the community’s response to these circumstances however has evolved considerably. Although Maria’s forefathers may not have been educated, the advent of globalisation, technological advancements, and increased educational opportunities for some members of the community have enabled them to assert their rights and find new ways of resistance. As Maria explains:

‘’My grandfather didn’t know what his rights were. Neither did my parents. But I have been lucky to get an education. I can read and write and that is my power. Not many in this community are educated, but the ones that are help and educate others on important issues like this (Right to living). We know we have rights, we can read documents, approach organisations and NGOs and stand for ourselves and that is why it is different this time. We have lived here for over 30 years; and we know we have a right to be in our home.’’

These modes of resistance came into play when CDA initiated the first phase of its planned demolitions across Islamabad colonies in 2015. With the help of Awami Worker’s Party (AWP), a left-wing political party, the inhabitants of different colonies across Islamabad began a rapid program of community mobilisation and political organising (AWP official website). Unlike resistance movements launched by the community in the past, which often devolved into violence and gave the state the pretext to retaliate with a heavy hand, this new movement made use of “the right to life and shelter’’ under the Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan (Malik, 2105; Aqeel, 2016). When a nearby colony to Maria’s was razed to the ground, the community approached the Supreme Court, which stayed the CDA’s plans of evictions and labelled them as ‘’forcible’’. The Chief Justice of Pakistan found the CDA’s actions to be discriminatory, relying on its past record of granting exemptions to unplanned luxury farmhouse developments for the elite. As Maria relates:

“This was groundbreaking for us. My community is generally scared to go to the court as they have been traumatised by government officials and think everyone is the same. However, they have now seen the impact of resistance as an organised community. We could not save the homes of the (nearby) colony but at least we now have the support of law to help save ours.”

When asked about her living situation now, Maria responds:

Thankfully, there has been no major escalation recently from them (CDA). We as a community are now better informed of our rights and the actions that need to be taken if things escalate further. For now, we still struggle with municipal services being provided and the lack of safety, considering the arson attacks on Christian communities in the country. However, we have learnt to live with that and take care of it ourselves through resident committees. Around the time of the evictions, I had bought a wall hanging and for the longest time did not put it up for fear of losing our home. It’s been a few years since I hung it on our front door, and it makes me so happy every time I see it. I look at it and I know I’m home.”

The story of Maria provides an insight into the wider issue of exclusionary government policies, which have long favoured the elite, but also provides a glimpse into the changing modes of resistance adopted by those excluded by these policies. Slums are seen as a blight on the city’s infrastructure but the reality in Islamabad is that these colonies have in fact been instrumental in building and maintaining the city’s infrastructure and serving its growing needs. Maria’s story also shows how communal politics are implicated within an exclusionary urban governance, which has targeted religious minorities since the inception of the country, first on the pretext of religious nationalism and now to serve elite real estate development interests. For generations, the Christian community of Pakistan has suffered displacement to make way for private real-estate schemes and this displacement is almost always facilitated by the government. The story of Maria and her family’s struggle provides an insight into the strategies of resistance and political organisation that communities have evolved against their marginalisation, which have enabled them to assert their ‘right to belong’ in an unwelcoming urban space (Mansoor and Iram, 2023).

References

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• Raja, M. (2013). Joseph Colony Case: SC suspects land occupation as motive for arson. Tribune news. Available at: https://tribune.com.pk/story/519502/joseph-colony-case-sc-suspects- land-occupation-as-motive-for-arson
• Rehman, S. (2013). Joseph Colony: Attacked and Unprotected. The Diplomat. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2013/04/joseph-colony-christian-community-in-lahore-attacked- and-unprotected/
• Rehman, S. (2015). Govt decides to legalize 10 slums of federal capital. Business recorder. Available at: https://www.brecorder.com/news/amp/245573
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• Zafar, Z., Waheed, A., & Javaid, B. (2019). Addressing the Affordable Housing Challenges for Urban Poor in Pakistan. Global Social Sciences Review, IV, 416-433. doi:10.31703/gssr.2019(IV- IV).53. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349146772_Addressing_the_ Affordable_Housing_Challenges_for_Urban_Poor_in_Pakistan

By Esteban Llano Piedrahita

 

(…) ¿El campo?… Lo que hay allá es monte bravo 

 aquí es bosquecito preso. Como un hombre en La Ladera,  

pero si el camino se hace calle y la calle pueblo y el pueblo ciudá, 

 ¿Quién retrocede?” 

 

(…) The countryside?… What lies there is untamed brush  

What we have here is a small captive forest. Like a man in the hillside,  

But, if the path evolves into a street and the street into a town, and the town into a city,  

who turns back? 

(Manuel Mejia Vallejo, 1973) 

 

Introduction

Colombian cities have been shaped by nearly 80 years of internal conflict, marked by strong waves of terror that have forced the displacement of millions of people. Just during the period known as “The violence,” which spanned from 1946 to 1966, more than two million individuals in Colombia were compelled to abandon their homes, the vast majority of them settling in urban peripheries to start a new life (Chacón, Sánchez, 2003). This phenomenon is not only part of Colombia’s history but also of my own family. My grandmother, Aurora, fled the countryside with her eight children and found refuge in the red neighborhood of Medellín in the year 1963. 

But what exactly does the term “red” refer to? For 150 years, until the year 2002, Colombia was under the dominance of two political parties, in fact, the two oldest in Latin America. On one side, the Conservative Party, identified with the colour blue, and on the other, the Liberal Party, associated with the colour red. Initially, the Conservative Party had the backing of large landowners, slaveholders, and the clergy, while the Liberal Party represented the oppressed, such as peasants, indigenous peoples, and minorities. 

Over time, shifting political landscapes and pivotal historical events gradually obscured the founding principles of these two parties, leading to conflicts that deeply scarred the nation. This essay aims to unravel how the enduring feud between these parties significantly contributed to the widespread phenomenon of internal displacement in Colombia, and in turn, how this mass movement of people fundamentally reshaped the demographic, urban, and social fabric of Colombian cities. Anchoring this exploration is the story of my grandmother’s home, situated in the historically ‘red’ neighbourhood on the northeastern hillside of Medellín.

 

Origins of the Red Neighborhood of Medellín

 By 1937, an extensive estate known as “La Favorita” graced the highest part of the northeastern hillside of Medellín. After the death of its owner, Mr. Tomás Muñoz, his heirs decided to illegally subdivide the land, a practice that had become increasingly common in the city’s northern parts over the previous two decades. The Cocks family, through their property development company “Cock and Sons,” were prominent practitioners of this approach, acquiring and then illicitly subdividing large tracts of land on both the eastern and western slopes of the city. Their operations involved laying out lots, creating paths, and, in a unique move by Cock and Sons, offering long-term financing for these newly divided plots at favourable prices. This strategy attracted the working class, including both seasoned urban dwellers and fresh arrivals from the countryside, blending urban and rural settlers into the northeastern communes of Medellín. This mix started to define the area as a liberal, or “red,” stronghold. East Manrique, the neighbourhood that developed on the lands of the La Favorita estate, stood out as a symbol of this “red” identity, thanks in part to the significant influence of Liberal Party members who were instrumental in its development.
 

In the early 1940s, community leaders like Ramón Rivera, Abel Hoyos, Pepe Serna, Carlos Oporto, Luis Pineda, Aníbal Carvajal, Aníbal Vélez, Ramón Hoyos, and Fernando Gómez founded the community civic center. From this base, they committed to building homes for incoming families and led the creation of schools, a church, and the establishment of utilities and public spaces over the following decades. Their efforts cemented East Manrique’s reputation as a “red” neighborhood, nurturing a strong sense of community and belonging among its residents. 

 

The Period of “La Violencia” (The Violence)

During the period from 1946 to 1966, Colombia was the stage of a severe internal conflict known as “La Violencia” (The Violence). During this conflict, it is estimated that more than 190,000 Colombians lost their lives and another two million were displaced from their lands, leading to an unprecedented exodus from rural areas to the cities in the country. The origin of this conflict stemmed from the differences between the “azules” (blues) and “rojos” (reds), which is equivalent to conservatives and liberals, respectively. Furthermore, this conflict intensified in 1948 with the assassination of the left-wing presidential candidate, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, whom the “reds” perceived as the leader of the people and a liberating promise for the oppressed. Thus, the violence, particularly the assassination of Gaitán, paved the way for the emergence of guerrilla groups in the country (Chacón, Sánchez, 2003). It is worth noting then that, from the time of the violence, being “red” not only associated with sympathising with the “left”, but also with being a militant against the law; which made the red neighbourhood of Medellín a military target. According to Juan Camilo Castañeda in interviews with residents of East Manrique, they recall how during the time of the violence, conservatives would come to the neighbourhood with the intention of attacking liberals, prompting the neighbors to respond with sticks, stones, and if necessary, shotguns (Jesús, Lucía, 2018). Finally, The Violence period established East Manrique as the red neighbourhood of Medellín. After Gaitán’s death, the main square of the neighborhood was named as “Red Square– Jorge Eliécer Gaitán”, a name it still retains to this day. 

 

Aurora flees with her children

Aurora, my grandmother, was born in the 1920s in a small town located three hours far from Medellín. Although of peasant origin, but from a conservative family, she developed a clear inclination towards the Liberal Party from a very young age. This tendency was significant in her life, as at the age of eleven she was married to one of the police officers in the town, a man sixteen years older than her and a fervent militant of the conservative party. This marriage was heavily marked by deep differences, but above all by abuse and violence, due to the husband’s authoritarianism and prohibitions towards his wife and children. Amparo, one of the younger daughters of the marriage, recounts in an interview that her mother gave birth to more than fifteen children, of which only eight survived to adulthood. 

When Aurora’s eldest sons reached adulthood, they persuaded their mother to leave their father, who at that time served as the mayor of the town (Amparo, 2024). This decision led Aurora and her eight children to embark on the journey to Medellín amidst the violence of the year 1963. Thus, they joined the flow of more than two million people who, during the turbulent period from 1946 to 1966, migrated from the countryside to the city in search of refuge and new opportunities (Chacón, Sánchez, 2003). It is crucial to emphasise that, although the year 1966 is recognised as the end of the Violence period, over time new disputes and conflicts emerged, both political and civil, triggering persistent rural migration to urban areas. This migratory process significantly altered the demographic composition of Colombia: while in 1938 only 31% of the Colombian population lived in urban areas, by the year 1993, this percentage had increased to 68%, leaving an indelible mark on the territorial configuration of the country and exerting a notable influence on the development of Colombian urban areas (Sánchez Steiner, 2008). 

 

Aurora and her children settle in the red neighbourhood

Aurora’s choice to settle in the red neighbourhood was not random. Close friends who had already moved to this area provided her with refuge and support during her transition. Additionally, as a sympathiser of liberal ideals, Aurora trusted that the local liberal committee would provide her with a crucial support network to safeguard herself from the conservative influence of her ex-husband. In this new environment, Aurora saw the opportunity to start anew, and with her savings, she bought a plot of land on the 30th street, which at that time marked the limit of urbanisation on the hillside. “Now the neighbourhood extends almost to the top of the mountain,” says Amparo Piedrahíta, who also remembers that, during the construction of her home on the land her mother acquired, not only all the family members participated but also several neighbours from the area, including some leaders of the local liberal committee. She reveals that the original house was quite simple, consisting only of a large living room, a single bedroom, kitchen, and a bathroom, spaces that she, her seven siblings, and her mother had to share. Additionally, she said that the plot already had basic services such as potable water, electricity, and sewerage, as it was in a “planned” area of the neighbourhood; a situation that, although illegal in the eyes of the municipality, was accepted and managed by the neighbours and the liberal board from the beginning of the neighbourhood. Amparo concludes by recalling that, despite the challenges, they lived a full life for a long period. Her family managed to maintain a serene existence even in moments of tension in the neighbourhood, demonstrating the resilience and community spirit that characterised them. 

 “One lived happily there. Of course, there was always tension because from time to time they tried to attack a leader or killed a neighbor. There was always tension, but one lived peacefully most of the time. Despite everything, there was a lot of community feeling and that was very satisfying. One felt protected,” argues Amparo. 

 

 

The emergence of urban militias and paramilitary groups

 

By the early 1980s, Aurora’s house had changed significantly. Six of her eight children had left to start their own households, and the house now had new occupants. Besides Aurora, two of her daughters, one son-in-law, and some of her grandchildren lived there. Due to this new family setup, a second level was built, and both houses had better finishes. The house was better than ever, but the neighbourhood was going through its worst moment, and things seemed to be worsening. 

The period following The Violence period in Colombia was characterised by being a critical moment when insurgent guerrillas gained strength, especially in rural areas. In cities, the story was different due to a greater presence of the state, which made guerrillas easy targets. Consequently, the guerrillas limited their presence in cities to sporadic and highly strategic incursions. However, simultaneously, in the neighbourhoods of the hillsides of Medellín, the “reds” began to collaborate with civil defence. This joint effort aimed to acquire training in combat tactics and strategies directly from police commands to safeguard their communities from potential attacks by the “blues” (Márquez, 1986). According to authors like Gilberto Medina Franco in his book “A History of the Militias of Medellín,” arguing that the country’s guerrillas founded the urban militias would be a mistake, but he states in his own words that these militias “were born from the same trunk as the guerrillas and fed on their own sap.” The discourse of the militias originated from the guerrillas established previously in the country and emerged in response to the violence from various criminal bands, but especially from the paramilitary action that was decimating the red neighbourhoods of Medellín; accused of being hiding places for guerrillas (Medina, 2006). 

On the other hand, paramilitary action began years ago in response to the excesses of the guerrillas, explains Edgar de Jesús Velasquez in his publication “History of Paramilitarism in Colombia.” Additionally, he states that the paramilitaries favoured, as a method of struggle, massacres, selective assassinations, and displacements of the civilian population, accused of being sympathisers or collaborators of the guerrillas. All of this was orchestrated by the military, prominent representatives of the right-wing, and to a large extent, sympathisers of the conservative party.  

 

The Old and the New 30th Street

As mentioned before, Aurora’s house was located on 30th Street; which was the last road on the hillside; which bordered to the east with the mountain, and to the south with La Honda creek. However, by the early 90s, the dizzying growth of the neighborhood had paved the way for new roads and with this, new homes appeared both on the mountain and on the other side of the creek. 

 

Precisely, La Quebrada was always the geographical limit of the neighbourhood towards the south side, comments Amparo, who in turn points out that it was this creek that became the barrier between the new and old 30th Street, roads that, due to the conflicts, did not even come to physically unite. And she also says: 

“The problem lay in the fact that our neighbourhood was always red territory. Liberal. And when the other side of the creek began to be populated, gangs that had allied with the army formed there… On that side was the military base. This made the two territories hate each other to death because the old 30 was considered a militia zone. I don’t remember exactly how many people were killed from one side or the other, but we lived years of real terror. Everything was blood and fear. We saw many people die.” 

According to Gilberto Medina Franco, by the late 80s and early 90s in Medellín what there was a strange mix of political elements, but also of rampant violence. The drug cartels had a lot of power and corrupted everything. It was not surprising that ideals changed, or that those organisations that had arisen to protect the neighbours, now were their executioners. Regardless of the side, drug trafficking, extortion, forced displacement, and homicides prevailed. The ideals were different. 

Finally, Amparo recounts that her family, and she, in particular, received threats on several occasions: 

“Because of my job, I had to get up very early in the morning, but before leaving, I had to prepare my children’s meals. One day, the gang from the new 30 came to accuse me of hiding militiamen in my house in the early morning… That was a first warning. Subsequently, the militiamen pointed me out for having conversations with those from the other neighborhood… There came a point where everything you did there represented a death sentence. It was very hard for me to let go of the little house. After all, it was all we had, but that neighborhood was not the environment in which I wanted to raise my children. One day in 1993, I closed my eyes, took Aurora and my two children, and went far from there… the house was sold at a very low price. Months later, I was told that a grenade fell on the second level of the house and the damages were great, fortunately, no one died on that occasion.” 

 

Conclusion

The narrative surrounding Aurora’s house sheds light on the complex interplay between personal and political dynamics, and how these influence housing decisions and outcomes, as well as urban design. It is crucial to understand that the urbanisation of the northern slopes of Medellín was driven by opportunistic families who, in the absence of regulations, chose to parcel out and illegally market large expanses of land. This phenomenon invites reflection on the role of the State in the development of these unregulated urbanisations and why there was a demand that encouraged such families to develop and finance these projects. This reality highlights the persistent inability of the Colombian government to provide adequate housing, turning irregular urbanisations into a business opportunity for some and a pathway to housing for others. 

Furthermore, the story of Aurora’s house allows us to understand that the Colombian government has not only failed to provide comprehensive housing solutions but that its politicians have contributed to deteriorating, and in many cases worsening, the conditions of community-managed housing. The historical and deep division between liberals and conservatives triggered a period of violence, followed by waves of conflicts that have forced the displacement of millions, forcing them to leave their homes both in rural and urban areas and to seek new places to live, significantly reshaping the urban realm. 

Lastly, the story of Aurora’s house highlights the value of community participation and how it contributes to the legitimisation and improvement of the “illegal” neighbourhoods that emerged on the northern slopes of Medellín. However, it also reflects the harsh reality of aligning with a political ideology as a community leader in a country that, to this day, continues the systematic practice of assassinating its social leaders. This story not only evidences the urban and housing challenges in Medellín but also bears witness to the ceaseless struggle for social justice, security, and the right to a dignified home in contexts of political and social violence. 

 

Acknowledgements

To my women. My grandmother, my mother, and my sister. Thank you for your effort 

 

References 

Alcaldía de Medellín & Universo Centro. (2015). El libro de los barrios: Medellín. Alcaldía de Medellín; Universo Centro. ISBN 978-958-8888-52-1. 

Amparo, my mother. 

Castañeda, J. C. (2018, 9 de abril). El Parque Gaitán: la huella de un pasado rojo en Manrique Oriental. Recuperado de https://hacemosmemoria.org/2018/04/09/parque-gaitan-la-huella-de-un-pasado-rojo-en-manrique-oriental 

Chacón, M., & Sánchez, F. (2003). Polarización política y violencia durante “La Violencia”; 1946-1963. Universidad de Los Andes. 

Coupé de Restrepo, F. (1993). Las urbanizaciones piratas en Medellín: el caso de la familia Cock. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. 

Gómez Rosa, F. (n.d.). Los grupos paramilitares en Colombia. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 

Márquez, W. (1986). Historia del barrio Santa Cruz. Citado en Rasgando velos. Universidad de Antioquia, 1993. 

Medina Franco, G. (2006). Una historia de las milicias de Medellín. Instituto Popular de Capacitación IPC. Recuperado de http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/Colombia/ipc/20121207043123/historiamilicias.pdf 

Roll, D. (2002). Los partidos tradicionales en Colombia: entre el debilitamiento y la persistencia. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales. 

Sánchez Steiner, L. M. (2008). Éxodos rurales y urbanización en Colombia: Perspectiva histórica y aproximaciones teóricas. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 57-72. 

Velásquez Rivera, E. de J. (2007). Historia del paramilitarismo en Colombia. História, 26(1), 134-153. 

A blog written by Étienne von Bertrab, Lecturer (Teaching) at The Development Planning Unit.

The original version of this text was presented at the seminar “Mexico’s 2024 elections and continuation of the Transformation” during the Latin America Conference 2024 on January 27^th in Hamilton House, London. DPU’s Étienne von Bertrab was joined in the panel by William Booth (UCL Institute of the Americas) and by David Raby and María Pérez Ramos from Mexico Solidarity Forum.

On June 2^nd Mexico will elect its first female president in 200 years as independent nation. It won’t be Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate of the opposition considered instrument of the country’s oligarchy, but Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist and social leader who has accompanied the political movement of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) for over two decades. She is one of the founders of the Morena party and has admirably governed Mexico City this sexenio (six-year term) until stepping down last June to pursue the presidency.

Apart from this being a momentous event for Mexican society, the coming elections will be highly significant for the life of Morena after AMLO, as Claudia (for short) will be accompanied by five female gubernatorial candidates including leftist Clara Brugada who aspires to build on Claudia’s legacy in Mexico City. Indeed, as journalist Kurt Hackbarth puts it in his latest piece in Jacobin, “the next chapter in Morena’s history is set to be shaped by leftist women”.

The certainty I start with is founded both on AMLO’s remarkably high approval rates (unprecedented at this point in a presidential term) and on the numerous opinion polls that consistently give Sheinbaum a significant lead (20 to 30%) ahead of the opposition’s strongest candidate (Gálvez). But who is Claudia Sheinbaum and what could be expected from a second moment of Mexico’s Fourth Transformation?

There isn’t much space to elaborate on Claudia’s fascinating background and significant public life, but I would like to highlight some things from her trajectory and ways of thinking and doing.[1]

As a young student in the National University, UNAM, Claudia became an activist, first in movements of solidarity with workers and peasants and then as part of the wider student mobilisations of the 1970s and 1980s.  She took part in the Comité de Lucha of her university campus and became prominent in the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (CEU), a movement in defence of public education, at a time when neoliberalism started creeping up in Mexico’s education system.

Claudia got her first degree in Physics and did a masters in Energy Engineering. She was the first woman to enter the doctorate in energy engineering at UNAM and to obtain, in this institution, a PhD in the field. As a young mother she moved with her family to Berkeley, California, to undertake her doctoral research, but even there continued her political activism. Together with other activists she bravely gave President Carlos Salinas de Gortari a hard time in a triumphalist visit to sell the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She worked hard as student while nurturing her political awareness and social commitment towards marginalised communities in her work on energy.

As a climate scientist, Claudia was a contributing author to the IPCC’s Fourth Report. For this work the panel received the Nobel Peace Prize (2007). She is a respected scholar in the energy and climate fields, and academia is a part of her life that she never fully abandons (although her life might become even a bit busier for a while).

Due to her solid trajectory on environmental matters and their clear political affinity Claudia was invited by AMLO to be the environment minister for his government of the capital city, then called Distrito Federal, from 2000 to 2005. As minister, Claudia was entrusted with key projects and led significant initiatives.

She supported the struggle against the desafuero of López Obrador[2] and was fundamental in the documentation of the electoral fraud that stripped AMLO from the presidency in 2006 (his first attempt). We need to remember that, since then, Mexico’s government and the business elites worked closely in well-funded smear campaigns to portray him as “un peligro para México” (a danger for Mexico). After the 2006 fraud Claudia returned to her academic activities at UNAM, but never abandoned her political action alongside AMLO.

Claudia was key in the defence of energy sovereignty —a central component of the proyecto obradorista de nación that took AMLO to the presidency in 2018— and was a great mobiliser of women in defence of such sovereignty.

Once AMLO broke with the then leftist party PRD as it allied with the conservative alliance (PRI-PAN) when Enrique Peña Nieto took power, Morena was founded, first as a civic organisation, and later —after discussions in assemblies— as a political party. Claudia Sheinbaum was part of Morena’s foundational process. The rest is history. Morena competed electorally for the first time in 2015 and only 9 years later governs, together with its allied parties, 23 of the 32 states that form the Mexican federation. It could win a few more states in the coming elections.

As mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum’s government expanded fundamental rights to public education, health, housing, culture, dignified employment at a fair wage, sustainable mobility, and a healthy environment. It also drove significant innovation. For example the integration of a solar power plant (now the world’s largest in an urban area) in the city’s food market, and public and free Internet connectivity throughout the city. The accomplishments of her administration are impressive and long is the list of international recognitions and prices. Mirroring what occurs at the national level, public investment in infrastructure and social protection are unparalleled, achieved through republican austerity (not the neoliberal version) and good governance, including combating corruption, without incurring in additional debt. A recurrent argument of the opposition is that Claudia Sheinbaum is candidate because of being AMLO’s favourite (or its “handpicked successor” as it is often framed in the media).[3] This (also misogynist) trope neglects her outstanding leadership and the extraordinary results of her government, putting, for the benefit of all, the poor first.

Claudia Sheinbaum’s programme is under construction. An anachronic electoral law forbids candidates to spell out specific proposals until campaigns officially start in March. However, political documents and ongoing processes are useful indications:

1. Proyecto de Nación 2024-2030, consulted and written by a special commission of Morena (before the candidacy was determined). It addresses 19 themes considered major challenges of the Fourth Transformation. More than 15 thousand people participated in this process.
2. An initial diagnostic produced by Claudia’s closest team.
3. The ongoing Diálogos por la Transformación, a public, participatory process coordinated thematically by a team of advisors (a transition team of sorts).

The dialogues’ resulting document will be presented in March and will complement both Morena’s project (abovementioned) and the programme registered before the National Electoral Institute, INE, which already indicates a boost in the energy transition, a further impulse for women, and a National Guard of proximity oriented to ending violence in the country.

Challenges are many and Claudia Sheinbaum won’t have it easy, not least before a huge popular movement in mourning with AMLO’s full retirement in October. AMLO has been an extraordinary leader and political mastermind and is impossible to substitute him. Mexico’s oligarchy will continue working hard to try to end the political project in power and lawfare is likely to intensify in the next administration, including attempts to seek US intervention. But Claudia Sheinbaum has many things in her favour, not least the demonstrated success of the Fourth Transformation, the palpable results of her government in Mexico City and, above all, her personal integrity. Undoubtedly, a key goal is to achieve a two-thirds super majority in Congress (dubbed Plan C), as this would allow constitutional reforms needed to expand, extend and deepen Mexico’s transformation.

In sum, barring an unforeseen reversal of circumstances in the country, Claudia Sheinbaum will be Mexico’s next president, taking office on October 1^st, 2024, and this will be very good news for Mexico, for Latin America and for the world.

Footnotes

[1] For those interested in knowing more about her I recommend the recent documentary Claudia, and Arturo Cano’s book Claudia Sheinbaum: Presidenta.

[2]  A political manoeuvre aimed at stopping him from being candidate to the presidency in the 2006 elections.

[3] Claudia Sheinbaum became candidate after winning an internal, transparent process through national polling against five other contestants from Morena and allied parties.

References

Cano, Arturo, 2023, Claudia Sheinbaum: Presidenta, Grijalbo, Ciudad de México.

Hackbarth, Kurt, 2023, “MORENA’s Next Chapter Will Be Written by Leftist Women”, Jacobin, 22 December 2023 https://jacobin.com/2023/12/morena-claudia-sheinbaum-clara-brugada-mexico-women-politics

Raby, David, 2024, “Mexico’s transformation advances”, Morning Star Saturday/Sunday January 27-28 2024. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mexicos-transformation-advances

This housing story follows my Mum’s journey. It provides valuable insight into the history of housing policies in Mauritius and how they have evolved. Given Mauritius’ location, it is prone to cyclones that cause devastation to homes, which made it critical for the government to prioritise better structures to address inadequate dwellings. However, as my Mum’s story will illustrate, government schemes were not always accessible, resulting in more informal community financing schemes. Incremental approaches to housing development were widespread in Mauritius alongside gradually diminishing access to public spaces due to government policies prioritising real estate development. I will explore these wider factors throughout her story.

 

Growing up in Triolet 

The story is set mostly in Triolet, a small town in post-independence Mauritius, beginning in 1972 and ending with her leaving Mauritius in 2002. Mum was the eldest of five, living with her parents and grandmother on inherited land. Mum’s grandfather adopted her father after he lost his parents as a child, and the land was divided between Mum’s father and his step-sister. This was unusual, as land and property were commonly inherited and split between male family members only, whilst women tended to marry and move in with their husband’s parents. This exception may have occurred because Mum’s aunt was a young widow with children to care for. Furthermore, Mum recalls that “people often lived close to relatives and it was common to extend the homes when the families grew, if there was space.” Although the Mauritius Town and Country Planning Act (1954) outlines that permits are needed for housing construction, it was not strictly enforced. Mum recalls that planning permission for home extensions or improvements was informal and usually involved seeking permission from relatives who lived in the surrounding area.

Mum’s earliest memories were of her home consisting of “two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a toilet.” They stood as three separate structures built with corrugated iron roofs and wood. Mum remembers several cyclones that particularly affected Triolet and nearby areas, some leaving a trail of housing destruction in their wake. However, Mum’s experience was again uncommon, as homes built with corrugated iron sheets and timber frames had decreased significantly during the 1970s (Chagny, 2013, p.6). Destructive cyclones in the 1960s led to workers being offered interest-free loans to build concrete houses for “personal occupation” (Ministry of economic planning and Development, 1986). As a result, housing structures improved drastically. For example, in 1960, 60% of housing in Mauritius was substandard, with only 4% considered durable; by 1972, only 7% were considered substandard, with around 40% considered durable (ibid). Mum’s experience may have been the exception because she lived in a rural area which may have been overlooked because it was not a highly commercial area and so was deprioritised for funding.

It is worth mentioning that there is a limitation in obtaining region-specific data, as Mauritius is a small country, and figures for smaller rural areas away from economic centres are not readily available. Hence, country-wide data has been used instead of data specific to Triolet.

Building a stronger home 

In 1980, Cyclone Hyacinthe severely damaged Mum’s home. During this time, Mum’s family decided to rebuild with cement and bricks to withstand severe weather conditions better. Unfortunately, the family didn’t qualify for the government scheme providing interest-free loans to workers for constructing concrete houses for personal use (Chagny, 2013, p.7; Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, 1986) because my Mum’s dad, an informal sugarcane worker, did not have the relevant documentation.

Therefore, to finance the repairs and future improvements, they relied on an informal community financing practice known in Creole as a “sit.” A “sit” involved pooling money from numerous people (relatives and friends) in a neighbourhood into a general fund. This fund could be used for household expenses, but many used it to improve or repair homes. Every month, each household would pay the same amount into the pool, and a designated collector would distribute the pool to one household randomly until all households had received the pool at least once and then the cycle would start again.

In contrast to bank loans, the “sit” was an attractive alternative since it was interest-free. This arrangement was helpful for Mum’s family, who couldn’t provide an acceptable form of collateral to banks, lacked a credit history, and had limited awareness of how formal credit systems worked. Unlike formal bank loans, “sits” didn’t require collateral or have transaction costs (Karaivanov & Kessler, 2017). However, these practices had downsides. For example, if a ‘sit’ participant can’t pay into the fund for one month, it could impact their relationship with everyone in the community, having a high social cost (ibid). Mum recalls that contributors could swap with the weekly recipient if they required the fund earlier for an emergency, and if someone couldn’t pay for a particular month, they could work out an arrangement with the collector and contributors. It was a system built on trust; in Mum’s experience, “there were never any major issues, and it was essential in difficult times.”

The prevalence of informal community financing practices highlights the failure of government schemes to trickle down to low-income people in rural areas who may have owned land but required financing for materials to build adequate and sustainable homes. So, although private ownership was high, for example, in 1972, 94.6% of all housing units were privately owned (Ministry of Planning and Development, 1986), Mum’s experience illustrates that people that needed suitable and adequate housing were effectively left unsupported by the government.

 

Continuing home improvements 

In 1981, Mauritius was challenged by a sugar crop failure coinciding with a global price drop (Gupte, 1981). Mum’s dad owned a piece of inherited land where he cultivated sugar cane, and the family heavily depended on this for their household income. The poor harvest and lower market prices, left the family significantly impacted; finding themselves relying on Mum’s grandmother’s pension. This also halted their much-needed home improvements and repairs. The country’s economy, which was still heavily reliant on sugar exports, also suffered detrimentally, with nearly 60,000 out of 960,000 people unemployed (ibid).

In late 1981, Mum’s dad secured a job working for the government as an irrigator, qualifying him for an interest-free government scheme to help workers improve their housing structures, with 3,000 rupees a month offered towards sturdy building materials. Mum told me “It was not much, but it was something. We would use this to buy some materials and build slowly.”

For Mum’s family, constructing their home was a slow and steady operation. Even with the government loan, building materials had to be accumulated over a considerable period before construction could start. The family continued participating in the ‘sit’, hoping it would come in handy in speeding up construction work.

In late 1982, they started rebuilding the two bedrooms using bricks and cement, but since they couldn’t afford to hire ‘masons’ (Creole for builders), they employed a ‘maneve’ (builder’s apprentice) who required a smaller fee. It was customary for unpaid male household members and relatives to help with construction, some even travelling from far-away areas to help. To show appreciation for their hard work, they’d be offered a nice meal at the end of the day in lieu of payment. This approach was present in many other households; Mum recalls her dad and brothers helping build and improve relatives’ homes too.

The improvements were focused on the house structure whilst the kitchen and toilet remained outside, still made of corrugated iron and wood. Mum recalls the unpleasantness of bathing in winter and the frequent water shortages; using a ‘dron’ (large plastic barrel) to collect rainwater for showering. Eventually, the kitchen was added as an extension to the concrete home. Mum says the kitchen and bathroom were not prioritised because of a lack of infrastructure for sewage or freshwater, and she says “improving the bedrooms first made sense as it benefitted everyone in the house.”

This incremental approach to housing allowed Mum’s family to improve their homes based on their needs and resources. It also made high building costs more affordable. However, these small loans also meant slow progress. Hence, combining the government loans with the informal community financing was crucial to making this approach possible at all and was ultimately borne out of necessity.

 

Scarce land and the rise of real estate development projects

The declining price of sugar and the phasing out of preferential trade agreements for sugar exports to the EU led the government to seek alternative sources of economic revenue (Gooding, 2016). Hence, in 1985, the government initiated various real estate development projects to attract foreign investment (ibid). These legislative changes would accelerate into the 2000s with the Integrated Resource Scheme (IRS) in 2002, increasing the purchase of villas and hotels, particularly by white Europeans and South African investors (ibid) and the amended Immigration Act in 2002, allowing non-citizens to become residents if they invested a minimum of 500,000 dollars in a set of “identified business activities” (ibid).

These schemes resulted in properties that were commonly located along the coast, providing direct beach access and amenities such as wellness centres and golf courses, and so accordingly requiring vast amounts of land. While many resorts were erected around rural towns, little development or investment occurred nearby in Triolet itself. Indeed, these schemes led to unequal distribution of economic benefits. For example, tourists visiting Mauritius spent money on foreign-owned resorts and hotel restaurants. They were unlikely to venture further and spend on local businesses; thus, the local communities did not feel the economic benefits. (Ramtohul, 2016). Moreover, opening the real estate sector to foreigners caused discontent among the local population, given the sensitivity of land ownership in Mauritius due to land scarcity (Tijo, 2013; Gooding, 2016).

These coastal development initiatives also impacted local communities’ ability to access beaches. Despite it being enshrined in law that all beaches in Mauritius are public up to the high tide mark (Pas Geometriques Act, 1895), hotels and resorts built barriers that made it challenging for people to access the whole beach area. Wealthy investors and private owners who had bought homes with easy beach access followed the hotels barrier-building example and with little intervention by the government, were tacitly allowed to continue this exclusionary practice.

Going to the beach is a celebrated space, important to many Mauritians of different backgrounds who would head there on weekends. Indeed, it was one of the few public spaces available for leisure activities. For Mum, there were no gardens or play areas where she lived. Only a small plot of land behind Mum’s house was shared with her aunt to cultivate papaya trees and aubergines, and the family collectively shared the crops. Like many Mauritian families, they would walk to the beach on weekends. She recalls as she grew older, access to these spaces became more difficult due to the increasing number of resorts, hotels and holiday homes. Accessibility to these public spaces became a huge social issue. Mum recounts her and her family being “told to move from the beach near the hotels. We were made to feel really uncomfortable for sitting on the sand.”

The need to diversify its economic portfolio meant Mauritius focused on expanding the real estate industry as an alternative source of revenue. Unfortunately, the development of coastal areas led to unequal distribution and access to land and limited benefits for working-class communities. The government did not properly consider how these policies would negatively affect the livelihoods of local communities, instead choosing to prioritise scarce public spaces such as beaches for tourists and hotels only (Naidoo & Sharpley, 2015).

 

Moving to Vacoas

In 1994, Mum married and relocated to Vacoas, a town in the western part of Mauritius. Vacoas was a middle-income residential area closer to economic centres than Triolet. There were more amenities, and the area was generally more developed.

She shared a home with her in-laws, my dad’s brother, his wife, and their children. Similar to Triolet, the house was surrounded by the homes of my dad’s relatives, as my grandfather’s brothers owned properties on either side and in front of the house. Similarly, the male siblings all inherited the land from their father. From 1995 onward, their properties would also expand to include their sons once they married.

In 1999, Mauritius was faced with a drought, leading to a limit in water usage for most people in the country (The New Humanitarian, 1999). People had access to water for only one hour a day (ibid). Mum recalls this and says that “during that hour, each household would collect water and fill as many containers as possible.” Despite an improvement in Mauritius’ economy during this period, infrastructural issues still affected people’s daily lives, particularly women, who were expected to manage household chores, and care for young children.

Cultural housing practices continued throughout this period, whereby male family members inherited land, and women did not. After my grandfather died in 2000, the house was divided according to this practice. My dad’s brother began constructing a separate housing unit upstairs, eventually moving there after construction was completed with his family. The main house was split in two, with my dad and his older brother each inheriting half. These patriarchal housing practices can leave women without security, and a lack of land ownership can result in limited say in household decision-making (Archambault & Zoomers, 2015, pp5). It can expose women to vulnerabilities, such as finding it more difficult to leave their spouse if they experience domestic violence (ibid). It’s important to note that, as mentioned previously, if women were widowed or the family didn’t have sons, then the women would likely inherit property. Nevertheless, it is a practice that is ultimately unfavourable to women, leaving them insecure and effectively dependent on male household members; as a result, reinforcing gender inequalities.

Conclusion

In 2002, my dad found a job in the UK, and shortly after, Mum and I moved here for a new beginning. Mum’s housing story illustrates how Mauritius’ housing policies evolved rapidly from 1972-2002. It highlights how the devasting effects of cyclones meant the government had to push for the elimination of structures that could not withstand them. Although this can be lauded, due to the significant rise of concrete structures due to government schemes which provided affordable loans for workers to build sturdier homes; its inaccessibility, particularly for people living in rural areas, meant they had no choice but to rely on informal community financing schemes. The story also highlights the prevalence of patriarchal cultural housing practices whereby male family members inherited land at the expense of women, reinforcing gender norms. Finally, although the expansion of the real estate industry benefited the economy, it came at a cost for locals, who effectively lost their access to much-needed public spaces in favour of hotels, resorts and holiday homeowners in a country where land was already scarce.

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United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2011) Housing the Poor in African Cities, Quick Guide 5: Housing Finance https://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/default/files/Quick%20Guide%205%20-%20Housing%20Finance%20-%20Ways%20to%20Help%20the%20Urban%20Poor%20Pay%20for%20Hpusing_0.pdf

Mauritius Local Government Act 1989 https://la.govmu.org/downloads/LGA%201989.pdf

The Town and Country Planning Act 1954 https://business.edbmauritius.org/wps/wcm/connect/business/f27c44b5-c3d7-4c9a-ae12-9e502c26b390/THE+TOWN+and+COUNTRY+PLANNING+ACT+1954.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&ContentCache=NONE&CACHE=NONE

Mauritius Building and Land Use Permit Guide https://la.govmu.org/downloads/Blp%20Guide%20Updated.pdf

Pas Geometriques Act, 1895 https://attorneygeneral.govmu.org/Documents/Laws%20of%20Mauritius/A-Z%20Acts/P/PAS%20GÉOMÉTRIQUES%20ACT%2C%20Cap%20234.pdf

This housing story follows the urban transformation of a once-thriving node based in the Old Anarkali neighbourhood of Lahore, Pakistan. It is a story of cultural shift, resistance to change, inevitable transition, and the lingering battle between despair and hope. The story follows a narrative thread, informed by inherited memories and from lived experiences in what used to be a tightly-knit neighbourhood community. The story depicts the loss of shared space and collective consciousness due to repeated experiments of urban (de)generation.

While this housing story focuses on the specific neighbourhood of Old Anarkali, Lahore, it is framed by the lived experiences of one of my dearest friends from college, who has requested that his name remain anonymous. As the protagonist of this housing story, he resided at 3/2 Lodge Road for the larger part of his adolescent life. We studied together at the nearby National College of Arts Lahore Campus and would often get together at his house after college.

 

 

Introduction

Pakistan is a South Asian developing country with over 240 million residents and has been doubling in population density every 35 years (World Population Dashboard – Pakistan). According to a recent UN Report, Pakistan is one of the eight countries that will witness more than half of the projected increase in global population by 2050 (World Population Prospects, 2022). Country wide, it has historically battled housing issues. Even at a micro level with its urbanising cities, it has witnessed housing crises that have seen huge shifts in communities and how they live.

As the capital of one of Pakistan’s most populous provinces, the Punjab, Lahore is no exception. Its residents struggle with socio-political power relations that underpin the housing market. Infrastructure facilities and quality-of-life improving investments are inevitably concentrated in areas of influence, where wealthy residents pull resource division and maintenance, directing access away from the urban poor. This rich-poor divide leads to a “splintering urbanism” (DPU 2013, originally by Graham & Marvin, 2001). Additionally, whilst infrastructure like rapid transport may improve mobility, it comes at a high cost. It can displace entire communities, where ‘bastis’ and ‘abaadis’ (shanties) fall prey to repeating false promises of development.

The context

 

 

As one enters the (new) Anarkali food street, there is a sense of being transported to a different time. This pedestrian-centred traffic artery boasts flavourful food and a sensory delight, especially on festive occasions like Eid. However, as one traverses the aptly titled “tourist street” and walks south, a harsher reality unfolds. The Old Anarkali road is chaotic with traffic, overflowing with motorcycles, rickshaws, and cars and being overtaken by rampant commercialisation.

“Purana” Anarkali or Old Anarkali is a neighbourhood at the south end of Anarkali Bazaar (market), one of the oldest surviving markets in the Indian Subcontinent. It dates back more than 200 years. Anārkalī was a courtesan in the Mughal era, with whom Prince Salim, who later became Emperor Humayun, fell in love. Steeped in Mughal architecture and romance, the mausoleum and the area surrounding it existed as a cultural and artistic centre. The story of Anārkalī itself is one of unrequited love and longing.

Timeline

Around World War 1

The Old Anarkali area consisted primarily of horse stables, to facilitate the cavalry, which were later relocated to a place called Rasala Bazaar

1929

The house, 3/2 Lodge road, was constructed, as per the blueprints, in the celebrated Indo Sarsenic style

1947

The protagonists maternal grandparents moved to this house from India after his grandfather fought in World War 2 and was granted legal tenure for being a part of the pre-partition INA – Indian National Army

“There was community spirit and people were considerate, to the point that even families of four decided to share space with each other. My nana (grandfather) gave space to another family on the ground floor.”

During partition – and post 1947

In the splitting of the Indian subcontinent into Pakistan and India- many families were divided. People had to abandon their homes and rushed to relocate. Some buried expensive belongings in hopes that they’d revisit their homes and reclaim their treasures, but that never happened. There are stories that gold and precious metals were found in some abandoned homes.

The neighbourhood, in its physical state, stayed the same for a large part of 1947 up until the 1990‘s, when the protagonist was born. Neighbourly evening walks were common amongst communities and there was strong social integration.

In early 2000’s

By the early 2000’s, the neighbourhood was running on its last fumes, especially as real physical transformations in the form of construction for the contested Orange Line mass-transit system started taking shape. It corroded what little was left of a past sense of community.

Context mapping

 

 

 

3/2 Lodge Road was right in front of Lahore’s former mayor’s residence, which later became, and is still is, the office for a law firm Kashif Law Chambers. This shows truly what a thriving community once existed in the area. Owing to the fact that the high court was close by on Mall Road, more law firms began surfacing in the area.

Circumstance and proximity play an interesting role in shaping life choices. My friend was inspired by both his parents towards the arts since they were designers by degree and profession. He thus chose to attend the same institution as his mother.

My mother would often walk me through the old streets of Rabbani road and Rasala Bazar all the way up to the National College of Arts, her alma mater. She would get fresh clay from the ceramic studio for me to play with. We would stop by the museum quite often. I think just walking through the streets that were populated with such great colonial, pre-partition architecture, sparked and encouraged my sense and fascination for it.

Reasons for leaving

In his own words the factors for leaving Old Anarkali were perhaps many.

For me personally, there was a decline in the quality of life there. There was so much noise pollution. The doctor advised that we move out because it was depressing for Ammi [mother] to be there. It may ring true for a lot of people, when you’ve seen too much in a house you really want to eventually change scenery and get away from it.

Our house shared the wall with a laboratory for the longest time. The machine was placed directly next to the wall that connected with our side of the house, constantly exposing us to x-rays. They were taken to court a few times but nothing became of it. This was also part of why we decided to leave home.

In addition to this, the house was also gradually coming apart structurally – instead of renovating it, it was more practical  to shift. Due to commercialisation, CNC (computerised numerical control) and laser cutting services had taken over and posed serious health concerns. In 2006, the roof of a room we did not use came down too. So it was all just in shambles.

Since a lot of the houses were built pre partition and used wood materials in construction, there was a serious termite infestation  issue. It wasn’t the sole reason why one would be stressed, but it definitely contributed to the overall situation. In modern construction or areas where houses were built with new methods and procedures, treatments for termites are infused in the foundation of the structure. When you compare those construction methods to the methods of the past, you do get colder rooms in summers due to the construction quality, but then there’s issues like termites and seepage in the walls that need constant maintenance. 

In a broader sense, I think for most people there, the community I’d say was 40 percent well educated. The neighbours whom we were most close to, a doctor, passed away, and his family moved out. The neighbourhood began to lose its meaning in time and space. The structures, walls, alleys and corridors don’t make a neighbourhood. It’s the people that occupy it. So I’d say, for most people, time just moved on, and in saying that, they had that move out and on too. But over time, shops and houses turned into spaces to host shoe workshops and metal sign workshops. This meant a lot of noise and the loss of peace and quiet which the area had seen a lot of earlier. Additionally, the areas in close proximity to newly refurbished Anarkali Bazar and commercialised Food Street also began to witness a lot more movement all around. It just did not make sense to stay there for a longer time.

What next?

My brother lives in and manages the upper floor of the old anarkali house. He has a love-hate relationship with the place. Squatters are common in those areas and people occupy spaces illegally. So, until the house is sold, my brother feels it’s unsafe to abandon it as it’s very likely someone will take over it illegally.

 

Broader implications

Lahore’s Orange Line metro seems to be the elephant in the room. The project was a venture part of CPEC (China Pak Economic Corridor). It was a one-of-a-kind Chinese-backed commuter train line, constructed over five years, from October 2015 till October 2020. It signalled a new chapter in the Pakistan-China friendship and provided an easier, faster commute for the citizens of Lahore.

However, the project was surrounded with controversy. In 2016, construction was temporarily suspended by the Lahore Court because it threatened UNESCO world heritage sites. Unfortunately, the verdict was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. (Ebrahim, 2020)

Mr Kamil Khan Mumtaz, an renowned Lahore based architect, strongly advocated against the Orange Line project for its destructive methodology. He said that buildings and sites that “make Lahore what it is with its history, its heritage, its culture” were blasted into nothing. “Entire neighbourhoods, like the Old Anarkali where people lived and had worked for generations, look like Nagasaki,” he added, pointing to the blatant “violation of historic monuments” which he described as a “criminal act”. (Ebrahim, 2020)

Kamil Khan Mumtaz expressed concern regarding how “a cash-strapped country like ours would pay for this luxury”. He estimated that the Punjab government will pay “PKR 74 million per day (USD 460,800) in subsidies”. He suggested selling the train line to a private operator and buying buses instead, because, “Lahore has a good road network for the buses to ply on”.

3/2 Lodge Road was not scheduled for demolition, but a significant part of the neighbourhood on the east was destroyed. Over 200 families were displaced, as well as an institute for disadvantaged children, shops and a squatter settlement. (Ebrahim, 2020)

Affectees were compensated with what the government termed a historic package at the time. According to the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), people were compensated a lump sum of PKR 1 million (less than £3000) per room after being displaced by the Orange Line but many residents were unhappy. Shakeel Ahmed, another resident of the Anarkali district, lost his home and accused local authorities of heavy handedness.

Outdated colonial-era land laws like the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 empower the government to snatch land for unjust compensation. The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) said that the Punjab government was authorised to take land, granting the government the right to appropriate land if citizens receive compensation and prior notice.

This means that many of the  former occupants have sacrificed property in one of Lahore’s most iconic and valuable areas. Property prices have skyrocketed in recent years but the displaced will not reap the rewards.

Conceding that Lahore needs a “smart, green transit system” like the Delhi metro, architect Imrana Tiwana deemed that the Orange Line remained an unacceptable alternative. Tiwana reinforced that it violates the law and is a complete misfit for a historic city with its Mughal-era “protected heritage”. She described it as “a huge white elephant” that will be used by very few. In fact, 1% of Lahore’s population (250,000 people) use the train – with the trains often operating considerably under full capacity. (Reuters, 2020)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Pakistan’s housing problems are certainly manifold and complex. Such problems arise due to prioritising short-term goals against a long-term vision, especially when conceiving projects through external aid. Forming periodic consensus and employing a reframing diagnosis can open up the room for transformative potential in this regard. Thus, recognition of all stakeholders is a must to curb social injustices.

Rethinking, recontextualising and reconstructing mechanisms of housing is necessary to converge towards fair and just compensation to ensure that there isn’t a reproduction of what David Harvey calls the “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey, 2008). Today, the term Purana Anarkali (old Anarkali) evokes a nostalgic sigh for a bygone era.

Although many have shifted away, all cannot be lost. Governments must see the need as well as the possibility to accommodate citizens without displacing them, as well as awarding fair compensation. Organisations like the Walled City of Lahore Authority strongly advocate and achieve results for the restoration and preservation of historic sites. There remains hope that collective action can spur recognition, bringing back to life the community spirit of places like old Anarkali.

The underlying truth is that neighbourhoods like Old Anarkali are co-produced organic urban centres and reminders of history. Their preservation and the just compensation for residents are important to presence, territory, and historic context. Mass appropriation of space, and the copy-paste replication of global cities, like that in the case of the Ravi Riverfront Development serve no good. Proponents and opponents exist towards this hailed as “Pakstan’s answer to Dubai”. This provokes the question ‘Is this what is visioned for once thriving neighbourhoods like old Anarkali?’

 

 

 

References

Ebrahim, Z. (2020, December 15). Orange Line Metro Train: Another ‘huge white elephant’? The Third Pole. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/pollution/pakistans-first-city-metro-another-huge-white-elephant-2/

Graham, S., & Marvin, S. (2001). Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. Routledge.

            splintering urbanism | UCL The Bartlett Development Planning Unit. (2013, July 5). UCL Blogs. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dpublog/tag/splintering-urbanism/

Harvey, D. (2008). The Right to the City [New Left Review].

Managing supply and demand: The key to getting ‘housing’ right in Pakistan. (2022, March 11). World Bank Blogs. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/managing-supply-and-demand-key-getting-housing-right-pakistan

Rizwan, S., & Mirza, Z. (2022, February 3). Commercialisation in Walled City hampers conservation, trade – Newspaper – DAWN.COM. Dawn. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.dawn.com/news/1672926

Toppa, S. (2020, December 21). ‘This will make us poorer’: Pakistani metro brings uncertainty for displaced residents. Reuters. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-lahore-metro-feature-idUSKBN28W039

World Population Dashboard -Pakistan. (n.d.). United Nations Population Fund. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population/PK

World Population Prospects. (2022). the United Nations. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf

UK immigration from Eastern Europe (EE) increased considerably post the European Union (EU) accession in May 2004 (Parutis, 2015). It permitted free movement across the United Kingdom (UK) and home country, opening the opportunity for employment in Britain, and thus the possibility of ‘a better life’. The EE dream of Britain as the ‘mini-America’ (Judah, 2016) tells the tales of “the glamour of London” (Morrison, 2016) whereby those moving overseas to settle, making Britain their home, can work towards owning something of their own. As such, between May 2004 and December 2008, the UK Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) received over 965,000 applications, of which 66% were Polish, 11% Slovakian and 9% Lithuanian (Parutis, 2015).

Amid the “utopian myths” (Morrison, 2016) of the British dream “as seen from afar” (ibid) are the harsh realities of making home in a new country up close “if you are poor or Other” (Morrison, 2016). It involves navigating a vast array of hurdles including language barriers and thus dependence on co-ethnic social systems for housing, employment, and information; discrimination; limited work opportunities and housing options and as such; a compromise in the quality of life and living standards. Told through the eyes of a Polish mother who immigrated to Britain with her husband and daughter, this essay will seek to explore the journey of making home in the UK within the bounds of the private rental sector as way of opening and closing opportunities for migrants seeking a ‘better life’. It will seek to move beyond the physical structure of a house as four walls and a roof and the statistics used to group and stereotype displaced individuals, but touch upon the “theoretical concept of home […as a] lived experience and identity” (Parutis, 2015).

Whilst there are a multitude of terms to describe someone who has settled away from their country of origin, such as ‘expat’ which is typically associated with successful individuals who bring economic and cultural benefits to the country they move to, use of legal definitions including ‘foreigner’, ‘immigrant worker’ and ‘economic migrant’ paint a picture of ‘otherness’ and are most often used to categorise individuals settling in the UK from EE. For purposes of clarity, this essay will refer to all persons who have “changed their country of usual residence” (Sturge, 2021) as migrants.

 

Leaving the Homeland

Agnieszka’s story of making home in Britain begins in the years leading up to her arrival to the UK in 2005. The post-communist period in Poland, which began in 1989, brought with it major changes to the country’s political, economic, and social systems (Gardawski, 2002). One of the major challenges faced was high levels of unemployment, which reached peak at 20.7% in 2003 (tradingeconomics.com, n.d.), on account of transition to a market-oriented global economy coupled with a decrease in the demand for Polish products in the former Soviet countries (Britannica, 2019). As such, it created a system of hiring based on personal connections and recommendations with limited possibility of securing stable, non-exploitative employment. “Unless you got lucky, you worked long hours and received little pay” (Agnieszka, 2023). “Despite acquiring a house through inheritance, which provided some sense of security and did not consume the already insufficient household earnings, constrained prospects to improve our quality of life motivated our move overseas” (ibid). Poland’s entry into the EU, coupled with established social networks in Britain as “the land of opportunity” naturally dictated the choice of settlement location (Judah, 2016). According to Parutis (2015), securitisation of accommodation, work, and information for many migrants is often attained through “personal co-ethnic social networks” who have settled in the host country beforehand. Despite learning English in preparation for moving to the UK, the limited ability to communicate increased such reliance on the families’ trusted networks. Surrounded by individuals who share one’s culture and native language, as the “symbolic homeland” (Parutis, 2015), “provided us with a sense of belonging and comfort” (Agnieszka, 2023) in adjusting to the psychological and social challenges of immigration.

 

The Private Rental Sector

Thatcher government implemented neoliberal policies that promoted a free-market approach resulted in a decline in the availability of social housing and in turn led to a general shift towards the private rental sector (PRS) for the provision of affordable housing. Policies such as the ‘Right to Buy’, accessibility of ‘Buy to Let’ mortgages and mass social housing stock transfer to housing associations crated a “captive market” (Grey et al., 2019) of households with no alternative to private renting. In addition of state failure to replenish the social housing stock, deregulation of the PRS and major shift in policies towards rent subsidies for lower income tenants in the PRS, which directed capital away from public housing into the private market (Grey et al., 2019), has contributed to the stark increase in housing costs in proportion to renters’ income.

 

(From the perspective of a migrant)

EE migrants arriving in the UK lack an immediate access to welfare rights, and as such, the PRS is the most common viable option for securing housing upon arrival. Implementation of Assured Shorthold Tenancy by the 1988 Housing Act and its standardisation as the “default tenancy type” (Parutis, 2015) by the 1996 Housing Act, prescribed the PRS as the main sector to supply short-term housing, also referred to as the “transitional stage in the [migrant] housing career” (ibid). Arguably offering mobility via relatively easy access and withdrawal, it serves as a useful intermediary stage towards the more desirable housing sectors such as social renting or home ownership. However, in contrast to the attractive portrayal, individuals seeking home security in the PRS are often faced with the cost of “painful compromises” (Grey et al., 2019) that include expensive rent, overcrowded and poor living conditions and threat of eviction. Due to their lower income levels in comparison to the general public, access to accommodation is further restricted placing migrants at a greater disadvantage when competing for housing.

Despite being able to successfully secure a stable job in the construction industry, Agnieszka’s husband’s low wage proved insufficient to cover the cost of renting an entire flat; “we were forced to live in a house share with people we didn’t know. We lived in a three-bed flat on a former social housing estate in Putney Heath, […] it was surprising to see such a clear division between communities and neighbourhoods based on their class and status. The property itself had issues with dampness and poorly insulated single-glazed windows, although this wasn’t the biggest problem for us […] Sharing a home with singles who had different priorities and standards of living made it difficult for our family to achieve the warm and clean space I desired for us. They came from such an assumption that if I wanted to maintain cleanliness, I should do everything myself; this included simple tasks like taking the rubbish out and wiping down surfaces after making food. […] Eventually it led to tensions rising that quickly escalated, making our living situation all the more difficult, especially given that we, as a family of three, had one bedroom at our disposal. […] It felt as though the Polish community living in the UK was caught up in a rat race and I found it difficult to connect with trustworthy individuals on whom I could rely. I felt very isolated” (Agnieszka, 2023).

It is reported that over 800,000 Londoners reside in overcrowded conditions that are primarily associated with the lack of affordable housing. Moreover, difficulties in regulation and management have led to the PRS being ranked lowest with the highest share of “unfit living conditions” (Parutis, 2015) in the hierarchy of tenures. In spite of securing accommodation, the absence of a healthy living environment and dependable social relations, resulted in feelings of “a lack of belonging” (Parutis, 2015) which can also be viewed as an alternative understanding of homelessness (ibid). “We didn’t intend to settle down in England for good, but we were also uncertain of when we would return to Poland. The reality of our living situation felt like someone poured a bucket of cold water over you” (Agnieszka, 2023).

 

Relocating Home

Polish migrants renting in the PRS are found to relocate frequently. “Migrants housing, like migration itself, is a process that changes over time depending on future plans, migration motivation and economic factors” (Parutis, 2015). Housing situations are re-evaluated as personal circumstances change over time. While it may be argued that regular moves may illustrate flexibility in rental agreements, it is a clear indicator of “instability and insecure housing conditions” (Parutis, 2015). This is particularly troublesome to families, as the process involves changing schools, making connections in new communities, switching jobs, or accepting long commutes.

 

 

Pursuit Towards Homeownership; What does it mean to become a homeowner?

Agnieszka was able to secure employment, but her limited English skills restricted her to a low-paying position as a caregiver. Despite the fact that both Agnieszka and her husband were earning wages, it was insufficient for the family to rent a home independently. Upon learning that they might qualify for Housing Benefit which would assist in covering housing expenses due to their low income, Agnieszka approached an estate agent to find a suitable two-bed flat. She was met with a “we do not serve such clients here” response – “I felt like a second-class citizen” (Agnieszka, 2023). After facing several challenges, such as securing a guarantor, the family were able to find a new place to call home. However, the desire to free themselves of the dependence on housing assistance, coupled with the dissatisfaction of paying someone else’s mortgage and the threat of rent rises and eviction that came with renting, motivated the pursuit towards homeownership. According to Grey et al. (2019), 36% of renters’ income is consumed by housing costs compared to that of 12% for homeowners with a mortgage. As such, the desire to become a home-owning household is associated with lower expenses, greater security of tenure and thus sense of belonging. Blunt and Dowling (2006) appoint to the distinction made by the English language of ‘homeownership’ as opposed to ‘house-ownership’. Associations made with owning a house are imagined as having greater ability of making home in comparison of those who rent (Parutis, 2015). Moreover, the commodification of housing which puts first asset value over social good is compounded by the fact that housing equity is said to comprise “the main component of UK household wealth” (Nygaard, 2011).

 

The Cost of Homeownership

According to Grey et al. (2019), “an economic preference becomes effective demand only when it is backed up with money”. This helps explain why minority groups, including migrants with limited financial resources, have lower levels of demand in the housing market. The ease with which a mortgage credit loan can be taken out to secure homeownership, as required by most households in the UK, governs the “purchasing power” (Grey et al., 2019) and thus the “overall level of house and land prices” (ibid). Moreover, cheap ‘Buy to Let’ mortgage loans against projected rental income, as opposed to the existing income of prospective first-time buyers, gave landlords an unequal advantage over lower-priced properties. As such, the various landlord tax breaks, low interest rate credit and deregulated rents permitted the capital value to increase “above the maximum that many first-time buyers could raise” (Grey et al., 2019).

Agnieszka and her husband found themselves in a “vicious cycle” (Agnieszka, 2023) as they tried to save for a housing deposit. Working weekdays and weekends had a negative impact on family life and the increased income resulted in a decrease of housing assistance, cancelling out any gains made towards saving for a deposit. “If you are an individual on a low income and without real qualifications, life is difficult and you need to work relentlessly” (Agnieszka, 2023). As a result, a decision was made to renounce the housing subsidy, work longer hours and return to living in a house-share by subletting one of the bedrooms in their two-bed flat. In the meantime, to broaden her employment prospects, Agnieszka began studying a bookkeeping course and took on training to expand her caregiving qualifications. However, securing a higher paying salary required undertaking an unpaid internship which was unfeasible considering the need to save for a deposit while already being financially stretched.

 

Un(der)-regulated Rental Sector

During the period of saving up for a property purchase, the family experienced multiple relocations while living in the PRS. The legal system in which they found themselves shifted power in favour of the landlord (Spratt, 2023) permitting unregulated rising rents and threat of eviction upon the landlord deciding to put their property on the market, dismissing any renters’ rights. With the aim of making the PRS more competitive following the free market ideology, Housing Acts of 1980 and 1988 demolished the previous 1915 to 1979 legislative policies which to some extent regulated rents and provided protection to tenants (Grey et al., 2019). Under the Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement as the most common type of private residential tenancy, the limited six moth fixed-term contract permitted landlords to evict their tenants and take back possession of the property (Grey et al., 2019). Landlords could repossess their properties “without having to establish fault on part of the tenant” (UK Parliament, 2023) under the ‘no fault’ section 21 evictions agreement. Furthermore, as well as receiving major tax breaks, landlords received supplementary advantages such as the ‘wear and tear’ allowance which prescribed them to claim for compensation for the cost of replacing movable assets, that “did not require any proof of investment in the property” (Grey et al., 2019).

As a result of the challenging circumstances, the family was only able to secure a rental property within their limited budget by reaching an agreement with the landlord to renovate the property to a liveable standard at their own expense. Despite their hard work and effort dedicated to improving the property, the family was served an eviction notice shortly after moving in, informing them that the property would be listed for sale. Given the asking price of the property was out of their limited price range, they were given a two-month notice to vacate while the landlord profited from their investment.

Despite time pressures and financial constraints that limited their search to a small portion of available properties, “the estate agents informed us of a property that was set to be put up for sale within our neighbourhood. Knowing that the competition for such properties was extortionate, located in a safe area and reasonably priced compared to what was available on the market, we made an offer right away, proposing our maximum budget without physically viewing the property. By some miracle the sale went through and for the first time since setting foot on British soil I felt that I could breathe […] The property was modest in size and in an inhabitable state, but it was ours […] and in this way, we began to lay our roots in London” (Agnieszka, 2023).

 

Conclusion

Recounting the experiences of a Polish mother who migrated to Britain following the EU accession, this story begins to shed light on the challenges and reality faced by various minority groups with limited resources when attempting to make home within the constraints of the private rental sector. The housing crisis revealed is a complex issue, that transcends a simple shortage of supply. While migrants face additional challenges in securing housing due to language barriers that limit job prospects and increase reliance on social networks, the general shift towards privatisation and deregulation fuelled by the free-market ideology has resulted in the private rental sector being monopolised by landlords, leading to extortionate costs and inadequate living conditions. As such, these “trends [that] have systematically undermined the vision of a society with equal opportunity” (Grey et al., 2019) help explain the desire to attain homeownership, offering an escape from rent hikes, threat of eviction and intense competition for ‘affordable’ housing in the PRS. A reform in housing policy and regulation provides an opening to address the issue of how land is owned and managed, thereby creating a more equitable distribution of wealth and promoting empowerment and equal access to opportunities.

 

References

Britannica (2019). Poland – Economy | Britannica. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Poland/Economy.

Gardawski, J. (2002). The dynamics of unemployment from 1990 to 2002. [online] Eurofound. Available at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2002/the-dynamics-of-unemployment-from-1990-to-2002.

Grey, R., Kenny, T., Macfarlane, L., Powell-Smith, A., Shrubsole, G. and Stratford, B. (2019). LAND FOR THE MANY. [online] Available at: https://landforthemany.uk/ [Accessed 9 Apr. 2023].

Judah, B. (2016). This is London: Life and Death in the World City. [online] Google Books. Pan Macmillan. Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/This_is_London/ZvnZCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover [Accessed 2 Apr. 2023].

Lee, J.-S. and Nerghes, A. (2018). Refugee or Migrant Crisis? Labels, Perceived Agency, and Sentiment Polarity in Online Discussions. Social Media + Society, 4(3), p.205630511878563. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118785638.

Mathers, M. (2023). Why is migration to the UK on the rise? [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/migration-rise-uk-economy-brexit-b2302159.html.

Morrison, B. (2016). This Is London by Ben Judah review – the truth about a capital city utterly transformed. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/20/this-is-london-by-ben-judah-review.

Nygaard, C. (2011). International Migration, Housing Demand and Access to Homeownership in the UK. Urban Studies, 48(11), pp.2211–2229. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098010388952.

Parutis, V. (2015). Home Cultures The Journal of Architecture, Design and Domestic Space ‘Home’ for Now or ‘Home’ for Good? East European Migrants’ Experiences of Accommodation in London. doi:https://doi.org/10.2752/175174211X13099693358799.

Ryan, L. (2011). Transnational Relations: Family Migration among Recent Polish Migrants in London. International Migration, 49(2), pp.80–103. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2010.00618.x.

Spratt, V. (2023). The Housing Crisis is Even Worse Than You Think | Aaron Bastani meets Vicky Spratt | Downstream. [online] www.youtube.com. 2 Apr. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wkfe402j9k&ab_channel=NovaraMedia [Accessed 10 Apr. 2023].

Sturge, G. (2021). Migration Statistics. commonslibrary.parliament.uk. [online] Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/#:~:text=The%20UK.

tradingeconomics.com. (n.d.). Poland Unemployment Rate – March 2023 Data – 1990-2022 Historical – April Forecast. [online] Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/poland/unemployment-rate#:~:text=Unemployment%20Rate%20in%20Poland%20averaged.

UK Parliament. (2023). The end of ‘no fault’ section 21 evictions. [online] Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8658/#:~:text=Section%2021%20enables%20private%20landlords,%2Dfault’%20ground%20for%20eviction. [Accessed 15 Apr. 2023].

www.ons.gov.uk. (2022). Long-term international migration, provisional – Office for National Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2022#:~:text=This%20was%20primarily%20driven%20by [Accessed 11 Apr. 2023].

 

 

This housing story is part of a mini-series revealing the complex ways in which personal and political aspects of shelter provision interweave over time, and impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives. Space for strategic choice is nearly always available to some degree, but the parameters of that choice can be dramatically restricted or enhanced by context. The wide range of experience presented in this collection shines a light on the wealth of knowledge and insights about housing that our students regularly bring to the DPU’s learning processes.

 

I first met Leslie when I took the Ombudsperson’s office’s seat in the Barrio Padre Mugica’s (BPM) Council for Participatory Management for the Redevelopment Process (CPMRP). Leslie and her neighbours were furious. I wanted to understand why, fundamental changes occurred since BPM’s urban and social integration Law was passed. All residents would access a formalised housing solution with legal tenure, houses would be upgraded, and public services would be delivered onsite with a decision-making CPMRP. These women that were meeting after meeting shouting and crying to be left in their homes had had no information and were never part of the decision that established that, since they lived below the highway, they had to move from their houses to new homes close by, as the Law established. The government has been delivering a policy focused on distribution but needs more regard for the justice of decision-making power and procedures (Young, 1990). I learnt that lesson from Leslie, Sonia, Angela and Mirta, who showed me through their fight for their homes that “just organisation of government institutions and just methods of political decision making” (Young, 1990, p.12) need to be raised in order to achieve social justice.

 

Hoping for a better future

The city of Buenos Aires (CBA) is the heart of a large metropolis five times its population size. The impossibility of accessing formal housing in a country with a dolarised formal market struggling with recurrent economic crises, inflation and no offers to consolidate social housing has led the most vulnerable population to live in informal settlements. Around 7.5% of the inhabitants of the CBA live in slums (DGEyC, 2021). This is the story of one of them, Leslie Rojas, a migrant from Cochabamba, Bolivia, that came to Argentina at age 9 in 1991. Her parents came chasing the dream of a home of their own “They said that in Argentina, your salary was in US dollars. The majority of people who came here saved enough money to go back to Bolivia and buy a house”.

After the hyperinflation crisis, the economy was on the verge of collapse, so the tales of neoliberalism penetrated Argentina deeply. Under Menem’s government, profound changes in the country’s economic organisation were made, which included trade liberalisation, privatisation of public services and the Convertibility Law. This measure established a fixed parity of the Argentine peso to the US dollar. Argentina was soon able to stabilise its economy. However, neoliberalism soon hit the country’s economy: opening markets made Argentina’s emerging industry unable to compete in a liberalised global market with products in USD currency. The economy collapsed, leading to increasing unemployment. This occurs along the implementation of structural adjustment programmes (Davis, 2004), which reduced social policies and welfare (Hirst, 1996). In terms of urban governance, the participation of private actors in the development of real estate operations that encouraged speculation, intensified the commercialisation of urban land, pushed up land prices, and, with this, significantly increased informality” (Gelder, Cravino and Ostuni, 2013, p.128).

In 2000, due to a critical economic situation, Lesli’s parents could not continue to send money to their children in Bolivia. Hence, she and her siblings came and started living in a rented space in Villa Crespo. “They decided to stay because they hoped the country could improve and regain stability”. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The economic situation worsened, leading to one of the most challenging economic and political crises of Argentina’s democratic history in 2001, when poverty reached 66% in 2002 (CEDLAS, 2022). In 2004, after the death of their landlady, with an economic situation that made it impossible to buy a house in the formal dolarised market, the Roja family experienced the difficulties of finding a new place to rent without a property warranty “We did not know anyone who had a formal deed”. They did not have many choices and moved to BPM, one of the largest informal settlements of the CBA, “we had family living there, and my parents learnt about a house that was on sale”. They bought a half-built house in the informal market and started living there incrementally upgrading it.

 

The fight for a house of her own

Leslie wanted to become independent when she finished school, and she learned about squatted land under the highway. With a clear opportunity to rent there “a very precarious house: with brick walls and sheet metal roof”, she found a job and moved in 2008. In 2015 her husband and Leslie managed to buy that house and started incrementally upgrading it, with many material expenses. She put countless hours of sweat equity into that house “I could have enjoyed life, but I deprived myself of many things because I was making an effort to live better. I invested in my house below the highway”.

 

People living in informal settlements in the CBA have been steadily increasing since the return of democracy after slum eradication during the last dictatorship. The state had recognised the right to housing through various laws but did not deliver. This gave rise to a process of judicialisation of the policy (Delamata, 2016) as a strategy to achieve housing. As a result of a long process of mobilisation that included judicial appeals, in 2009, dwellers of BPM managed to pass Law 3343^[1], which established general guidelines for the redevelopment but did not include precise urban planning and regulatory instruments (ACIJ, 2021). However, many dwellers like Leslie had no idea about it “I did not know anything about the Law or our rights. I knew that if you squatted or bought a squatted place, and a formalisation process occurred, you would need to pay for the land, but your house and everything you had invested in it was your own”.

With the arrival of Rodríguez Larreta to the government of the CBA, different socio-urban integration processes were initiated, with a substantial increase in the housing budget. The scheme adopted from 2016 onwards was “a model of territorial intervention that simultaneously comprises physical transformation, social intervention, institutional management and community participation; seeking to promote territorial equity, privileging state action in the peripheral areas of the city, with lower indices of human development and quality of life” (Quinchía Roldán, 2012, p.8). However, in the case of BMP, Lesli witnessed the complex participatory process.

In 2016 the re-urbanisation process began with a census: “I remember there was a census, and I told my husband that he should not tell them anything because I thought it was better. The census was held without information of what it would entail”. Mistrust and misinformation about government action are recurrent in Leslie’s narrative. Even though this policy was aiming at economic redistribution (the what), it did not include recognition of different members of the community (the who) and framing the project in a way in which all members participate as peers in social life (the how) (Fraser, 2009). To achieve social justice, “institutionalised obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with others, as full partners in social interaction” (Fraser, 2009, p.13) need to be dismantled. According to Leslie, this did not happen in BPM, leading to severe opposition from dwellers.

Two years later, Law 6.129^[2] was passed, establishing housing improvements, new housing construction, provision of infrastructure and tenure regularisation (ACIJ, 2021) in BMP. It also created the CPMRP and determined that all those enlisted in the census had the right to tenure formalisation. Also, relocations would exist due to project needs (opening roads or public spaces) and environmental and building risk areas. However, they would be carried out as a last resort and with the beneficiaries’ consent. Relocations would be within the neighbourhood (in grey in the picture below), and new homes resulting from them would be built in the areas in light blue. The Law also said that the government must guarantee the availability of units of equal or superior characteristics concerning the original dwelling before moving and vacating the property.

 

At this point, Leslie found out that the process directly affected her house since regulations in the CBA forbid housing below the highway. “Many things had been going on behind my back, meetings had been going on for years, and I knew nothing about them. They were not going to recognise all the materials I had in my house, and I would have to move to the new houses that, for me at that point, were going to be made of sheet metal and cardboard. All my effort, work and sacrifice would be lost. I was angry and wanted to fight for my house”.

Even though she had never been involved in community mobilisation, she started attending CPMRP meetings, going door to door, sharing information and inviting her neighbours to get involved. An insurgent movement emerged; they did not “constrain themselves to the spaces for citizen participation sanctioned by the authorities (invited spaces); they invent new spaces or re-appropriate old ones where they can invoke their citizenship rights to further their counter-hegemonic interests” (Sandercock, 1998).

 

Once I developed a relationship with her, I got to know her house, built with much effort. That was when I fully understood her claims and, in different ways, why she did not want to move. Her house was affordable, adequate, accessible and viable; she already had a just housing solution (Bhan and Harish, 2021). A policy based on regulatory frameworks irrelevant to her needs (Payne and Majale, 2004) demanded that she move because the Law states that it is forbidden to leave below the highway. She was not part of that decision and did not understand it. “I still maintain that even though the highway was a highway, it protected us”.

We started working together once the resettlement process began when it was easy to see how a very comprehensive but top-down policy can have severe implementation problems when not acknowledging realities and voices on the ground. The authoritative disciplinary dominant forms of knowledge that shaped the project needed to be challenged to deliver a consciously collective policy that could address dwellers’ real needs (Bhan, 2019), not those established by the state. This policy falls under the “power of representation dilemma” (Uitermark and Nicholls, 2017). A planner with a privileged position to marginalised communities promotes a specific view of social justice under the risk of making assumptions that sideline specific segments of the urban poor.

Moreover, the government used a steel frame system of construction, unknown by dwellers of BPM, many of whom work in construction. “Nobody understood why we were not getting brick walls. We did not know anything about that system of construction; we had doubts, and they never explained what this system was about. We were afraid, and this was going to be our home. We thought they wanted us to move to houses that would last 30 years, and once we finished paying the mortgage, they would fall apart.” Again, a sense of mistrust, of not getting enough information, of not being part of the decisions that directly involved them emerge. Leslie, like her neighbours, had been directly involved in the incremental construction of their own houses; they knew everything about it, how to fix them, where to add rooms, how to make them more secure, and were happy about the place they lived in. Now they were supposed to move to a place without participating in the decision and to houses they knew little about. “After I moved, I found out that steel frame was a good system of construction and a quick one to deliver 1044 houses in two years. Why did they never explain that? I believe that if you give someone information, arguments, examples, people take it better than if you hide everything”.

While she continued resisting, a second problem emerged by the end of 2019. When people moved out, the government demolished their old houses below the highway to prevent squatting. Everything was left covered by dust and debris. Often, they broke pipes, so places started flooding; the electricity of the houses close by was still on, people threw garbage everywhere, and rats were all over the place. For those still negotiating their relocation, this was perceived as a method of pressure which again increased the mistrust and tension with the government. That was a difficult moment for Leslie, “I was resisting alone. People started to move and everywhere around was demolished, it looked like a war zone, it was insecure, I was afraid. It was unliveable”.

 

 

Soon after, the pandemic started, and Leslie got sick in May. “I was 16 days in the hospital. I was afraid that if people found out my house was empty, they would squat it, and I would lose everything I had been defending. So when I got out, I said, I will accept the new house but under my terms”. As soon as she was discharged from the hospital, Leslie saw the available flats and found a house she liked. Even though she was happy, she did not want to show it because she did not trust the government officials and wanted to negotiate the recognition of the value of all the materials in her house. Through her fight, she moved to a house of her choice and will pay fixed monthly repayments for 30 years, minus the value she negotiated with the government. Every year she has to make an income statement, “I can pay for now, but I know that if I lose my job, I can make the income statement and stop paying”.

 

Again, misinformation and mistrust are present in her narrative: “If I had money to pay it all at once I would, I would feel safer if I fully own the place and nobody can move me”. The Law raises relevant tools for dweller´s permanence after tenure formalisation stating that dwellers must be provided with tenure security in the dwellings they occupy and that in no case the inability to pay could hinder guaranteeing this right. The Law discourages possible gentrification or uprooting processes, seeking the current dwellers’ permanence.

Information could have brought dwellers certainty regarding the policy outcome and their right to stay. However, Lesli does not trust the policy or the Law because her participation was not a “democratic stance; a right of people to decide, in an informed manner and through processes of collective reflection, on the direction of their habitat” (Populab, 2022, p.32).

 

Learning and growth

A lot of Leslie’s fear existed because she did not access information “If you give people information and tools, you don’t hide anything, and you make them part of the process, even if you think that they can oppose it, I think it is worth it and better. If not, it is like gossip”. Leslie believes she is in a better place one year after her move. Nevertheless, how different things would have been if this policy had included and recognised her in the first place, benefiting from her right to participate in those decisions that involved her own life and home. “I would have liked to be involved; I think everything would have been better. In this type of redevelopment process, participation is necessary”.

When I met Leslie, she challenged me to rethink justice rather than come up with a single normative or political vision of housing justice (Bhan, 2019) to reshape my approach of participation in planning to participation as planning (Frediani and Cociña, 2019). During those years, many of her neighbours and even government officials tried to discredit her, accusing her of doing politics. She was fighting for her right to housing; she knew nothing about bills and laws until they directly impacted her. She got involved at that point but did not do things only for her sake; she insurgently fought for justice. She wanted to be recognised, exercise her capacity, express herself and participate in determining her actions and the conditions of those actions (Young, 1990). Those are “universalist values, in that they assume the equal moral worth of all persons” (Young, 1990, p.37).

When I asked her how she could describe this process, she said it was about learning and growth. She became self-conscious of her status as a citizen, collectively demanding rights and battling oppression and domination (Young, 1990) to fulfil that dream that, 32 years ago, her parents sought. She informally bought a house eight years ago. However, a policy intended to upgrade her quality of life made her feel threatened of losing it, mainly because she was never included in the development of that path that comprehended her life and her home. Now, she has a house with a formal deed and a mortgage. She is happy about it, but that was not the only thing she wanted. She was unrecognised, on the side-lines, but she finally determined the conditions under how she would accept her new house, showed she could insurgently and collectively fight until her equal worth was recognised. This is why it is so important to tell her story.

 

Bibliography

Asociación por la Igualdad y la Justicia (2021) Cuánto avanzó la reurbanización en el Barrio Padre Carlos Mugica (ex Villa 31 y 31 bus) en el período 2016-2021?. Available at:   https://acij.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/informe-vFinal-interactiva.pdf

Bhan, G. (2019). Notes on a Southern Urban Practice. Environment and Urbanisation, 31:2

Bhan, G. & Harish, S. (2021). Housing Justice: A View from Indian Cities. Coursera Online Course

CEDLAS (2022) Poverty Statistics. Available at:   https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/en/estadisticas/sedlac/estadisticas/#1496165262484-7f826c3f-b5c3

Davis, M. (2004) Planet of Slums. Urban Involution and the Informal Proletariat

Delamata, G. (2016). Una década de activismo judicial en las villas de Buenos Aires. Revista Direito & Práxis, VII 14, 567-587.

Dirección de estadísticas y censos (2021) Porcentaje de viviendas habitadas, hogares y población en villas sobre el total de la Ciudad. Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Años 2006/2021.  Available at:  https://www.estadisticaciudad.gob.ar/eyc/?cat=164

Fraser, N. (2009) “Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world”, Columbia University Press: New York, pp. 12-29. (Chapter 2: Reframing justice in a globalizing world).

Frediani & Cociña (2019) ‘Participation as planning’: strategies from the South to challenge the limits of planning

Hirst, P.Q. &Thompson, G. (1996) Globalisation in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance.

Payne, G. K. &Majale, M.  (2004) The urban housing manual: making regulatory frameworks work for the poor

Populab (2022) Policy brief Mejoramiento Integral del Hábitat como estrategia para la transición hacia la paz territorial Urbana. Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia

Quinchía Roldán, S. M. (2012), Urbanismo social: del discurso a la espacialización del concepto. Caso Medellín – Colombia. En 9ª Bienal del Coloquio de Transformaciones Territoriales. Huellas e incertidumbres en los procesos de desarrollo territorial. (pp 8). Tucumán.

Sandercock, L. (1998) “The Death of Modernist Planning: Radical Praxis for a Postmodern Age”, in Douglass, M. and Friedmann, J. (eds) Cities for citizens: planning and the rise of civil society in a global age. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 163–184.

Uitermark & Nicholls (2017) Planning for social justice: Strategies, dilemmas, tradeoffs

Van Gelder, J.L., Cravino, M.C & Ostuni, F.(2013). Movilidad social espacial en los asentamientos informales de Buenos Aires. R. B. ESTUDOS URBANOS E REGIONAIS 15 (2). Available at: http://ri.conicet.gov.ar/bitstream/handle/11336/12248/CONICET_Digital_Nro.15339_A.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Young, Iris Marion, (1990) Justice and the politics of difference, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

 

^[1] Available at : https://digesto.buenosaires.gob.ar/buscador/ver/21159

^[2] Available at : https://boletinoficial.buenosaires.gob.ar/normativaba/norma/448918

 

 

This housing story is part of a mini-series revealing the complex ways in which personal and political aspects of shelter provision interweave over time, and impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives. Space for strategic choice is nearly always available to some degree, but the parameters of that choice can be dramatically restricted or enhanced by context. The wide range of experience presented in this collection shines a light on the wealth of knowledge and insights about housing that our students regularly bring to the DPU’s learning processes.

Ever since Rasini approached me with hope, inquiring about possibly obtaining affordable housing for her family, her story has left a lasting impression. Rasini’s story represents one among countless others striving to achieve the dream of homeownership. This essay delves into the experiences of Rasini and her parents to examine the dynamic of Jakarta’s housing market over a 40-years span. In this essay, the housing narrative of Rasini’s family is followed by relevant housing policies or housing market transitions that contribute to this dynamic. The timeline is divided into two eras; Rasini’s parents and Rasini’s.

First Generation: Rasmani & Nursiah (1980 to 2008)

The dynamics of housing in Jakarta are closely tied to the massive migration that took place when the city emerged as the economic centre of Indonesia after gaining independence. The population of Jakarta grew significantly after the 1960s, from 823.000 in 1948 to 3.5 million in 1965 (Cybriwsky and Ford, 2001). This rapid urbanization was driven by the Indonesian public’s perception of improved job prospects in the capital, offering the potential for an enhanced family economy compared to opportunities in their hometowns. However, the government’s focus on constructing high-rise buildings and large complexes of government offices led to the neglect of housing provisions for the growing population.

“It was impossible for Mom and Dad to obtain a mortgage because it is cos,tly and considering their job status. That is why they had to save for years, work two shifts daily, and not have a car or motorcycle. I remember there were weeks our meals consisted of nothing but rice and salt. My parents were determined to achieve their dream of homeownership.” – Rasini.

Both of Rasini’s parent was born during that time to a working-class family that had recently migrated to Jakarta. Their limited education restricted their employment opportunities, forcing them to rely on low-paying jobs. Rasini’s dad, Rasmani, worked as an outsourced employee at the Local Administrative Office, and Rasini’s mom, Nursiah, worked as a cleaning service in a private company. After each experienced a failed marriage, they married each other in 1983. There was little information about their housing condition during the early years. However, it is known that they both resided in Rasini’s Grandparent’s housing in Central Jakarta until they obtained their home. Realising the dream of becoming homeownership was difficult for them, especially with eight children to feed. They also experienced a burden due to the social belief in Indonesia that a family must have a house to raise children (Tarigan, 2017). This context sheds light on the numerous sacrifices they made to pursue homeownership.

During that time, there was a massive construction of new towns around Jakarta’s periphery aimed at the middle and upper-income groups, as they were only accessible by private cars (Firman, 2004). The development of new towns was not based on proper spatial planning but rather driven by the profit-seeking of the developers, resulting in low-density housing with significant impacts on uncontrolled urban sprawl and price speculation practice (Firman, 2004; Leaf, 1994). In certain newly developed towns, the State Housing Provider Agency (PERUM PERUMNAS) partnered with private developers to guarantee that a portion of the housing was aimed at accommodating families with low to middle incomes (Cybriwsky and Ford, 2001). On top of that, the Indonesian government also provided interest rate subsidies for buyers through Bank BTN, reducing the interest rate from 24% to 9-15% (Winarso and Firman, 2002; Struyk, Hoffman, and Katsura, 1990).

However, This type of housing option was not a viable option for Rasini’s parents due to these factors: (1) Their outsourcing jobs were not recognized as a reliable source of income for mortgage instalments, making that housing unaffordable without a mortgage; (2) The considerable distance between housing and workplaces, coupled with the lack of public transportation, meant relocating would also necessitate finding new employment—a challenge considering their job experiences and qualifications; (3) As working parents, they relied on their parents to help in taking care for their children. Resigning from their jobs was not feasible, as it would mean sacrificing one of their income sources. These problems, faced by Rasini’s parents, are a clear representation of the structural obstacles that low-income households encounter when trying to access affordable housing. Furthermore, they highlight how the housing policies in place at the time failed to accommodate the diverse needs of different socio-economic groups, thereby amplifying these barriers.

In 1991, Rasmani and Nursiah purchased their first house, an unexpected stroke of luck. The house, measuring 80 sqm, was purchased for IDR 100,000,- below market rate, as the previous owner urgently needed funds. Although it required extensive renovations, the location was perfect for the couple as it was conveniently situated near Rasini’s grandparents’ house. Three years after purchasing the house, the first renovation was done to divide the available space into three bedrooms. As their children grew older and needed more personal space, another renovation took place three years later, adding a second floor and two more bedrooms. The incremental renovations continued into the next decade, with Rasmani and Nursiah allocating a portion of their salaries for this purpose. To minimise construction costs, they either undertook the renovations themselves or hired neighbours on an hourly wage basis.

Coincidentally, The period from 1993 to 1996 can be characterised as the first boom in Indonesia’s housing market (Firman, 2000); unfortunately, this condition was short-lived due to the economic crisis that hit Indonesia in mid-1998. This crisis led to a decline in the rupiah exchange rate, a significant decline in GDP, and a surge in layoffs. Consequently, numerous new housing projects were left unfinished, although many developers had overinvested in them. This situation benefited a select group of wealthy individuals while the rest of the nation bore the brunt of the economic chaos (Firman, 2004). Nevertheless, the housing market began to recover in early 2002, experiencing a surge in housing sales and increased property prices (Firman, 2004). This recovery, likely spurred by the 1998 economic crisis, which led to a depreciation in the rupiah’s value, caused the Indonesian public to seek safer investments like property to protect themselves from rising inflation. This growing demand is evident in the cumulative 56.82% increase in property prices from 2002 to 2008 (Bank Indonesia, 2008, as cited by Widianto, 2022). Yet, it is important to note that not all families experienced this recovery positively. For instance, the Rasini family faced hardship when Rasmani passed away in 2003, leaving Nursiah to provide for their eight children independently. At this juncture, the family house became not only a source of security (an emplacement for the family), but also a potential economic asset. It was during this time that Nursiah was faced with a hard decision.

“Beginning in 2005, my neighbors started putting their houses up for sale. Prospective buyers were offering bids as high as 15 million rupiah per square meter. Despite our pressing financial needs, my mother made the difficult decision not to sell our home. She knew that finding another affordable option capable of accommodating our entire family would be nearly impossible. Housing in Jakarta had become out of our reach and we had already quite comfortable with our surroundings. However, today, the neighbourhood around Mom’s house is filled with rental rooms.” – Rasini.

Nursiah’s decision to retain the house underscores the complexity of housing issues among low-income families. For them, the need for immediate stability and security often outweighs potential future economic gains. Nursiah prioritised housing security, for she didn’t have any other options left for her large family. Her decision had consequences; her children could not pursue a university education. This highlights the difficult trade-offs families often face between fulfilling their housing needs and ensuring their members’ well-being. Realistically, It fell upon individual households like theirs to make these tough decisions based on their unique circumstances, priorities, and resources for their long-term interest and overall welfare.

As the neighbourhood transformed into rental rooms closely related to real estate investment, it was even more challenging for long-term residents like Nursiah. The distinct characteristic between long-term residents and rental room occupants led to disparities in community engagement and neighbourhood cohesion. With rental room residents being more transient and less committed to community involvement, long-term residents like Nursiah experienced feelings of isolation and disconnected from their surroundings. This shift in neighbourhood dynamics could impact the overall well-being of long-term residents and erode the social fabric that once held the community together.

 

Second Generation: Rasini (2008 – Now)

“It reached a point where Mom’s house became increasingly overcrowded, so after my second child was born, we moved to Rumah Petak. The house is small, with no visible partitions between rooms, so we had to create our own dividers using cabinets or curtains to make it feel more like a home. But at that time, it was the only option we could afford.” – Rasini

Rasini and her husband married in 2008 and decided to rent a Rumah Petak in West Jakarta after their second child were born in 2011. Since Rasini’s husband earned a minimum wage of IDR 1,150,000 as a security staff member, the Rumah Petak, priced at IDR 500,000, was their only viable housing option. Rumah petak (cheap rental house) is a type of residential dwelling consisting of a large building divided into many small rooms, most of which are located in the Kampung area. In Rasini’s case, their unit has a rectangular room measuring 3×9 meters without wall separations. Then, she divided the area into two bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. Rumah petak is particularly popular among migrants or low-income households in metropolitan cities. Although Rasini is the homeowner’s child, the inheritance or wealth transfer theory using housing as an asset is impossible due to Nursiah’s eight children. Dividing the property fairly becomes more complex in a large family, potentially leading to disputes. Consequently, Rasini must find a solution to address her family’s housing needs.

Rasini’s husband worked in Cikarang, West Java, which meant he could only visit his family on weekends while staying at a company dormitory during the week. In 2013, he resigned from his job to become a street vendor selling sandals and shoes after saving up enough money to start his business. This decision was primarily motivated by Rasini’s struggles managing childcare and growing household expenses. Since income as a street vendor fluctuates, Rasini decided to work as a cleaning service, earning her the minimum wage (IDR 2,200,000), while her husband took up a second job as an Ojek Pangkalan (Indonesia’s motorcycle taxi rental). Their educational background, which is high school graduates, restricted their job opportunities, making it challenging for them to have financial security. Unknowingly, this limitation also influenced their housing options, demonstrating the interconnected nature of education, employment, and housing stability in urban environments.

“Rent is getting more and more expensive, so I started thinking about buying a house instead of constantly spending money on rent without owning anything. Ideally, I would like a house near my parents, but now it’s impossible. Now the price of a house near my mother’s house is up to 30 million rupiah per meter.” – Rasini

As the rent for Rumah Petak reached Rp 1,500,000/month in 2019, Rasini began considering homeownership, ideally close to Nursiah’s residence in Central Jakarta. However, that year, housing prices in Nursiah’s house had soared to IDR 30,000,000 per meter. Elmanisa et al. (2016) found that developers’ speculative practices in Jabodetabek contributed to soaring property prices counted by 50% between 2010 to 2014. Jakarta’s housing development focus on low-density, landed houses exacerbated the situation, causing land scarcity. This can be traced back to the aggressive new-town developments of the 1990s, when large developers targeted premium areas area Jakarta for luxury landed-housing projects, relegating affordable housing options to the outermost regions of the Bodetabek^[1] area. The impact of these trends is visible in the dramatic disparity in land prices across the city as discovered by Elmanisa et al. (2016). Land prices in Central Jakarta, where Nursiah’s residence is located, reach their peak. As one moves further away from this central area, the prices gradually decline, illustrating a clear gradient in property costs. This particular distribution of land prices exemplifies the economic forces at play in shaping the city’s urban landscape. Consequently, due to her financial constraints, Rasini found it increasingly challenging to find affordable housing near Nursiah’s home.

At that time, Rasini worked in an environment where she was exposed to extensive information about the government’s housing assistance program or KPR FLPP, which became her primary motivation for choosing this path. The KPR FLPP, or housing financing liquidity facility, is part of President Jokowi’s “Sejuta Rumah” (One Million House) initiative to improve affordability and homeownership among low-income households. Through this program, eligible first-time homeowners can obtain low-interest mortgages (5%) to purchase newly built affordable homes from developers. The monthly instalments for the Jabodetabek area range between IDR 950,000 – 1,200,000, with housing prices IDR 168,000,000. However, these affordable housing options have a trade-off: Low-quality units, low-transport accessibility, and inadequate infrastructure. Harrison (2017) highlights several problems with affordable housing units in Indonesia, such as the distance from employment opportunities and public amenities, lack of connection to the local water and electrical system, and seasonal flooding due to poor irrigation systems. These issues lead to the big question of whether the government’s homeownership target is truly addressing the housing needs of the majority or not.

 

After some delays in purchasing a house due to the Covid-19 case, Rasini finally purchased a 36 sqm house through the KPR FLPP program in mid-2022. She provided a down payment of IDR 6,500,000, which she paid off over four months, resulting in a mortgage instalment of IDR 1,080,000 for 20 years. The area where Rasini’s new home is not fully developed, with limited access to public amenities. It was 54 km from Rasini’s workplace, with a one-way commute taking 2 to 3 hours. This adds to the challenges Rasini and her family face, as they must deal with the long daily commute and the continuity of her husband’s business.

“We haven’t fully figured out everything that will come after moving. I’m just really hoping the current area will become more developed, so my husband’s plan to open street-stall in there can become a reality and help increase our family’s income.” – Rasini

Adamkovič and Martončik’s (2017) theory highlights the negative link between poverty and decision-making, with a preference for short-term rewards over long-term consequences among this group, which may perpetuate the cycle of poverty. In Rasini’s case, her decision to buy a house farther away from her main activity area is driven by her inability to determine the best choice between long-term consequences (long commute time, increased expenses, and impact on her work-life balance) and the need for a short-term solution (an affordable housing). Her financial constraints create a heavy cognitive load on psychological states, such as stress, uncertainty, and distress. As a result, This mental pressure impacts her impulsive decisions based on intuitive thinking, prioritizing short-term solutions over potential future outcomes. This pattern contributes to the cycle of poverty perpetuation as Rasini’s family’s inability to save money.

Despite Rasini’s new home being completed in early 2023, she postponed her move due to the unavailability of elementary schools for her children in the area. This situation certainly adds to Rasini’s financial burden, as she now has to manage both the mortgage instalment and housing rent. However, given the limited options available to her, Rasini finds herself with no choice but to bear the additional expenses.

Addressing The Housing Dilemma

The housing dilemma faced by Rasini’s Family across two generations  provides critical insights into the challenges and complexities low-income families face in navigating Jakarta’s housing market. The struggle to secure housing differs in each generation, which shows how Jakarta’s housing market shifted in a different era.

The Nursiah and Rasmani’s experienced the early stage of housing inequalities stemming from inadequate policies and profit-driven developments. As Jakarta transformed into a bustling metropolis, the availability of affordable housing failed to meet the demand, and existing options did not adequately cater to diverse needs. Consequently, low-income families faced immense struggles and relied on resilience and luck, as evidenced by them. Although they were fortunate enough to purchase a house before the price boom, they could not provide their childer with a high level of education due to limited resources left, thereby perpetuating the cycle of poverty and limiting their children’s opportunities for social mobility.

Despite the government’s efforts to implement new housing policies targeting low-income families in Rasini’s era, the ripple effects from past policy inadequacies were increasingly apparent. Rasini like most younger people in Jakarta, faced the harsh reality that securing housing within the inner city had become increasingly difficult. Housing options in the outskirts Jakarta, while not so affordable, are lacked proper infrastructure and basic amenities. This situation forces families like Rasini’s to make difficult trade-offs between affordability and access to resources, such as schools, a well-connected transportation system, and employment opportunities. Consequently, this exacerbates the urban segregation and social inequalities that plague Jakarta, as low-income families are pushed further away from the city centre and the opportunities it presents.

To address these issues, policymakers should re-evaluate and adjust policies to accommodate diverse needs while tackling past inadequacies by improving infrastructure for housing development on the outskirts. Furthermore, reconsidering the emphasis on homeownership is crucial, as it perpetuates neoliberal ideologies. Instead, promoting affordable rentals, cooperative housing, and community land trusts can offer secure living conditions without long-term financial burdens for this sector. By diversifying housing solutions, policymakers can challenge prevailing neoliberal narratives and work towards creating a more equitable and inclusive housing market that serves the needs of all citizens, regardless of their socio-economic status.

 

Bibliography

Adamkovič, M. and Martončik, M. (2017) ‘A Review of Consequences of Poverty on Economic Decision-Making: A Hypothesized Model of a Cognitive Mechanism’, Frontiers in Psychology, 8. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01784 (Accessed: 19 April 2023).

Arif Widianto (2022) Data Indeks Harga Properti di Indonesia, Bolasalju.com — Riset dan Edukasi Investasi. Available at: https://www.bolasalju.com/artikel/data-indeks-harga-properti-di-indonesia/ (Accessed: 11 April 2023).

Cybriwsky, R. and Ford, L.R. (2001) ‘City profile: Jakarta’, Cities, 18(3), pp. 199–210. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0264-2751(01)00004-X.

Dao Harrison (2017) Five lessons on affordable housing provision from Indonesia. Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/five-lessons-affordable-housing-provision-indonesia (Accessed: 21 April 2023).

Delta Group Property (2020) ‘Housing features of Puri Delta Kiara – Type 28/60’, Delta Property. Available at: https://deltaproperty.co.id/property/puri-delta-kiara-tipe-28-60/ (Accessed: 12 April 2023).

Elmanisa, A., Kartiva, A., Fernando, A., Arianto, R., Winarso, H. and Zulkaidi, D. (2016) ‘LAND PRICE MAPPING OF JABODETABEK, INDONESIA’, Geoplanning: Journal of Geomatics and Planning, 4, p. 53. Available at: https://doi.org/10.14710/geoplanning.4.1.53-62.

Firman, T. (2000) ‘Rural to urban land conversion in Indonesia during boom and bust periods’, Land Use Policy, 17(1), pp. 13–20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0264-8377(99)00037-X.

Firman, T. (2004) ‘Major issues in Indonesia’s urban land development’, Land Use Policy, 21(4), pp. 347–355. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2003.04.002.

Leaf, M. (1994) ‘The Suburbanisation of Jakarta: A Concurrence of Economics and Ideology’, Third World Planning Review, 16(4), pp. 341–356.

Struyk, R.J., Hoffman, M.L. and Katsura, H.M. (1990) The Market for Shelter in Indonesian Cities. Urban Institute Press.

Tarigan, S.G. (2017) Housing, homeownership and labour market change in Greater Jakarta, Indonesia. Thesis. Newcastle University. Available at: http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/3795 (Accessed: 10 April 2023).

Winarso, H. and Firman, T. (2002) ‘Residential land development in Jabotabek, Indonesia: triggering economic crisis?’, Habitat International, 26(4), pp. 487–506. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0197-3975(02)00023-1.

 

^[1] The term “Bodetabek” stand for Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi is an acronym used to describe the urban agglomeration that extends beyond Jakarta’s city limits and includes its surrounding satellite cities.

 

This housing story is part of a mini-series revealing the complex ways in which personal and political aspects of shelter provision interweave over time, and impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives. Space for strategic choice is nearly always available to some degree, but the parameters of that choice can be dramatically restricted or enhanced by context. The wide range of experience presented in this collection shines a light on the wealth of knowledge and insights about housing that our students regularly bring to the DPU’s learning processes.

By Alexandre Apsan Frediani and Camila Cociña

This housing story will explore the housing history of my grandfather named Seiichi Aota.  Throughout his 92 years (1928-2019), Japan experienced WWII, economic rise and fall, globalisation, and big earthquakes. The housing policies and land use have changed confronted changing socio-economic and political situations. From the perspective of my grandfather, this essay aims to highlight Japanese political context on housing. Interviews with his children (Aota family 2020, personal communication, March 2020) tell his housing story and livelihood. This story shows the transformation from the past housing programmes in a rapid population growth period to the current ones with more vacant houses in a hyper aging society.

Tough time due to WW II (1928-1951)

In 1928, my grandfather Seiichi Aota was born in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, in the western part of Japan. After a period of isolation from 1639 to 1853 when Japan only traded with the Netherlands, the Japanese government opened a port in Kobe in 1868 which is one of a few ports in Japan that allowed foreign trade. Railways were also established in late 1874 (Kobe City 2020), and this made Kobe accessible to the other business areas in Western Japan, such as Osaka.

At the age of six, Seiichi lost his mother and was adopted by his uncle Yutaka and aunt Mikao, who did not have children. Seiichi was moved to their house in Kitano, where the government had designated the area for Western-style residences built mostly for early foreign settlers (Kobe Ijinkan 2020). In 1939, WWII began, and he was forced to work in factories to produce weapons as part of the mobilization of students for production labour by ceasing his studies. The Japanese government banned the building of wooden houses that were more than 100 square meters (Nagano 2007). While Seiichi volunteered to be a soldier several times, as the only son of the family he was considered the single heir so his application was not passed. In 1945 there was a massive air raid that burnt down many of the traditional wooden houses, as well as almost all the houses that Seiichi’s uncle had bought before WWII. After Japan lost the war in August of 1945, it suffered terrible damage 3.1million people were killed in total and at this was also the start of the US occupation (Hirota 1992).

Part of this damaged included the 2.1 million houses that were burnt down, and it also left many people in need, there was 4.2 million houses were in urgent need to be built (Nagano 2007). The Japanese government provided temporary housing to victims of war, but the speed of provision was not enough to reach the demands. The U.S. General Headquarters (GHQ) introduced American democratic ideas to Japanese housing policies.  The GHQ’s guidance led the Japanese government to establish the Housing Loan Corporation for providing housings with low long-term interest rates. Due to the shift to a free economy, Japan faced inflation, which pushed up the price of building materials. The GHQ judged that Japan could not produce enough timber for housing. In order to promote less flammable buildings, they let Economic Science Bureau submit the comments indicating that reinforced concrete structures would be the most practical (Nagano 2007). This was the beginning of Japan addressing the issue of building less flammable housing in collaboration with private firms. These housing initiatives focused on efficient use of building materials whilst ensuring the minimum strength and promoting the use of non-combustible materials.

Seiichi’s family had all survived WWII. Because of the high demand for housing after the war, his uncle sold the remaining properties in Kobe. After that, his family left Kitano for Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture in the Southern part of Japan. His uncle became an investor in a relative’s shipbuilding business and negotiated with timber dealers for constructing ships in the mountains which were undamaged by the war.  Seiichi also worked in the same business. Difficulties obtaining affordable building materials led to the bankruptcy of the business. His parents went back to Kobe in 1950 and decided to open a candy store in Suidosuji shopping street in Kobe. They borrowed money from his aunt’s younger sister, who ran a restaurant close to Omuta Station in Fukuoka Prefecture. The City of Omuta was flourishing because of the coal industry and the population was the highest in 1959 (Omuta City 2020). Seiichi worked at the restaurant to reduce his uncle’s debt and earn a little pocket money. He started dating Kyoko, who was the daughter of his aunt’s eldest sister. Kyoko went on to become his wife. The loan was paid off by his parents afterwards.

 

Aotayashoten headquarters and branch (1951-1970s)

Around 1951, when the Security Treaty between the United States and Japan was signed, Seiichi’s parents opened a candy shop named Aotayashoten (Aota’s shop) on the east side of Suidosuji shopping street. Literally, in Japanese, Suido (water) Suji (street). It was developed by installing water pipes in the 1920s and was filled with lively scenes along with a market street (SUIDOUSUJI CO., Ltd 2020). His parents rented a house from the owner of a nearby shoe store.

The rental house had a shop front used for Aotayashoten with showcases of commodities and a dwelling area. Behind the shop front, there were four-tatami mats room, a small kitchen, a storage room and a toilet, there was no bathroom, so they used public bathhouses. The room was too small for the family and their employees to take meals together. Seiichi’s parents slept in a cramped tatami room that was very cold in the winter and was infested with mice. A classic example of the poor living conditions that was a result a state focused on increasing the numbers of houses and not the quality.

There was a period of economic growth from 1953 to 1973. Japan gradually started boosting up the economy by launching an economic growth policy and income doubling policy. The rapid population growth generated a housing shortage which resulted in soaring land prices, environmental problems, land sprawl, and many other issues (Nagano 2007). The government focused on housing policies and established four branches of Japan Housing Corp. in major Japanese cities, in 1955. The Corp. promoted housing estate development and land readjustment project. It launched 10,000 rental houses and 10,000 subdivisions of houses in half a year and created 35,000 new residences by the end of 1957 (Nagano 2007). In 1960, the income doubling policy led to mass-production and cost-cutting in housing. Additionally, the Ministry of Construction established the councils for prefabricated and public housing as well as financing systems which encouraged fast construction and the use of cheap materials. Due to this high demand in housing, private firms began industrialising the production of housing materials (Nagano 2007). This resulted in the creation of low-quality housing below the current standard (Suzuki 2008)

Riding on this economic wave, Seiichi’s parents rented a store on land belonged to the City of Kobe and opened a branch of the Aotayashoten in 1953. The branch was close to the east exit of the Higashi-Hatahara market, which connected to Suidosuji shopping street. The first floor had a store front with a showcase and a living quarter of around three to four tatami-mats, a kitchen, a toilet, and an entry way. There was no gas available, and they used a briquette brazier for making hot water. When they used a small heater in winter, the circuit breaker frequently tripped. So, they could not often use the heater. On the second floor, there was a six-mats tatami room and an eight-mats tatami room, a toilet, and a small wooden floored room. After Seiichi and Kyoko held their wedding at the restaurant, they left Omuta for Kobe to support Aotayashoten in Kobe. They rented a six-tatami mats room on the second floor of the apartment adjacent to the Suidosuji shopping street. Following the birth of their first son in 1954, the couple had their first daughter in 1957, the second son (my father) was born in 1959 and the second daughter in 1964. After the births they started living in the store. After living in the space, Seiichi bought the rented branch.

A house for Seiichi’s family (1970s-1980s)

The Japanese government predicted that the baby boomer generation after WWII would need residences that could accommodate their families and spouses, and the houses built after the war would need renovation. In response to the demands, the government established the five-year housing construction plan in 1960. This plan was renewed every five years and considered the foundation of Japanese housing policy, which mobilised the private housing market.

The first phase began in 1966 through to 1970 secured an increase in the average dwelling space to more than nine tatami-mats per small household (two-three people) and more than 12 tatami-mats per general household (more than four people) (Nagano 2007).  As Figure five (Nagano 2007, p28) shows, housing provision was permeating, and the government started more weighing on the housing quality. In 1973, the ratio of the average housing standard with insufficient facilities such as no bathroom was 72.7%.  Then, the Ministry of Construction started the Industrial housing performance certification system, in which users can check building standards. The oil crisis boosted up the price of building materials which caused a shortage in supplies. However, owing to the improved construction methods, during the third phase from 1976 to 1980, the ratio of people living below the minimum dwelling size standard with complex criteria (e.g.,19.5 tatami-mats per general household) decreased to one third (Nagano 2007, Uesugi & Asami 2009).

Mass produced housing built after the war needed renovation in the fourth phase.  The fourth phase, from 1981 to 1986, was aimed at securing the housing quality above the renewed minimum housing standard with more space per household. It was the beginning of introducing initiatives focusing on renovations and harmonisations with local areas (Nagano 2007). In 1982, the building performance certification system was launched to guarantee the building of long-lasting houses and to make maintenance of these houses smoother. The housing strategies were created to respond to the various demands from customers and local needs.

 

Aotayashoten gradually made profits owing to economic growth of Japan. The development of the area surrounding the store increased the number of customers. This led to the hiring of more employees who were introduced to Seiichi by his relatives in Shimabara. Seiichi rented rooms in the apartment near the store in front of Hankyu railroad crossing. His employees lived in a six tatami-mats rooms with a kitchen and shared toilet.

In order to accommodate his growing family, Seiichi decided to buy an existing house in Kuraishi within three to four minutes walking distance from Aotayashoten in the 1970s. The house was on land leased by a private owner which cost around 8 million JPY (around 62,000 GBP). The house without land tenure usually costs from 60% to 80% of the housing with land tenure dependent on the market price of the land, as the landowner pays real estate acquisition tax, property tax and city planning tax and housing costs (Iecon 2020). It was much cheaper to rent land and buy the house, than buy both the land and house together. With the permission from the landowner, he refurbished the house, which was built before the Pacific War in 1941. The newly renovated house had a Western-style room, a tatami room, a dining room and kitchen and a toilet on the first floor, and two tatami rooms on the second floor. They still used public bathhouses. Since his aunt had already passed away, he invited his uncle to move from the store to the house with him. Seiichi would often stay at the store to ensure the business ran smoothly.

 

Rise and Fall in the late 1980s, and the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995

In 1985, the U.S. invited Japan, U.K, Germany, and France to hold a G5 Summit and agreed with the Plaza to depreciate the U.S. dollar by intervening in currency markets.  This caused a sharp yen recession in Japan. Although the Bank of Japan adopted a thorough low-interest-rate policy, the result was an unprecedented “money surplus”. The surplus funds flowed into the stock market, and asset prices began to rise. The real estate market no longer played such an essential role, such as land speculation, which became a social issue. In 1989, the Bank of Japan suspended the low-interest rate policy, and the government regulated the lending. There was a rebound that had risen too sharply, and then stock prices and land prices entered a prolonged slump. This was the burst of the Japanese economic bubble. It took a long time to recover from the aftermath, and it was later called the “Lost 20 Years” (Nihon Sangyo Keizai Shimbun, 2013).

Reflecting the social and economic situation the birth rate started declining, the housing policies started to focus more on the elderly from 1986. The sixth phase of the five-year housing construction plan changed directions leaning towards integrating the housing programmes into a housing master plan. This showed the reconstruction of housing policies and the combining of the private and public housing sectors together as a commercial housing market. This encouraged local governments to reflect locally on their housing policies. The government promoted housing supply initiatives targeting the middle aged and elderly people through new town projects.

Once Seiichi’s children became independent. He decided to close the Aotayashoten in 1987, and his first daughter rented the same space and opened her own accessory store. However, the rental fee per month suddenly increased from 40,000 JPY (310 GBP) to 80,000 (620 GBP) in a half year and the impact of the economic bubble forced her to close the store.

 

After the Japanese economy experienced inflation and deflation, the Great Hanshin earthquake occurred (Kobe earthquake) at a magnitude of 7.2 on January 17, 1995, at 5:46 a.m. This caused more than 6,000 deaths and over 30,000 injuries (NIST, 2017). Although Seiichi had renovated his house and put in place measure to strengthen it against earthquakes the year before, it was still damaged. As carpenters were in high demanded after the disaster, he was unable to fix them. The revised building standard act did not allow him to have a house of the same size, and he needed to leave as he did not own the land. Seiichi gave up rebuilding the house on the same site. They had no choice but to stay at a designated evacuation area in an elementary school and got allocated to a flat in a prefabricated house after some time. He applied for the restoration housing fund several times but with too many applicants he was unable to receive it. Finally, he was able to access public housing in June 1998. This was a small flat with a six tatami-mats room, a small western room, kitchen, balcony, a toilet, and a bathroom. That was the final abode for Kyoko and Seiichi.

 Conclusion 

After WWII, Japan experienced rapid economic and population growth. In response to the housing demands, the government established regulations, initiatives, and institutions for housing provision. As time passed, they encouraged private sectors to invest in housing materials and housing constructions for improving the housing quality.

Whilst globalisation has both good and bad sides, the Japanese economy was badly damaged by the Plaza accord. This put Japan into an economic recession for a long time which led to low birth rates and triggered an aging society. In 2018, 27.7% of the population was over 65 years old, and 13.6% of Japanese houses became vacant without maintenance (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, 2019).

The Japanese livelihood has changed a lot over the 90 years of my grandfather’s life. In association with many life events and unavoidable circumstances such as work-related transfers, family and disasters, he lived in many different types of homes. After he cared for Kyoko who had dementia, he passed away of blood cancer last June, just one day before I got the unconditional offer from the University College London. He lived his life to the fullest.

 

Note – It is necessary to clarify a uniquely Japanese way to measure floors with using the unit of “tatami”.  The original meaning of tatami is a rectangular mat for floor covering, which consists of a thick straw base and a soft, finely woven rush cover with cloth borders from ancient times. A Danchi tatami measures approximately 170 by 85 cm and is about five cm thick (Magokorotatami 2020). Six tatami-mats room is Six tatami-mats room considered a standard size in Japan. While 4.5 mats can be recognised as small or cramped, an eight-mats or ten mats room is a quite large room in general (H&R GROUP 2018). The most Japanese houses request people to take off their shoes in the entrance.

Bibliography 

H&R GROUP. (2018) ‘Measuring Room Sizes in Japan’. Available at:  https://morethanrelo.com/en/measuring-room-sizes-in-japan/. (Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Hirota, J. (1992). ‘Taiheiyousensou ni okeru Wagakuni no Sensohigai:  Sensohigaichosa no Sengoshi Keizaigaku Saisyu Kogi yori’, The Journal of  Rikyokeizaigakukenkyu, 45 (4), pp. 1-20. Available at:

https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/120005887738/en/. (Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Iecon (2020) ‘Shakuchitsuki Tatemono wo Konyusuru Merit・Demerit wa?  Wakariyasuku Kaisetsu’. Available at: https://iekon.jp/shakuchiken-merit-demerit/.  (Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Kobe City (2020) ‘Kindai Kobe Ryakunenpyo’. Available

at: https://www.city.kobe.lg.jp/a57337/shise/about/energy/nenpyo.html. (Accessed:  21 March 2020).

Kobe Kitano Ijinkangai (2020) ‘Kobe Kitano History’. Available at:  https://www.kobeijinkan.com/history.(Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Magokorotatami. (2020) ‘Tatami no Saizu ni tsuite’. Available at:

https://magokorotatami.co.jp/sp/stopics_tatami4-1.html. (Accessed: 21 March 2020). Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan (2019) ‘Heisei 30 nen  Jyutaku・Tochitokeichosa: Jyutaku oyobi Setai ni Kansuru Kihonsyukei Kekka  Gaiyou’. Available at:

https://www.stat.go.jp/data/jyutaku/2018/pdf/kihon_gaiyou.pdf. (Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Nagano, Y. (2007). Jyutakuseisaku to Jyutakuseisan no Henkeku ni Kansuru  Kihontekikenkyu: Mokuzojyutakuzairaikohou ni kakawaru Fukkouseisaku no  Henkaku. Quarterly Journal of Nihon Jyutaku Kyokai. Geihakukoudai (25). pp.10-75

Nihon Sangyo Keizai Shimbun (2013) ‘Genzai Nihon wo Shirutame ni (14) Baburu Keiki towa Nan Dattaka’. Available at:

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGKDZO50544580S3A110C1TCP000/.(Accessed:  21 March 2020).

NIST (2017) ‘Earthquake Kobe Japan 1995’. Available at: https://www.nist.gov/el/earthquake-kobe-japan-1995.(Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Omuta City (2020) ‘Tokeinenkan’. Available at: https://www.city.omuta.lg.jp/hpKiji/pub/detail.aspx?c_id=5&id=3991&class_set_id= 1&class_id=206.(Accessed: 21 March 2020).

SUIDOUSUJI CO., Ltd (2020) ‘Suidosuji Syotengai ni tsuite’. Available at: http://www.suido-suji.com/about/index.php.(Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Suzuki, T. (2018) ‘Ie to Jyutakugaisya no Rekishi: Gendai ni Nokoru Kindaikenchiku  no Katachi’, 7 June 2018. Available at:

https://www.sumailab.net/column/theme/4/article/71/.(Accessed: 21 March 2020).

Statistical Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan. ‘Jutaku Tokei Chosa’.

Uesugi, M. & Asami, Y. (2009). Significance of dwelling size standard and research trends in Japan. CSIS Discussion paper No.98. Available at http://www.csis.u tokyo.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/98.pdf. (Accessed: 21 March 2020).

 

This housing story is part of a mini-series revealing the complex ways in which personal and political aspects of shelter provision interweave over time, and impact on multiple aspects of people’s lives. Space for strategic choice is nearly always available to some degree, but the parameters of that choice can be dramatically restricted or enhanced by context. The wide range of experience presented in this collection shines a light on the wealth of knowledge and insights about housing that our students regularly bring to the DPU’s learning processes.