Desegregating the City: Ghettos, Enclaves, and Inequality

6. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF RAPID URBAN SPATIAL SEGREGATION: The New Towns of Tegucigalpa

Chapter 6 CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF RAPID URBAN SPATIAL SEGREGATION The New Towns of Tegucigalpa Glenn Pearce-Oroz Introduction In Tegucigalpa, a quintessential case of urban spatial segregation, with its inherent positive and negative consequences, is currently underway. As noted in the operational definition suggested below, spatial segregation in this context focuses on accessibility to services. In the present case, thousands of families displaced by Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the nation of Honduras in October 1998, are being resettled in a valley twelve kilometers northwest of the capital on unpopulated rural land within the municipal jurisdiction of Tegucigalpa. The approximately thirty-six hundred families that will eventually be relocated to constitute the “new towns” of Tegucigalpa share similar socioeconomic characteristics. While the new residents will have access to basic infrastructure and social services (most will also possess legal title to their new properties), their connection to a large and diverse urban economy will be disrupted. Ironically, the majority of the population in the new towns will be living in inversely deficient conditions from which they came. Whereas prior to being displaced by the hurricane, most families lived within relatively easy access to established urban markets (e.g., labor and commercial) and common public areas facilitating social integration, they also lived predominantly in environmentally high-risk zones (those with excessive slopes on unstable Varady: Desegregating the City page 108 land; predisposed to erosion and landslides) with either inadequate or incomplete basic services. Now, their access to basic services will be resolved , but their connection to the urban markets will be disrupted. This case of spatial segregation is particularly compelling because of the extreme nature of the physical segregation (families are being resettled at a great distance from the capital) as well as the clarity of two sets of variables influencing the resettlement sites: land market forces and the political and social pressures that emerged in the aftermath of the hurricane . Analysis focuses on the extent to which land market imperfections and the political and social pressures have affected the resettlement of families to these new towns, and will be followed by recommended instruments for planning practitioners facing similar problems. First, however , the historical and spatial context of this phenomenon is addressed. Explosive Urbanization in Tegucigalpa Over the past thirty years, Tegucigalpa, presently home to a population of approximately nine hundred thousand or 15 percent of the country’s estimated six million inhabitants, has been one of the most rapidly urbanizing cities in the hemisphere. According to the most recent projections by the Centro Latinoamericano de Demografía (CELADE 2000), Honduras will continue to register the highest average annual urbanization rates (4.0 percent) of the entire region for the period 2000–2005. The city’s rapid rate of urbanization, however, contrasts sharply with the rural character of the country. The projected acceleration of urban growth provides clear evidence of a country in the midst of intense social and economic transition. In a region where 75 percent of the population is now urban, Honduras is one of three countries in Latin America that has remained predominantly rural with only 48 percent of Hondurans living in urban areas (CELADE 2000). The urbanization of Tegucigalpa has followed the same trend, although perhaps more intensely, as that of many Latin American cities with informal settlements or marginal neighborhoods growing at the edges of the urban core on real estate, which is easily accessible to the urban poor due to its low value and undesirable topography. Similar to the favelas in Brazilian cities, pueblos jóvenes in Perú, and callampas in Varady: Desegregating the City page 109 Pearce-Oroz rapid urban spatial segregation 109 Chile, the marginal neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa, which are often in areas with excessive slope or near the banks of the Choluteca River, are characterized by an improvised settlement pattern, a lack of integration with the rest of the city, and irregular land tenure. In addition, Tegucigalpa’s mountainous terrain (altitude 1,200 meters) does not permit for natural urban expansion rendering certain low-lying areas more valuable and easier to service with public utilities than areas at higher elevations . As such, basic urban services, the extension of access roads, inclusion of green space and other community or social infrastructure (particularly schools and health clinics) tend to be lacking in these informal settlements, which in 1998 made up roughly 225 of Tegucigalpa’s 340 neighborhoods accounting for a...