Shelter + Economy, Bogotá (Kyle)

John Kyle Paisley
Oct. 31st, 2010


The Economy of Shelter: Bogota (Kyle Paisley)

-Bogotá is the capital city of Colombia, as well as the most populous city in the country, with an estimated 7,304,384 inhabitants as of 2009 (Wikipidia)

-Bogota has Bogotá over 1400 informal settlements occupying 24% of its area and housing 22% of its population."(World Bank 2008)

- Many Colombians come to the city to escape rural violence, particularly the guerrilla violence of the FARC. Too poor to afford housing rents, they have to find alternative solutions, such as building their own houses.

Ciudad Bolivar
-The largest informal settlement of Bogota comprising 10% of the population

-the main economic activities are carried out by trade, hotels, restaurants, transportation and warehousing

-Between 1993 and 2002, the population of Ciudad Bolivar grew by 50%, more than twice as much as the city as a whole. (5 Proyecto Bogot. Como Vamos, La Pobreza en Bogota, Bogota D.C. Agosto de 2003, p. 2)
-The population grew from 35,000 residents in 1973 to a projected 713,000 in 2005. This data is probably a huge underestimation of the population of Ciudad Bolivar. By other accounts the population was somewhere between 1,2 millionand 2 million. (Ciudad Bolivar, Mas Cerca de las Estrellas, La Expresion, Bogot Colombia, http://www.laexpresion.com)



Economy of Shelter
-Most of the 400,000 houses of Ciudad Bolivar were built with very basic means, without plan or permits by the residents or by slumlords.
-A house in Ciudad Bolivar costs between $700,000 and 1 million pesos (USD $270 - $380).
- Unlike in developed countries, houses have limited potential as a financial asset in Ciudad Bolivar since the market is generally stagnant. This is due to the minimal means of Incomers, while the middle-class is not interested in living in the area.
- rather than upgrade to a larger house, lower income families generally add floors to their houses, which causes all kinds of safety issues and increases density.
(http://www.urbanology.org/Bogota/)

Unemployment / Underemployment

- The labour force is defined as the number of people employed plus the number unemployed but seeking work.

-The underemployed are those who work below their potential, either in skill level or pay/hours; Divided into subjective underemployed, those who, despite their dissatisfaction, do not for a variety of reasons make an efforts to find another job, and the objective underemployed who make an effort to find another job.

-Unemployment stopped growing, but the phenomenon of underemployment continues to rise. In July 2009, the number of underemployed came to 7.34 million in Columbia

-underemployment often supplemented by work in the informal sector, particularly in the slums

- The unemployment rate in Colombia was last reported at 12.80 percent in June of 2010, slightly higher than the year before at 12.6 percent,

-According to the National Bureau of Statistics (DANE), the subjective underemployment reached 34.2 percent in July 2010, up from 30.2 percent in the same month of 2009 (http://avilacmg.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/portafolio-one-million-people-are-underemployed-according-to-dane-unemployment-stood-at-12-6/)

Country	Interest Rate	Growth Rate	Inflation Rate	Jobless Rate	Current Account	Exchange Rate
Colombia	3.00%	1.00%	2.24%	12.80%	-1396	1811.5000

http://www.bogotalab.com/articles/bogota_edge.html

Attempts to change: Public Infrastructure

- Typically, the government legalizes established settlements in Ciudad Bolivar rather than evicting residents or resettling.

- It is very costly to provide illegal settlements with water systems, electricity and telephone lines.

-In an effort to cut the cost of retrofitting informal settlements, the City created an agency called Metrovivienda. It acquires land at the edge of the city, puts in place the necessary infrastructure and then sells the lots to developers who build for sale affordable housing units.

-The principal weakness of this program is that it leaves out families too poor to buy a house.

-Efforts have been made to connect Ciudad Bolivar to the rest of the city through public transportation networks.

(Haslam et. al. 2009) Introduction to International Development

USEFUL PAPER ON BOGOTA: http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu23me/uu23me0u.htm