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Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen G. Gonzalez
Squatters, Pirates, And Entrepreneurs: Is Informality The Solution To The Urban Housing Crisis?, Carmen G. Gonzalez
Carmen G. Gonzalez
Giving the poor legal title to the lands they occupy extra-legally (informally) has been widely promoted by the World Bank and by best-selling author Hernando de Soto as a means of addressing both poverty and the scarcity of affordable housing in the urban centers of the global South. Using Bogotá, Colombia, as a case study, this article interrogates de Soto’s claims about the causes of informality and the benefits of formal title. The article concludes that de Soto’s analysis is problematic in three distinct respects. First, de Soto exaggerates the benefits of formal title and fails to consider its risks. …