Dysfunctional urban development

One of the enduring representations of informal neighbourhoodsseemstobethatofdysfunctionalurban development (Ward, 1999; AlSayyad, 2004).In local discoursesaboutcoloniaspopularesinXalapa,thisidea was prominent,particularly relatingtotheirperceived physical(andspatial)qualities.Relatingtothisgeneral theme,thissectionexploressomespecificcharacterisa- tionsof theseplaces,drawingoninterviews andother

sources,namely:‘anarchicgrowth’;‘nothingness’;and ‘unwantedresponsibility’.

4.1.1. Anarchic growth

Uncontrolled urban growth was one of the key characteristics of colonias populares highlighted by local government respondents. It was explicitly men- tioned by Joaquin, a senior official in the Municipal Office of Citizen Participation, as the reason behind Xalapa’spublic worksdeficit:

‘Thereisdisorderlygrowth,anarchicgrowthofthe city,insuchawaythatcoloniasareemerging–some of them as illegal subdivisions, others as subdivi- sionswhichfulfiltherequirementsindicatedbythe Office of Urban Development and the State Government. ... In the illegally subdivided areas, it’s a serious situation which is arising, because nowadayswe have 150 illegal subdivisions, which means 550 hectares of land, whichare subdivided without any authorisation, in a clandestine form’

(Joaquin26.02.07).

Thisresponsecontrastsorderlyurbangrowth,where development complies with planning requirements, with‘anarchic’growth,throughsubdivisionoccurring on the margins of legality. It seems that colonias popularesaremotorsofgrowth,butnottherightkindof growth;generatorsofdemand(forurbanservices),but demand which is unrealisable in its scale. This reinforces a view of these places as not ‘officially’ economically productive,andtherefore ‘irrelevant’ in terms of the local, not to mention global, economy (Robinson,2006).

Theuseoflanguagehereisparticularlytelling.The ideaof‘anarchic’growthconnoteschaoticplaces,ina physicalbutalsosocialsense,seenintheuseofterms like‘clandestine’,recallingEverett’s(2001)accountof thediscursivemarginalisationofbarriosinBogota´.The implicationisthattheseplacesareproblematicbecause they contain disorder deriving, for example, from overcrowding.Thisnotionwas expressedbyBruno,a residentofcentralXalapawhohadpreviouslylivedina

coloniapopular:

‘Ithinktherearemoreproblemsinacoloniapopular because,let’ssay,therearemoreinhabitants,there are more people living in a small space’ (Bruno 24.05.07).

Thuslinksaremadebetweentheperceivedphysical disorder of these places, and their disorderly social character. Certainly, spatial marginalisation is often

21_{Theserespondentswereselectedusingsnowballingtechniques,}

based initially on informal conversations with local experts and settlementresidentshighlightingthesignificanceofparticulardepart- mentsandspecificofficials.Intotal,10semi-structured interviews werecarriedoutwithlocalandregionalofficials,mainlyatthelevelof directors,sub-directorsandseniorcivilservants,intheXalapaMu- nicipal Offices ofPublic Works(1), UrbanDevelopment (3) and CitizenParticipation(1);theVeracruzStateDepartmentsofUrban Planning(1),StateHeritage(1)andEducation(1);andtheFederal CommissionforLandTenureRegularisation(2).

compoundedbysocialisolation,particularlyinthecase ofcoloniasdevelopedonperipheralejidalland,which are implicitly juxtaposed with regulated, ‘formal’ centralareas.Thissuggests, again,thatofficialframe- worksfindit difficulttoaccountfor thingsandplaces noteasilyquantifiable.Thisconceptual gapinofficial perspectives may underpin the idea of ‘nothingness’, alsofoundinlocal discourses.

4.1.2. Nothingness

One strand in local discourses that characterises these settlements in terms of ‘nothingness’ relates to their perceived lack of urban facilities. This can be detectedinthedescriptionofLomaBonitabyGustavo, fromtheMunicipalOfficeof PublicWorks:

‘Overthereinthatzonethereisabsolutelynothing: you would need to construct starting from the adjacentcolonias’(Gustavo22.02.07).

Asimilarcharacterisation was given byrepresen- tatives from the Ejido Chiltoyac, the ejido which ownstheland on whichLoma Bonita isestablished. This negative framing calls to mind descriptions of ‘slums’ as ‘dumping grounds’ (Davis, 2006: 26). It also contrasts with what was observed in the neighbourhood during the research. As outlined above,therewasan official primaryschool building, a football pitch, and a chapel, as well as a rudimentarywatersupplypipedfromaneighbouring settlement, which residents made weekly contribu- tionsfor.Thiscontrastbetweenlocalperceptionsand actualconditionsintheneighbourhoodishighlighted inFig.22,showingtheschoolthere.These‘nothing’ places, supposedly anarchic by nature, are in fact productive and dynamic.

As suggested in Chapter Three, most colonias populares inMexicoare the result ofillegalor semi- legal subdivision andsale of ejidal land. The idea of ‘nothingness’asaspatialcharacteristiccouldbebased on the nature of these transactions, ‘non-existent’ in legal terms (Azuela & Duhau, 1998: 159). Lack of officialcontrolmayleadtoperceptionsoftheseplaces as anunwantedresponsibilityforlocal authorities.

4.1.3. Unwantedresponsibility

Partofthe‘problem’ofcoloniaspopularesrelatesto localauthorities’perceivedinabilitytoplanforgrowth andhencetoprovideservices.Thisinturnisaffectedby thelackofrevenuefromservicechargesandtaxesfrom these places, and a corresponding inability to exert social influence there, which may be taken as an indicatorof‘anarchy’.Wanda,acivilservantfromthe Municipal Office of Urban Development, highlighted thiswhenshecomparedthetwocasestudyneighbour- hoods:

‘InthewholeofLomaBonitanothingwasplanned, andit’sanejidowhichissoongoingtobeaproblem for the Municipal Governmentbecause the people that bought there and are going to live there are goingtoneedservices,whicharenot theresponsi- bility of the Municipal Government. But...[the MunicipalGovernment’s]goingtohavetocontrib- ute[and]administersometypeofresourcesforsome infrastructure...because ofthe need arising from irregularsettlement,whichanejidatariodidn’tplan for.Ontheotherhand,there’sMoctezuma,whichhas regularised land tenure but has its difficulties, because the State also refrained from plan- ning...services which the Municipal Government musttake intoaccount’(Wanda 21.02.07).

Fig.22.TheschoolinLomaBonita,outside/inside. Source:MelanieLombard(2006),AzucenaJime´nez(2007).

Whethertheneighbourhoodhaslegaltitles,asinthe case of Moctezuma, or not, as in the case of Loma Bonita,seemstomakelittledifferencetotheMunicipal Government.Thesalientpointisthelackof‘planning’ andhencecontrolexercisedbythelocalauthorities.The comparison between the two neighbourhoods in this response shows that informality is not necessarily congruent withillegality (Fernandes & Varley, 1998; Roy, 2005).Moctezuma’s ‘regularisedland tenure’ is explicitly connected to the likelihood of service provisionthere;butwithorwithouttitles,aneighbour- hoodinneedofservicesstillrepresentsaburdenforthe MunicipalGovernmentinits roleasservice provider.

Coloniaspopulares,then,areperceivedasevidence of ‘dysfunctional’ growthpatterns inXalapa, particu- larlyrelatingtotheirphysicalcharacteristics,asshown inthissection.Thiscanbeseeninthenegativequalities thatarediscursivelyassociatedwiththeseplaces:their spatial qualities of isolationand lack of planning are conflatedwithsocialaspects.Moreover,inthespecific localcontextthesedescriptionssaysomethingaboutthe relationshipbetweencoloniaspopularesandtherestof thecity,representedtoadegreebythelocalauthorities (but including other actors too). In terms of local authorities’ inability to plan for growth, it is worth recalling Roy’s (2005: 153) assertion that urban informality is the ‘state of exception’ produced by thesovereignstate,whichdetermineswhatislegitimate andwhatisnot.Inthissense,itisactuallythestatethat constructs colonias as ‘dysfunctional’, through its categories of ‘planned/unplanned’, ‘formal/informal’ and so on. The ‘dysfunctional’ spatial attributes of

colonias are compounded by their social margin- alisation,exploredinthenextsection.