- Innovative Approaches to Housing Policy and Production in Latin America Two Cases: Sao Paulo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina   328 kb by    O/apost/Meara, Mary-Rain | maryraineo@yahoo.com     Short Outline This paper presents case studies from two Latin American cities, Sao Paulo Brazil and Buenos Aires Argentina, that highlight innovative approaches to affordable housing upgrading and development. Abstract As urban areas in developing countries continue to grow beyond the capacity of local infrastructure, innovative approaches to affordable housing provision and improvements become more essential. Any given housing development or upgrading project requires a mix of financial, architectural and planning resources to reach completion. Other important elements to achieve successful development of housing include effective government policy, local civic capacity and involvement, and public-private partnerships. This paper explores innovative slum upgrading and low-income housing improvement programs of two South American cities: Sao Paulo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The case studies presented provide an overview of how the combination of these few crucial elements results in the effective implementation of such housing development and improvement efforts. The first of these cases explores the revised 2001 urban development and housing policy of the Sao Paulo, Brazil municipal government. It is case of complete policy revision that illustrates the capacity of a local government to implement programs that are focused on improving the lives of the urban poor. The second case highlights the partnerships between two social organizations and the city government of Buenos Aires, Argentina. This case demonstrates the potential for public-private partnerships in relation to low income housing production. Both of these case studies exemplify successful development projects that increase and enhance access to quality housing for the urban poor in two major Latin American cities. While providing a snap shot of these projects, the cases demonstrate the need for longer term analysis of these approaches to determine how effective they prove to be over time. Keywords Latin America,slum upgrading, citizen involvment, affordable housing, housing policy Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2010: Sustainable City - Developing World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper