social housing - a coercive tool for socio-spatial segregation in the neoliberal world

Social Housing A coercive tool for socio-spatial segregation in

the neoliberal world

Shikha Keshan Architecture Thinking Thesis, MSc Architecture, TU Delft Urban Asymmetries, DSD 12.1.2012

Social Housing, a coercive tool for socio-spatial segregation in the neoliberal world

Table of Contents

Preface

Page No.

1. Introduction 1

2. What is social housing? 3

3. Existenzminimum 4

4. From Social Rented to Private Property 6

5. Social housing in Mexico 7

4.1 Riberas Del Bravo, Ciudad Juarez

6. Social housing and urban poverty 12

7. Forms of Socio-spatial segregation and its relationship with power 16

8. The role of the state in furthering the domination of capital 22

9. Conclusion 24

10. Bibliography

Preface

The topic for this paper is inspired by the research carried out by me and my group for our

Graduation studio – Urban Asymmetries, Mexico as part of the Delft School of Design (DSD)

track. The site visit to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico as a part of my graduation studio was

especially a very important moment in conceiving this specific topic. The state initiated housing

schemes which I saw in Mexico City and in Ciudad Juarez revealed the ugly face of the future

of the neoliberal city and the Leviathan it has created. The conversations with the workers who

occupied the social housing schemes in Juarez and the other actors involved in the production

and maintenance of these housing schemes helped in gaining an insight into the social,

political and economic issues which dominate the polemics of housing the urban poor in

developing countries. I was motivated to investigate into the various discussions surrounding

social housing as I think that this issue is not only relevant in Mexico, but is also a very

important discussion in contemporary urban debates surrounding the spatialization of

neoliberal politics and the deployment of urban and architectural strategies to consolidate its

position. The purpose of this paper is not to arrive at one specific solution to counter these

autocratic modes of production of space, but I hope that it will inspire me in producing creative

solutions which can counter or discourage such spatial configurations.

Keywords

Socio-spatial segregation

Marginalization

Spatialization of neoliberalism

Stigmatization

Mechanisms of power

S u b j u g a t i o n

Disappearance of the working class from an active urban public life

Creation of urban poverty

S o c i a l H o u s i n g

Social Housing – A coercive tool for socio-spatial segregation in the neoliberal world

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1. Introduction

The essay aims to discuss the spatialization of neoliberal ideologies through public

housing or social housing in a profit-driven way of creating urban environments, especially in

the case of developing countries like Mexico. It will use the specific case of the way social

housing stock in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico is produced and planned as a case study to reflect on

the creation of state initiated housing as a mechanism to create socio-spatial segregation in

urban environments and to maintain the power of capital and the allegiance of the weaker

working population. The role of social housing in the neoliberal world is questioned.

“Social Housing” in a world of ascending neoliberalism– Does it exist in the sense of being

‘social’? Or does it only further consolidate the position of neoliberal principles in the urban environment

by creating physical and social segregation?”

The thesis begins with an investigation and definition of the term ‘social housing’ - an

umbrella term to signify state initiated housing models and the context in which it has been

used in the essay. It discusses how the perception of social housing, intended to raise the

conditions of the working poor and to provide dignified living conditions to all has changed over

time and today, it sanctions the very social inequality that it sought to overcome. The

discussions which took place during the CIAM congress of 1929 in Frankfurt help to

understand the concept of “minimum subsistence housing”. The shift from social rented to

privately-owned social housing is also studied to understand how the tool of social housing

was used to moderate social and political behavior in the 1960s post Cuban Revolution. A

society which feeds into mass consumption and considers the standards of western middle-

class lifestyle as the ideal form of urbanization was created in Latin America through

popularizing the privately-owned individual houses subsidized by the state.

The production and financing of social housing in Mexico and in Ciudad Juarez is

discussed to establish the context and to understand the role of the government agencies in

the production of subsidized housing. The way state initiated schemes of funding are

introduced for the low-income working class to sell sub-standard, peripheral houses which


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have no social or economic value is important to understand the creation and the subsistence

of the urban poor. How the encroachment of neoliberal policies into and privatization of social

housing is responsible for the growing number of the urban poor is elaborated. Urban

settlement patterns help to understand the connection between urban poverty, urban sprawl

and stigmatized periphery.

The final part of the essay discusses the different forms of socio-spatial segregation and

its changing forms in societies using readings of Loic Wacquant. The relevant frameworks and

concepts of Pierre Bourdieu are briefly explained to understand Wacquant who was heavily

influenced by him. The marginalization which arises out of the social housing schemes and

how they further socio-spatial segregation in the urban environment are integral in

understanding the power of space as a medium to establish hierarchy and domination. Loic

Wacquant’s discussion on “Designing Urban Seclusion in the twenty-first century” helps in

comprehending the spatial, social and economic impact which the state through its structure

and policies and its actions and inactions has on low-income group in the city. It is discussed

how the subsidized housing furthers exploitation and stigmatization and makes credit slaves

out of the low wage workers through state-initiated mortgage credit system of financing low

quality peripheral housing. The growing numbers of abandoned houses in cities like Ciudad

Juarez where there are 116,000 expose the appalling face of neoliberal modes of production of

housing.

The essay ends with a critical questioning of the role that “social” housing can have in

the cities and a need to relook and re-question how we create, build and finance low-income

housing in developing countries to counter the spatialization of neoliberal ideologies.


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2. What is social housing?

Subsidized housing or social housing is government supported accommodation for people

with low to moderate incomes. Forms of subsidies include direct housing subsidies, non-profit

housing, public housing, rent supplements and some forms of co-operative and private sector

housing.

Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government

authority, which may be central or local.

Housing subsidies are government funding to aid low income tenants in renting housing. The

subsidy amount is typically based on the tenant's income, but other formulas have been used.

Non-profit housing is owned and managed by private non-profit groups such as churches,

ethnocultural communities or by governments. Many units are provided by community

development corporations (CDCs). These use private funding and government subsidies to

support a rent-geared-towards-income program for low-income tenants.

Though there is no definite unambiguous definition of social housing, housing which is

regulated by public authorities to some extent and for which non-market allocation procedures

exists, could be defined as social housing.

At the core of the intentions of social housing was to provide housing by the state to the

economically weaker section of the society, who cannot afford to acquire housing through the

private sector. It was intended to alleviate urban poverty of the working class and to bring

about social cohesion, social equity and an urban mix and was seen as a potential remedy to

housing inequality.


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3. Existenzminimum

The idea of ‘minimum subsistence dwelling’, was first declared at the 2nd CIAM

conference held in Frankfurt in 1929. Invented by architects such as Ernst May, the “flat for the

minimum existence” was intended to raise living conditions of the working poor by defining a

minimum standard for dignified living. Today, the Minimum subsistence dwelling under the

name of social housing or affordable housing sanctions the very social inequality that its

founders sought to overcome back in the 1920s.

Ernst May was one of the most important figures of early years of CIAM and was

responsible for the proposal to hold the second CIAM congress in Frankfurt. On this occasion

he prepared a report on the subject of the congress “Die Wohnung für das Existenzminimum”

(the Minimum Subsistence Dwelling) with the focus on design solutions to the problem of high

rents for low wage earners. May stated his vision of modernity and the goals he had in mind in

an article in the first issue of Das Neue Frankfurt. In it he advocated the examples of “unified

complexes of culture” as seen in some major metropolises of the past like Babylon, Thebes,

Byzantium and others and criticized how this notion was missing in his own epoch- where

culture had evolved into a chaos of tendencies and a notion of “unified cul-ture” was nowhere

to be found. He talked about how the foundations for a new homogeneous and unified culture,

comparable to the past cultures, had to laid through deliberate steps and actions. “Modernity”

for him meant the creation of a new unified metropolitan culture made up of people with equal

rights and common rights. The modernists approach believed that every object should be

understood in terms of its innermost essence conforming to its function, devoid of any excess

or pretentions. It was also this conviction that made the project of housing for

Existenzminimum more than a purely instrumental answer to the housing situation – an

opportunity to realize ascetic ideal- housing reduced to its essence.1

The architects of Das Neue Frankfurt gave priority to the industrialization of the

construction process and the principles of Taylorism in the use of space and were convinced

that the “rational” character of these technologies complemented the “rational: society they

1 Mumford, 2000


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wanted to achieve; a society based on equal rights and homogeneity. In their scheme of

things, the social aspect occupied a prominent place: ensuring that the housing needs of the

poor and the under privileged were alleviated to increase the emancipation of all individuals

and to enhance the culture of the everyday life. May’s effort to find the minimum dwelling was

based on “biological” and not economical requirements. During the ensuing discussions it

emerged that the biological considerations would determine the design of minimum dwellings –

an elementary minimum of space, air, light and heat would be provided so that the dweller can

fully develop his life functions and every adult would have his own room, small though it may

be. An exhibition “The Minimum Dwelling Unit” was opened during the Frankfurt congress in

which a comparative approach was used organizing two hundred and seven floor plans of

minimum units in categories of one-, two- or multifamily housing with indications of floor area,

cubage, window area and the number of beds. Despite May’s efforts to Taylorize the

production of minimum units to reduce costs, the housing costs were only increasing and the

rent on even a minimum unit was more than half the monthly government check received by

the unemployed during that period. (the CIAM2 opened in October 24, 1929, the day the New

York stock market crashed). After 1929, when the consequences of the economic crisis

became pressing, public housing was treated primarily as an economic and social problem and

rationality and functionality in design was mainly thought in terms of cost-effectiveness. The

rationalization of the construction process and the development of housing for the

Existenzminimum were subordinate to the purpose of being in service to as many people as

possible with the limited means that were available. 1

1 Mumford, 2000

Bruchfeldstrasse Siedlung, Ernst May

(Image source: http://www.nybooks.com/multimedia/view-photo/2737)

(Image source:

http://www.moma.org/collection_

images/resized/641/w500h420/

CRI_4641.jpg)


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4. From Social Rented to Private Property

In 1961 President Kennedy launched the Alliance for Progress (Aplro) with an agenda

to block ideas in the Latin Americas inspired by the triumph of the Cuban Revolution by

attempting to promote economic improvements with an emphasis on supporting private

property, even in social housing. Urban scholars, politicians, diplomats and urbanists of the

Americas sought to promote middleclass habits, mass consumption and moderate political

behavior, especially among the poor, by expanding access to homeownership and ‘decent’

living conditions for a burgeoning urban population. As a result, the history of low income

housing should be understood within broader transnational discourses and practices about the

‘modernization’ and ‘development’ of the urban poor. The housing policies became an

important aspect of inter-American relations and foreign aid during the 1960s in Latin America.

The urban home for the poor became an instrument of political and social interventions that

operated across national and international borders; new language to define the urban home

conforming to the urban housing standards of Western capitalist democracy developed. Within

the sociological and political circuits of knowledge produced to address the Latin American

path to post-war modernity, housing policy emerged as a discursive and practical antidote to

underdevelopment, poverty and social instability. 2

The planners of the 1960s used the multilateral appeals of expanded access to

homeownership and ‘decent’ living conditions as means to promote middle-class habits, mass

consumption and moderate political behavior, especially among the poor. The housing

component of urban planning and urban renewal thus came to be a desired outcome of

modernization: an antidote to an irrational politics of working-class populism and a prophylaxis

against the specter of social upheaval and anti- Americanism that framed US–Latin American

relations after the Cuban Revolution.

Within Cold War anxieties revealed by the Cuban Revolution and the process of

decolonization in Africa and Asia, the Alliance for Progress was the mechanism to promote

peaceful social reform to counter the perceived communist threat. President Kennedy himself

2 Hays K, 2011


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viewed Latin America as a hot spot of Cold War politics and launched his programme of

economic co-operation by promising the disbursement of $20 billion within a decade. Latin

American countries received US dollars and technical assistance designated for land reform,

health, education and housing projects.

Teodoro Moscoso, the US coordinator of the Alliance for Progress directly appointed by

President Kennedy, declared in 1961, ‘we must convince these [Latin American] peoples that

through the Alliance they can really reach progress and happiness . . .We must evangelize

them! . . . you must remember, this job is not just the administration of billions of dollars. It is a

job of evangelizing’ (my emphasis).3

Housing the urban poor has had political and social agendas and the tool of housing

and housing policies were used to popularize western standards of urbanization and

modernization and the involvement of trans-national actors and institutions for interpretation of

modernization and its intervention in the urban fabric. Home owning was seen as a first step to

introducing the low income group into the middle-class segment and to mass culture,

irrespective of whether they could afford to pay the mortgage or loan for acquiring the houses

and whether the housing addressed other issues like access to urban infrastructure, jobs and

participation the urban public life.

5. Social housing in Mexico

As a result of the policies promoted by the Alliance for Progress, social housing was

privatized in Mexico since the 1960s and the Housing Finance Programme was founded in

1963. Social housing construction companies emerged as a result of the financial support

provided by the state initiated financing programmes. The changes in the Mexican housing and

economic policies in the 1990s, though deregularisation and privatization encouraged the

development of social housing on the urban peripheries leading to urban sprawl and a growth

in urban poverty.

3 Benmergui, 2009


8

The huge growth in the urban population in Mexico in the 1970s led to a growth in housing

demand, especially to house the low and middle income population who migrated to cities for

jobs. The Infonavit (the Institute for the National Fund for Worker Housing) – which would later

become the largest housing financial institution in the country was formed in 1972. As part of

the reform in 1972, the employer’s constitutional obligation to contribute 5% of a registered

worker’s salary to the housing fund was implemented. Infonavit invested worker’s savings in

purchasing urban land and the construction of housing estates for low and middle income

workers. Initially these housing estates were located in urban areas with a wide range of

services and amenities. The changes in the economic development model of Mexico in the late

1980s focused on free trade, financial deregulation, market orientation and increased

democracy and transparency. This had a major impact on the housing policy as well – new

funding methods and conditions for credits were introduced and the role of the state as the

provider for social housing almost disappeared.

In 1992 there was a change in the law governing Infonavit to comply with the

changes in the economic model of the country, to promote free market. Infonavit- which had

formerly purchased land and determined the location, architecture, price and target group of its

investments was turned into a purely financial semi-state institution. The two main financing

sources for this credit institution being - employer contribution of five percent of a formal

employee’s salary each month and the collections on loans granted- the loan amount

depending on the worker’s wage level. The amount of loan which again depended on the

wage, determined which kind of housing a person was able to apply for. This immediately had

the effect of reducing the “choice” of selecting one’s house to a very limited range. The

monthly mortgage depends on the wage as well, usually between 20-25% of the workers’ full

wage.

Infonavit sold its territorial reserves in conveniently located urban zones and law

legalizing the selling of community-owned agrarian (ejido) land in the free market led to the

creation of urban sprawl through development of social housing in peripheral urban areas.


9

Private developers starting acquiring inexpensive peripheral lands for urbanization and the

development of lower and middle class stigmatized neighbourhoods at the peripheries with

The neo-liberal ideological tendencies which have affected the housing sector through a

gradual move toward privatization, whereby private developers initiate more greatly the layout

of neighborhoods and construction of houses according to Infonavit (the Institute for the

National Fund for Worker Housing) specifications and the state provides mortgages have

produced really low quality housing which are now facing abandonment. These subsidized

houses are usually of very small sizes – between 30 sq mts to 55 sq mts and are almost

always located far from the city centre at the periphery due to availability of cheap land; the

housing quality is poor due to profit-driven of the private developers who are responsible for

the constructions of these homes. The only good connections from such neighbourhoods are

to the maquilas (manufacturing plants) and through the buses run by the industries. The public

transport connecting to the centre is almost negligible and access of informal economy is

reduced and the dependency on the foreign-run maquilas increase further as they become not

only an integral part of the funding of the house but also one of the only accessible economies.

Social housing since the early 1970s has been among the most visible strategies for building

and maintaining working class allegiances to both the state and the interests of domestic and

foreign capital

“Thus, social housing is but one tangible example of the Mexican state’s role as mediator of

tensions between the interests of domestic and foreign capital and the state on the one hand,

and the laboring class on the other.” 4

5.1 Riberas Del Bravo, Ciudad Juarez

“Ciudad Juarez is all our futures. This is the inevitable war of capitalism gone mad.”

says Ed Vulliamy of The Guardian and it is not too far-fetched to make this predicament.

Ciudad Juarez is one of the largest border towns of Mexico with the U.S. and often been called

one of the fastest growing cities in the world despite being declared one of the most violent

4 Devon, 1997


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zones outside declared war zones. The violence has spiraled exponentially since the official

declaration of the “War on drugs” by the Mexican President in 2006. The city has a growing

industrial center made up in large part by more than 300 maquiladoras (assembly plants)

located in and around the city which cater to the international market dominated by the U.S.

and have provided employment to the thousands of Mexicans who flock to the city in search of

jobs. It has created a huge base in Juarez for unskilled migrant industrial workers. Riberas Del

Bravo is a neighborhood situated about 25 kms away from the city centre of Ciudad Juarez

where most urban amenities and facilities are concentrated. It was developed to provide

subsidized housing to low income workers by Infonavit (state housing financing agency) with

private developers building the houses according to the schemes which have been elaborated

in the previous paragraphs. The houses are no more than shoe boxes and resemble barracks

in dormitory towns and the urban character in these neighborhoods brings to light the fact that

these places are not built for “living” but for sleeping. These clusters of dwellings were not built

with the idea of building a community which is a part of the larger city of Ciudad Juarez and

where families can be raised and social bonds could be formed. There is a lack of public

spaces, community centres, schools and parks. The transport infrastructure further cements

the fact that these places where envisioned as the dormitories of the maquila workers where

they return after long hours of work just to sleep and to return back to the same routine the

next day without have their right to the city of Ciudad Juarez and the right to an active public

life. There are not enough public transports to connect these houses to city centre or schools

and the best connection from these houses are to the maquilas through the buses run by these

maquila companies itself.

Juarez has been called a model for the capitalist economy where recruits for the drug

war come from the vast, sprawling maquiladora – bonded assembly plants where, for rock-

bottom wages, workers make the goods that fill America's supermarket shelves or become

America's automobiles, imported duty-free. Now, the corporations can do it cheaper in Asia,

casually shedding their Mexican workers, and Juarez has become a teeming recruitment pool

for the cartels and killers. It is a city that follows religiously the philosophy of a free market. The


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economic crisis in the last few years have exposed the ugly face of spatialization of neoliberal

cities in the abandoned houses in the city – maximum among the social housing provided for

the low-income group. A study by the city's university found that 116,000 houses have been

abandoned and 230,000 people have left. 5 The case of Riberas Del Bravo is integral in

understanding the sociospatial segregation of the urban poor to stigmatized peripheries to

capitalize on their labour value and then the disposal of this value as soon as a more profitable

alternative is found.

Aerial image of Ciudad Juarez

View of the houses in Riberas Del Bravo

5 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/03/mexico-drug-war-killing-fields


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6. Social housing and urban poverty

The only difference between Riberas Del Bravo (subsidized housing by the state in

Ciudad Juarez) and the prison is that you don’t buy your cell in the prison and you

know that one day you will eventually get out of the prison. 6

The encroachment of neoliberal policies into housing has been responsible for the crisis

in social housing. Instead of being a safety net for the poor and protecting the “right” to a

decent home, it has become the tool for the government and private developers to push the

poor to the fringes of the city, into sub-standard, poor-quality housing and to leave the ‘city

centre’ as a playground for free market. Property speculation, being one of the mainstays of

the economy, the ‘strategy’ of social housing aids neoliberal principles to rule the property

market. Financial help is provided by the government for buying the low-income houses and

the desire to own a house makes the low-income group an easy target to sell these houses.

Instead of direct displacement of the poor, this coercive strategy supports the production of

capital accumulation by privatizing the production of the social housing, freeing the land in the

city centre and creating an urban sprawl. It legitimizes the social segregation and poverty by

creating a consensus among the population that they benefit from such schemes. The lack of

other housing options in the free market often creates a demand for such low-quality housing.

This leads to the creation of dormitory towns and ‘barrack’ like housing in the borders of the

city, far from work places and the city- centre as in the case of Riberas Del Bravo. It takes

away the “right to the city” 7 from the poor by locating them at the peripheries. The “right to the

city” is given only to the ones who can afford it and the poor are given the “right to the

periphery” – the argument supporting the creation of an urban periphery of this low-income

housing being that, they are better than slums and private renting.

The social production of space is commanded by a hegemonic class as a tool to

reproduce its dominance.

6 http://www.slideserve.com/omer/what-is-the-role-of-social-housing-in-an-era-of-ascendant-neoliberalism

7 Lefebvre, 1991


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"(Social) space is a (social) product [...] the space thus produced also serves as a tool

of thought and of action [...] in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of

control, and hence of domination, of power." 7

Housing meant not only houses, but also the social infrastructure making up the total

community. The services of health, education, recreation, and personal security are necessary

for the creation of an integral residential community. This perspective does not translate easily

into administrative divisions of the government and social housing is specified in terms of its

most easily quantifiable feature: shelter.” 8

The government offers housing subsidies to help low-income families by providing them

access to ownership of newly-constructed home, to encourage the concept of home-ownership

as opposed to rental housing. But, the available solutions for doing so relied on cheap land

and the construction of the house is outsourced to private contractors. In the absence of

‘social’ intentions even if we apply the neoliberal rules of profit to the concept of individual-

owned social housing, there is something wrong in the way the narrative of social housing

unfolds in Mexico from the perspective of the buyer. A low income worker earning between 3

to 9 minimum wages approaches the state for housing, he is given a 34 sq mts house on a 90

sq mt plot with a loan for which he gives mortgage for rest of his life(maximum 30 years). The

house is of poor quality and is on the fringe of the city and the land has no value. Due to the

isolated location access to jobs, transport, education and health care is reduced. Over time the

value of the house only depreciates further and the investment the man makes every month

has absolutely no returns. The house is seen as a commodity, similar to a car, whose value

only reduces with use over time. 8

These housing developments are self-segregated walled complexes comprising

thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of identical houses, which are not integrated into the

urban social fabric and can only be used for housing purposes. Instead of housing being seen

as an opportunity for a social participation in the spatial fabric of the city, it only further

7 Lefebvre, 1991

8 http://helsinkidesignlab.org/casestudies/elemental#


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consolidate the position of neoliberal principles in the urban environment by creating physical

and social segregation and creating subjugation of the working class.

In his article “Housing Priorities, Settlement Patterns, and Urban Development in

Modernizing Countries” John F C Turner talks about the dynamics of housing conditions and

settlement process in developing countries. The diagram above shows the different stages of

urban settlement pattern in urbanizing transitional cities according to Turner. In the first stage

there is growth in low-income migrant population from rural areas to the city in search for

employment. This initially leads to high density in the city centre where there are multiple job

opportunities and access to informal economies and urban services. In the next stage of

development of the city, as the centre grows and develops the conditions of the poor

neighbourhoods decline terribly and the general cost of living and the rent for decent dwellings

(Source: Housing Priorities, Settlement Patterns, and Urban Development in Modernizing Countries. Turner, John F.C.

November 1968. AIP Journal.)


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in the centre increases. The low income workers are pushed to the outskirts to informal

settlements at the fringe of the city. In the third stage we see how the suburbs or the outskirts

in the previous stage develop into middle-class housing and the low income groups are further

pushed to the peripheries. The fringe of the city expands to accommodate the growing

population of urban poor, either through informal self-built housing or through government

initiated social housing for the low income group. This kind of housing depends on the

availability of cheap land rather than other concerns of employment, diversity and social

inclusion. Thus the earlier situation where the oldest urban areas has the most housing

problems with low standards and hygiene has changed into a new urban condition where new

social housing estates away from the centre at the periphery have developed as spaces of

exclusion and low quality urban life.

He propagated the idea of thinking of housing as a verb and not as a noun, where the

idea of building a home was an extended process which adapted to the changing needs and

circumstances of their occupants. He was an advocate of self-help housing and preferred sites

and services housing schemes as opposed to low-cost, completed units as a solution to the

housing of the poor. Turner emphasized on planning with not for the poor. In the May 1967

issue of this Jozlrnal I argued that the (indivisible) housing and urban planning problem in a

transitional economy is the inhibition of resources and the waste of investments which follow

from inappropriate institutional norms and policies. The attempted imposition of industrial-

urban middle class standards upon the mass of urbanizing populations leads to massive

squatting and to the bankruptcy of many official “low-cost” housing programs. This article will

attempt to link this conclusion with priorities for and patterns of urban settlement, presented in

a simple model. 9

Even when subsidized modern dwellings are available, they generally tie the family to a

specific peripheral location that increases expenditures and reduces job opportunities. Unlike

the mortgaged house, the rented room can be given up with very short notice, and the

occupier is free to move quickly to another location. Overcrowding, discomfort, and even the

9 Turner, 1968


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usually avoidable filth of the slum may be a price the aspirant to better living standards is quite

willing to pay for improved opportunities.

7. Forms of Socio-spatial segregation and its relationship with power

Loic Wacquant who calls himself a generic social scientist talks about the changing

forms of urban marginalities in advanced societies. He calls these marginalities as advanced

marginalities in which one sees urban polarization from below. He draws attention to the

dynamics and experiences of relegation in advanced societies by drawing on two of his books-

“Urban Outcasts” and “Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity”.

Both of them talk about the deployment of space as a product and a medium of poor and

probe into the technique of spatial confinement as a tool for managing problems and to

establish subjugation and allegiance to the ruling class. An extension of the way Alpro

(Alliance for Progress) paved the way for using low-income housing as an antidote to an

irrational politics of working-class populism and to prevent the seeds of discontent to grow into

revolution, social housing schemes today work to aid the spatialization of neoliberal principles

and to maintain urban polarization.

“I can say that all of my thinking started from this point: how can behavior be regulated

without being the product of obedience to rules?” 10

Wacquant is heavily influenced by Bourdieu and uses the Bourdieusian framework and

concepts of habitus and of different forms of capitals like – cultural, social or symbolic capital to

develop his theories on segregation. Bourdieu sees power as culturally and symbolically

created, and constantly re-legitimized through an interplay of agency and structure. The main

way this happens is through what he calls ‘habitus’ or socialized norms or tendencies that

guide behavior and thinking. Habitus is ‘the way society becomes deposited in persons in the

form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and

act in determinant ways, which then guide them.’ 11 One of the most important concepts

10 Bordieu , 1990

11 Wacquant, 2005


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introduced by Bourdieu is that of ‘capital’ which he extends beyond the notion of material

assets to other forms of capital which can be accumulated and transferred from one arena to

another and plays a central role in his interpretation of power relations. It provides alternate

non-economic means of domination and hierarchy. The shift from material to other symbolic

forms of capital is to a large extent what hides the causes of inequality. The concepts of

Bourdieu when applied to the crisis of social housing adds to the understanding of how through

coercive measures inequality is created in the society by stigmatization and marginalization of

certain sections of society and by depriving them of any opportunity to accumulate cultural or

social capital.

Wacquant distributes socio-spatial seclusion along two basic dimensions- the level in

the social hierarchy and the factor whether the seclusion is elective or imposed due to

constraints imposed by others. Further distinction in made between rural and urban socio-

spatial seclusion depending on the setting – “a milieu that I would characterize not so much by

its “size, density, and heterogeneity,” in classical Chicago school–style along with Louis Wirth,

as by the spatial accumulation and intense accretion of various forms of capital (economic,

cultural, social, and symbolic) fostered by an administrative machinery — following the

schemas of Pierre Bourdieu and Max Weber.” 12

Contrary to traditional beliefs that’s spatial segregation is exclusively a consequence of

social inequality and cultural and racial differences, sociologists such as Wacquant and

Bordieu talk of the complex inter-dependant mechanisms and instruments which function at

different levels to achieve this form of social order and security by segregating social orders.

The diagram of Wacquant is analysis of different kinds of segregation in the society. It

brings to discussion the various physical forms of segregations which stem from multiple

social, political and urban issues which manifest themselves in the way physical space is

organized.

12 Wacquant, 2010

13 Wacquant, 2008


18

Figure 1(Source: http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=28810) 12

Wacquant distributes the ideal-typical forms of socio-spatial seclusions in the two-

dimensional space defined by the two axes as shown in the diagram above – the elective

versus the forced along the horizontal axes on the urban side and the top or the bottom of the

social hierarchy along the vertical axes. At the top right hand side quadrant is the self-inclusive

group of urban elites who choose isolate themselves in elite enclaves, gated communities and

tradition upper class districts to avoid undesired interaction with socially tainted population.

The two major ethnoracial forms at the foot of urban hierarchy according to Wacquant are –

the ghetto and the ethnic cluster, both situated at the two ends of the continuum of

constraint/choice serving opposite functions. The ghetto emerged as a device permitting the

joint economic exploitation and social ostracisation of an outcast category, like in the case of

Jews in sixteenth century Venice or the Black ghetto of Bronzeville in Chicago. The residential

and institutional clusters which emerge with mixed racial composition of immigrants due to

12 Wacquant, 2010


19

class constraints and cultural attraction. The main difference between the two being- while an

ethnic cluster is a more flexible and temporary mechanism as a way-station towards

sociospatial integration, the ghetto is an inflexible and permanent means of seclusion. He very

implicitly differentiates that a neighborhood with high concentration of poor people regardless

of their ethnic make-up cannot be termed as a ghetto. He includes prison as the third institution

of sociospatial seclusion at the bottom as forced confinement within a judicial ghetto. 13

“The ghetto is, by definition, an urban animal which emerges in the context of a dense

settlement that thirsts for the economic value provided by the stigmatized category —

otherwise the latter would simply be excluded or expelled, as Jews were periodically before the

rise of urban principalities and black Americans were before the onset of Fordism.” 12

“It is a kind of judicial ghetto within which inmates develop a parallel society and culture

of their own in response to forcible isolation and the deprivations it entails.Conversely, we may

think of the ghetto as an ethnoracial prison that confines a dishonored population into a special

perimeter in which the latter is constrained to develop its separate life-sphere in reaction to

spatial confinement and social banishment. As soon as we grasp the structural and functional

kinship between ghetto and prison (indicated by their proximity on my analytic map of forms of

sociospatial seclusion), we understand why the collapse of the former after the riots of the

1960s led to the growth of the latter as a substitute for corralling a population deemed

dishonored, destitute, and dangerous.” 12

The categorization of sociospatial seclusion serves the purpose to not only compare

and contrast the spatial segregations at different levels in the social segregations, but it also

shows how the same population can be corralled by a combination of spatial contraptions

across time. Whether in the colonial era or the apartheid era or the racial segregations,

societies have always devised mechanisms to maintain the spatialization of domination. In

today’s context of ascending neoliberalism it becomes relevant to see how the tool of

spatialization of power has always been used to create segregation. In the case of developing

12 Wacquant, 2010

13 Wacquant, 2008


20

countries like Mexico it becomes relevant to see how the urban poor gets marginalized through

state initiated schemes of housing.

Even though as Wacquant emphasizes, the ghetto and poor neighbourhoods should not be

confounded, in most cities today, especially in the case of Riberas Del Bravo in Ciudad Juarez,

Mexico we can see the similarities and parallels between the ghetto and the low-income social

housing at urban peripheries. The labour value of the low-income workers makes them the

target group for exploitation and stigmatization.

Figure 2

While clear-cut ethnoracial boundaries like ghettos allows for an internal organization

and for a parallel culture and institution to emerge, blurred configurations of urban

confinements like social housing work at a more subtle and coercive ways of discrimination

and makes it difficult for the dispossessed population to come together and challenge their

marginalization. The formal social housing provided by the state seems more an attempt to

Low-income social housing

Self-built informal housing


21

provide a sanitized portrait of the urban poor, instead of attacking the issues which give rise to

the conditions of poverty. While informal self-built housing often have the appearance of slums

and are considered indicators of poverty, the government funded concrete shoe-boxes, air-

brush the poverty to make it seem more controlled and coherent and hide the violence lurking

behind the small houses. The current trend of abandoned houses in Mexico threatens to

expose the mask behind which the construction of the neoliberal city has been taking place.

The state is a party to the ongoing construction of this neoliberal city, with the punitive

management of the poor through housing schemes. In figure1 of Wacquant showing the

different types of socio-spatial segregation, two new forms segregation have been added in

figure2 – low-income social housing and self-built informal housing both lying at the foot of

urban hierarchy. While the self built housing by the urban poor still demonstrates some level of

freedom and choice whereby a worker might choose to sacrifice a modern standard dwelling

(by which I mean the typical single-family houses provided through state initiated schemes)

which ties him to peripheral locations and increases his living costs while decreasing his

opportunities, the low-income social housing represents the constraint based segregation with

the help of the state. The social housing estates located at peripheries are perceived as urban

hell-holes where only the rejects of the society would tolerate living. 12

Aerial image of Ciudad Juarez Favelas, Caracus


22

8. The role of the state in furthering the domination of capital

“From castles and palaces and churches to prisons and workhouses and

schools; from weapons of war to a controlled press, any ruling class, in variable ways

though always materially, produces a social and political order.”

(Raymond Williams, cited in Gunvald Nilsen 2009: 115)

In his paper “Designing Urban Seclusion in the Twenty-first Century”, Loic Wacquant

talks about how the grand designer of urban marginality, by omission or commission, is the

state. It is the agency that sets the parameter according to which the distribution of people,

resources and activities is effected, through various programs – from urban planning,

economic regulation, policy and infrastructural investment to the spatially differentiated

provision of core public goods such housing, education, health, welfare and policing. It decides

the extent of the distance between the top and the bottom of the urban order and the ease with

which the distance may be travelled; and what forms of sociospatial seclusion take root and

grow (whether deprived and defamed categories are hemmed in a ghetto, ethnic cluster, a

slum or in the case of Ciudad Juarez in the peripheral social housing which are in a state of

decay and abandonment). The marginalization in this case is cushioned and partly mitigated

by the state through the intervention of subsidized housing, which slowly but effectively

displaces the economically weaker section of the society from the cities to the peripheries,

where public and private resources gradually diminish and the worker is reduced to a credit

slave who has to pay mortgage for the ‘social’ housing which instead of alleviating his poverty

ties him to the peripheral location that reduces job opportunities and access to informal

economies and has low civic amenities and almost non-existent urban infrastructure. A new

section of urban outcasts emerge from these neighbourhoods. 13 One of the main issues in this

kind of planning is the fact that this leads to homogeneity and only one section of the society-

the economically weaker, living at the periphery. This often leads to stigmatization and public

defamation of the peripheries which are perceived as “bad” neighbourhoods containing all

12 Wacquant, 2010

13 Wacquant, 2008


23

manners of social pathologies, among them vice and violence. All this is further intensified by

the state through its economic, welfare, education, housing and health policies, all of which

work to deepen urban disparities and entrench poverty and leads to the depreciation of all

forms of capital (Bordieu).

The practice of economic liberalism at the top and punitive paternalism at the bottom

has led to re-questioning the role and existence of ‘social’ housing in an era of ascending

neoliberlism. The neoliberal society increasingly relies on “spatial” solutions to festering social

problems and to maintain its rule over the poor. And this reflects in the creation of the

bedroom-towns on the peripheries and the disappearance of the participation and existence of

the low-income working class in the urban public sphere. Social housing neighborhoods (like

Riberas Del Bravo in Ciudad Juarez) are the ugly face of the extended neoliberal prison where

the urban outcasts are fenced in. 13 It highlights the issues surrounding the creation of the

condition of the urban poor- how surrendering to being banished from the city to bounded

territories, is the only option left to this section of society as they have absolutely no hope of

participating in the open, free market of property to own a house, shelter.

13 Wacquant, 2008


24

9. Conclusion

Ciudad Juarez represents the future of a neoliberal city at it zenith- with its abandoned

houses, violence, crime, social insecurity and poverty. It is the Frankenstein created from

within the structures of the current society and its practices. The social housing in Riberas Del

Bravo represent the spatialization of neoliberal ideologies to maintain subjugation and

allegiance of the low-income group and how the state becomes a party in the construction of

the neoliberal city. The urban becomes a playground for the economy to legitimize and

express its power and architecture becomes the tool to coerce or to force the unwilling

participation of all sections of the society to build this city. Social housing which depends on

acquiring cheap land and profit-making for the private developers through mortgage-based

financing for the low to middle income group doesn’t alleviate the problem to housing inequality

in cities but rather gives rise to number of issues as the discussions earlier highlight and as the

number of abandoned houses indicate. To build a sustainable and equitable city it is required

to review the logic of production of housing that generates urban exclusion and seclusion

mechanisms in order to find ways to allow back the social function of urban land and property

and redistributing the benefits of urban development and access to urban public sphere. There

is a need to redeploy the agency of planning and state initiated housing initiatives to arm the

marginalized population to prevent urban polarization through containment of the poor in

derelict and stigmatized neighborhoods and to counter the construction of the neoliberal city.

Reassessing the approach and the priorities which dominate the current urban planning and

housing policies can be a step towards tackling these issues.


25


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Pluto Press; 2009


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20. http://www.cenvi.org.mx/centrviv.htm

social housing - a coercive tool for socio-spatial segregation in the neoliberal world

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