REGULARIZATION OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AND INVESTMENT BASED ON SUSTAINABILITY LEVELS

Abstract

Urban sustainability is one that offers quality of life to its inhabitants without putting at risk the resources and the current and future well-being of the population, and also seeks social justice. The dimensions that intervene to generate sustainable spaces are economic, social and environmental, whose interaction pursues efficiency, equity and habitability. Informal settlements in a city form an integral part of the urban fabric and register different levels of sustainability generated by inequalities in the conditions of spatial integration, location, access to network infrastructures, facilities, services, jobs and income, land ownership and of housing, among others. These inequalities generate marked barriers that hinder municipal management in the process of regularization and consolidation of informal estates, also limiting the people located there to ascend socially, integrate into territorial dynamics and achieve higher levels of well-being. Added to this is the absence of clear local management and administration procedures for informal settlements, which limits the identification of problems, the potential of their realities to guide the regularization and consolidation process, the mitigation of vulnerabilities and risks. Given this reality, the question arises: How can the levels of sustainability of informal settlements guide regularization and consolidation policies? Measuring sustainability in the total number of informal settlements in an urban area by calculating partial indices and the global sustainability index makes it possible to identify critical problems and the inequalities between them, rank them, prioritize them and formulate strategies and actions in a more accurate way, giving priority to those settlements in the most critical situation. Knowing the levels of sustainability of informal settlements facilitate management and regularization, in a joint action of the municipality with the communities. It is a valid strategy to guide regularization processes, their consolidation and guide investments.