FOR STUDENTS

COURSES

The Latin American Cities Initiative sponsors studio and seminar courses focused on planning and governance in Latin America. The following courses are indicative of future course offerings:

UP 239 Special Topics in Regional and International Development

Urban Planning in Mexico: Measuring, Comparing, and Assessing Local Practice

Spring 2020

Instructor: Paavo Monkkonen

Course Description

This studio course will examine urban planning processes in Mexico. It is an atypical planning studio because it focuses on processes and regulations rather than site planning or design. It is also atypical because we will do our research remotely! This additional challenge has led to several changes in the syllabus.

Nonetheless, the goal is to produce a collaborative, practical output that contributes to academic research and policymaking. The primary focus of the course is to assess how different Mexican cities plan for and govern urbanization. Secondarily, we will reflect on how the federal government could better monitor and incentivize improvements in local planning processes. We will answer these questions through a variety of means – existing literature, phone and video conference interviews, and presentations by experts. We will assess what processes should be considered within the realm of urban planning and compare them across cities.

The course has multiple motivations. The first is the 2016 Law of Human Settlements, Spatial Planning, and Urban Development, which sought to change the way cities plan across the country. The Mexican federal government has faced challenges in implementing the law. The new administration seeks to centralize some aspects of planning, but does not yet have a finalized approach. The second motivation is the emergence of municipal planning institutes, new quasi-governmental agencies that seek to be an independent voice in the planning process. Their actual rather than aspirational function in the local planning process has not yet been assessed. Both of these changes have precedent in, and were in part inspired by, the experiences of Brazil and Colombia, which expanded the role of higher levels of government in the planning process at the same time as they created new local institutions.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the quarter, students will:

  • Understand the implications of the massive changes in housing finance in the 1990s for urban expansion in Mexico
  • Analyze planning processes, such as creating and enforcing land use plans
  • Reflect on contemporary debates about planning practice and housing challenges, e.g. how should urbanization be governed? How can local governance be improved by higher levels of government?
  • Develop arguments about how planning shapes what gets built in cities and where, and how mortgage finance affects the role of local governments
  • Complete and present a high-quality case study of planning processes in one city
  • Analyze local data on urbanization, land use, and local public finance
  • Collaborate with a team on a project, interview public officials
  • Compare planning processes across cities and reflect on the benefits and limitations of comparative research – what we can learn from it and what we cannot
  • Reflect on how urban planning is commonly understood and its role in urban outcomes

UP 239 Special Topics in Regional and International Development

Seminar on Urban Governance and Planning in Latin America

Winter, 2019

Instructor: Paavo Monkkonen

A. Course Overview

The cities of Latin America are diverse and face a wide range of governance challenges. This seminar is a survey of contemporary issues facing Latin American cities, taught through a speaker series and discussion. Scholars come from a variety of universities in the United States and Latin America and conduct research in a number of Latin American countries. The focus of the course is on contemporary topics in local governance in Latin America. Specifically, we will cover nine topics: the politics of public service access, land and urban policies, local public finance, urban segregation and citizenship, urban sustainability and solutionism, corruption, innovations in fiscal and land use planning, collective action around the environment, urban indigeneity and indigenous urbanism. Each week, an invited scholar will first meet with the class to discuss readings, and then give a public research talk. In the final class, we will raise the idea of Los Angeles as a Latin American City, and all that this label implies.

Students must attend every public talk, write a short reaction / review of each, work in a group to present an overview of one topic and the readings for one week in class, and write a term paper focused on one city or issue area.

B. Course Objectives

The learning objectives of this course are:

– Understand the scope of problems and possible ‘solutions’, as well as academic debates around the nine topics the class covers

– Place one city’s issues in a regional context

– Critique the research topics and limitations / approaches to understanding different topics

– Analyze one topic in depth for a case study or using a comparison of cases

– Develop an argument around the generalizability of urban context and policy transfer, i.e. is it useful to categorize a continents urban areas as “Latin American Cities”

C. Course format and assignments

Students must attend every public talk and write a reaction (20%), work in a group to present a topic lead discussion one week (30%), and write a term paper (50%).

D. General references for the course

Davis, D. 2012. Urban Violence, Quality of Life, and the Future of Latin American Cities: The Dismal Record So Far and the Search for New Analytical Frameworks to Sustain the Bias towards Hope. Pp 37-59 in Latin American Urban Development into the 21st Century, Palgrave.

Dolowitz, D. & Marsh, D. (2000). Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, 13(1): 5–24.

Ford, L. 1996. A New and Improved Model of Latin American City Structure. Geographical Review, 86(3); 437-440.

Gilbert, AG; (2013) Latin American cities. In: The Oxford Handbook of Cities in History. (pp. 483-503). Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Monkkonen, P. 2018. Empty Houses across North America: Housing Finance and Mexico’s Vacancy Crisis. Urban Studies, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098018788024

Peña, S. (2011). Land use planning on the U.S.‐Mexico border: A comparison of the legal framework, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 17(1): 1-19.

Robinson, J. & Roy, A. 2015. Debate on Global Urbanisms and the Nature of Urban Theory. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 40(1): 181-186.

Sanyal, B. (Ed.). 2005. Comparative planning cultures. Routledge, New York.

Storper, M. & Scott, A. 2016. Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment. Urban Studies, 53(6): 1114-1136

E. Schedule of weekly speakers, topics, readings

Jan 10: Alison Post, UC Berkeley

Topic: City Size and the Politics of Public Service Access: Evidence from Brazil, India, and Indonesia

Readings: TBD 3

Jan 17: Cynthia Goytia, Universidad Di Tella

Topic: Urbanization, land and urban policies: an agenda of issues and research for Argentina’s cities

Readings: TBD

Jan 24 – Monica Unda, Marquette University

Topic: Poor Municipal Governments: An Analysis of Property Tax Collection in Mexico

Readings: TBD

Jan 31: Teresa Caldeira, UC Berkeley

Topic: TBD

Readings: TBD

Feb 7: Sergio Montero, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota

Topic: Leveraging Bogotá: Sustainable Development, Global Philanthropy and the Rise of Urban Solutionism

Readings: TBD

Feb 14: Paul Lagunes, Columbia University

Topic: The Watchful Eye & the Cracking Whip: Field Experiments on Corruption Control in the Americas

Readings: TBD

Feb 21: Enrique Silva, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Topic: Innovations in Fiscal and Land Use Planning in Latin America

Readings: TBD

Feb 28: Veronica Herrera, University of Connecticut

Topic: The Politics of Slow Harms: Environmental Degradation and Collective Action in Latin American Cities

Readings: TBD 4

March 7: Bianet Castellanos, University of Minnesota

Topic: Indigenous Urbanism: A Case Study of Cancún, Mexico.

Readings: TBD

March 14: Los Angeles as a Latin American City

UP 239 Special Topics in Regional and International Development

Urban Planning in Mexico: The Governance of Housing Development

Spring 2018

Instructor: Paavo Monkkonen

Course Description

This course is focused on urban planning in Mexico, especially regarding planning for housing development and urban expansion. We will assess the way in which local governments have dealt with the effects of a dramatic and sustained growth in mortgage finance since the 1990s and current efforts to change the way cities grow and promote compact urbanization. The course will address regulatory and policy issues, intergovernmental relations, and the governance and anthropology of urban planning in Mexico.

The course features lectures, seminar sessions, guest speaker presentations, and two trips to the site of study (Tijuana, Ensenada and/or Mexicali, in Baja California). Students will work in small teams to carry out guided research, produce a research report, and present findings to classmates and invited guests from Mexico.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the quarter, students will:

– Understand the implications of the massive changes in housing finance and urban expansion in Mexico starting in the 1990s

– Analyze the governance of urban development in Mexico, especially of housing

– Reflect on contemporary debates about planning and housing challenges, especially in regards to the governance of urbanization

– Develop arguments about how planning shapes what gets built in cities and where, and how mortgage finance affects the role of local governments

– Complete and present a high-quality analysis of one aspect of planning in Mexico, recommending at least one specific reform to a local, state or federal government agency

– Collaborate with a team and synthesize arguments from other teams

Course Format

This course includes a combination of activities, including lectures, discussion and primarily policy focused research. Students are expected to read the week’s material before the class session so they are prepared to critically discuss the content. The bulk of the course grade (60 percent) is the group report. In addition, you will be graded on your final presentations (15 percent) and a final exam (15 percent). The final 10 percent is from class participation. This refers to contribution to discussions, attendance and collaborative ethic.

Final Report. By the end of the course, the class will collaboratively produce a report of high enough quality to make public as a product of UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning. Students will separate into groups of three or four, and these groups will research and write one section of the report. Sections will focus on one aspect of the planning system in Mexico through case study of a municipality in Baja California.

Possible section topics are 1) planning in a comparative federalist framework – current efforts at the preemption of municipal powers by higher levels of government, 2) the decision making process for construction permits and residential infrastructure – who decides on what from plan to implementation, 3) a comparative anthropology of urban planning – what do planners believe and why, 4) financing infrastructure expansion and upgrading – property taxation and other means, and 5) the many layers of informality in housing development and housing markets.

There is some flexibility as to how we define topics, we will collaborate on them. Please form groups and define your focus in consultation with instructor before the first class.

Schedule by Week

Week 1. April 5. Read syllabus and week 1 readings before coming to class. Choose a group, topic, discuss research questions, and begin developing a reading and research plan

Week 2. April 12. Present a preliminary list of available literature on the topic, identify institutions and persons of interest / interviewees

Week 3. April 19. Present project proposal. Consider data needed, finalize research plan, start contacting interviewees [guest lecture Diane Davis, Harvard University]

Week 4. April 26. Start gathering data, drafting surveys, interviewing

Week 5. May 3. Visit Tijuana and Ensenada. Site visits, interviews, presentations.

Week 6. May 10. Full research plan and literature review is due today. Analyze data collected during visit.

Week 7. May 17. Begin writing report. During class we will conduct a roundtable to discuss potential challenges with each group’s project and provide feedback. You are encouraged to conduct additional site visits / interviews, discuss w instructor. [guest lecture Javier Delgado, UNAM]

Week 8. May 24. Write report. During class we will conduct a roundtable to discuss potential challenges with each group’s project and provide feedback. Groups can also conduct additional site visits / interviews if necessary, but must inform instructor at least one week before class.

Week 9. May 31. Final draft is due before class. You will review and comment on other groups’ drafts in class.

Week 10. June 7. Present final report & discuss introduction and conclusion / group learning

Finals Week. June 14. Final exam

UP 239 Special Topics in Regional and International Development

Urban Policy and Housing Markets: Increasing Infill in Tijuana, Mexico

Instructor: Paavo Monkkonen

A. Course Description

After two decades of what is now being called by many a failed policy or even a major planning disaster, the federal government of Mexico is attempting to reverse the impacts of a massive increase in housing finance across the country through a series of policies promoting compact cities and ‘densification.’ Reforms attempt to direct new housing loans to the central areas of a city, emphasize lending for ‘used’ housing rather than new housing built by developers, and modernize property registries and land cadasters. In this studio course, we will examine the ‘institutional infrastructure’ of the housing market of Tijuana, Mexico. I use the term institutional infrastructure to refer to the legal, financial and planning systems, as well as public services, the real estate development process, real estate agents and social norms around property transactions.

In this course, we will assess whether and how this infrastructure can be reformed to promote federal government goals of infill development and higher urban densities as well as other goals such as improved quality of life. The course will thus address policy issues as well as more abstract questions about the possibility of effective policy reform and the social construction of property markets. For the latter, we will engage with theory on how markets are enacted and performed, and contrast their operation in the United States and Mexico.

The course features lectures, seminar sessions, guest speaker presentations, and two trips to Tijuana. Students will work in small teams to carry out guided research, produce a research report, and present findings to classmates and invited guests from Mexico.

B. Course Objectives

By the end of the quarter, students will:

– Understand the urban policy environment in Mexico and the housing market in Tijuana

– Understand contemporary debates about property rights for land and housing in developing countries

– Develop their own arguments about what the social construction of property markets means and the implications of the same for policy

– Complete and present a professional analysis of one component of the housing market in which they recommend at least one specific reform in the case of Tijuana

C. Course format and assignments

This course will be a combination of formats, including lecture/discussion, pure seminar and studio. Students are expected to read the week’s material before the class session. This is extremely important and, as such, a short reading quiz will be implemented in week’s 1-3, 6 & 8. In total these quizzes will count for 20 percent of the course grade. The bulk of the course grade is the group report (50 percent) and presentation (20 percent). The final 10 percent is from class participation, which refers primarily to contributing to discussions and attending classes and other events.

By the end of the course, we will produce a report, which I hope will be of high enough quality to make public as a product of UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning. Students will separate into groups of three, and these five groups will research and write one section. Each section will focus on one aspect of the institutional infrastructure of Tijuana’s property market. Possible section topics are property rights/legal system, housing finance, urban planning regulations, public service access and provision, real estate development, real estate agents / property transactions and social norms around property transactions. There is some flexibility as to how we define these institutional areas.

Please form groups and define the section (in consultation with instructor) you wish to work on by Week 3. A draft proposal for your research plan and literature review is due in class in Week 4. The full research plan and completed literature review is due in Week 6. Draft presentations and discussion of work in progress in Week 9. 3

D. Schedule of Weekly Topics and Activities

Week 1: (March 29) Lecture/discussion: Can we “get the housing policy environment right”?

Week 2: (April 5) Lecture/discussion Housing in Mexico: History and recent changes

Week 3: (April 12) Lecture/discussion: The social construction of property markets

Week 4: (April 19) Research symposium: Housing Markets in Tijuana and Cancun

Week 5: (April 26) Class trip to Tijuana

Week 6: (May 3) Lecture/discussion: Housing and property rights in Mexico

Week 7: (May 10) Working group research trip

Week 8: (May 17) Lecture/discussion: Urban containment and ‘densification’ policy

Week 9: (May 24) Draft presentations and discussion of work in progress

Week 10: (May 31) Lecture/discussion: Implementation and policy reform

Finals week: (June 7) Final presentations and reports due

E. Readings by Week

Most readings available on the internet, if not will be sent via email (as indicated by (email)):

Week 1. The housing policy environment: “getting it right”

Required

Angel, Shlomo. 2001. The Housing Policy Assessment and Its Application to Panama. Journal of Housing Economics 10, 176–209.

DiPasquale, Denise, and William C. Wheaton. 1996. Urban Economics and Real Estate Markets. Chapter 1. (email)

Rodriguez-Pose, Andrés. 2013. Do Institutions Matter for Regional Development? Regional Studies 47(7): 1034-47.

Organization of Economic Cooperation Development. 2015. OECD Urban Policy Reviews Mexico Transforming Urban Policy and Housing Finance. Executive Summary & Chapter 3. Getting Mexican Cities Right. (email)

Gonzalez Navarro, Marco and Climent Quintana-Domeque. 2009. The reliability of self-reported home values in a developing country context. Journal of Housing Economics 18(4): 311-324.

Recommended 4

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. 2005. “Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long Run Growth.” pp 358-472 in Aghion and Durlauf (eds.) Handbook of Economic Growth, Vol. 12005. (email)

La Porta, Rafael, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer. 2008. The economic consequences of legal origins. Journal of Economic Literature 46 (2): 285–332.

Glaeser, Edward, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer. 2004 Do

Institutions Cause Growth? Journal of Economic Growth

Glaeser, Edward, Joseph Gyouko, and Albert Saiz. 2008. Housing Supply and Housing Bubbles. Journal of Urban Economics

Williamson, Oliver. 1981. The Economics of Organization: The Transactions Cost Approach American Journal of Sociology 87(3).

Renaud, B. 1987. Another look at housing finance in developing countries. Cities 4: 28–33.

Week 2. Housing in Mexico: History and recent changes

Required

Organization of Economic Cooperation Development. 2015. OECD Urban Policy Reviews Mexico Transforming Urban Policy and Housing Finance. Chapter 1, 2, and 4. (email)

Monkkonen, Paavo. 2011. The Housing Transition in Mexico: Expanding Access to Housing Finance. 2011. Urban Affairs Review, 47(5): 672-695.

Presentation by SEDATU at meeting of UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management

Please skim: SEDESOL. 2012. La expansión de las ciudades: 1980-2010. (email)

Eckstein, Susan. 1990. Poor people versus the state and capital: anatomy of a successful community mobilization for housing in Mexico City. IJURR.

Ward, Peter. 2015. Housing Rehab for Consolidated Informal Settlements: A New Policy Agenda for 2016 UN-Habitat III. Habitat International 373-384

Recommended

SEDATU. Programa Nacional de Desarrollo Urbano 2014-2018 5

Herbert, Christopher E., Eric S. Belsky, and Nicholas DuBroff. 2012. The State of Mexico’s Housing – Recent Progress and Continued Challenges.

Week 3. The social construction of property markets

Required

Shiller, Robert. 2000. “Irrational Exuberance.” Princeton University Press. Ch. 7-9. (email)

The Economist. Christie’s v the People’s Army, Sept. 28, 2013.

Hartman, Georgia. Things are People Too! Michel Callon and the Performance of Economy. Mimeo (email)

Mitchell, Timothy. 1998. Fixing the Economy Cultural Studies

Mitchell, Timothy. The Properties of Markets: Informal Housing and Capitalism’s Mystery. Institute for Advanced Studies in Social and Management Sciences, University of Lancaster, Cultural Political Economy Working Paper Series. (email)

Nuijten, Monique. 2003. Family Property and the Limits of Intervention: The Article 27 Reforms and the PROCEDE Programme in Mexico Development and Change 34(3) 475–497.

Levy, Juliette. 2010. Notaries and Credit Markets in 19th Century Mexico. Business History Review.

Further reading

Azuela, Antonio. 2011 Property in the Post-Post-Revolution: Notes on the Crisis of the Constitutional Idea of Property in Contemporary Mexico. Texas Law Review 89 (1915).

Zaloom, Caitlin. Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London. Chapter 1: The Materialities of the Market

Elyachar, Julia. Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, Economic Development, and the State in Cairo. Chapter 2: A Home For Markets

Mitchell, Timothy – “The Properties of Markets,” in Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Markets

Week 4. Research symposium: Housing Markets in Tijuana and Cancun

Required 6

Carrasco Gallegos, Brisa Violeta. 2009. Tijuana: Border, Migration, and Gated Communities. Journal of the Southwest, 51(4): 457-475.

Alegría, Tito. 2008. Interpretacion del Nuevo Patrón de Crecimiento Urbano y del rol de la Planeación en las ciudades de Mexico. Investigaciones en Ciudad & Arquitectura. (email)

Connolly, Priscilla. 1998. “Urban Planning and Segmented Land Markets” in Jones, G. and Ward, P. (eds) Methodology for Land and Housing Market Analysis. (email)

Azuela de la Cueva, Antonio. 1987. Low income settlements and the law in Mexico City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 11(4): 522–542.

Alegría, Tito. 2008. The Solution is not architectural: Housing Problems of the Poor in Tijuana. Harvard Design Magazine. (email)

Recommended

Montezemolo, Fiamma. 2005. Tijuana no es Tijuana. Representaciones en Fragmentos al Margen de la Frontera. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 42. (email)

Herzon, Lawrence. 1991. Cross-national Urban Structure in the Era of Global Cities: The US-Mexico Transfrontier Metropolis. Urban Studies, 28: 4519-4533.

Week 5. In Tijuana no readings

Week 6. Housing and property rights in Mexico

Required

Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. Understanding the role of notaries in property registration in Mexico: Rent-seeking monopolists or essential market intermediaries? Mimeo. (email)

Assies, Willem. 2008. Land tenure and tenure regimes in Mexico: an overview. Journal of Agrarian Change 8 (1): 33–63.

Jones, Gareth and Ward, Peter. 1998. Privatizing the commons: Reforming the ejido and urban development in Mexico. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22(1): 76–93.

Hartman, Georgia. Land, Property, and the Historical Context for the Creation of the Mexican Ejido. Working Paper.

Varley. Ann. 1987. The Relationship between Tenure Legalization and Housing Improvements: Evidence from Mexico City. Development and Change.

Recommended 7

Monkkonen, Paavo. 2016. Who values property rights more and where? Assessing variation in the value of deeds across cities in Mexico. Mimeo (email)

Monkkonen, Paavo. 2012. The Demand for Land Regularization: Theory and Evidence from Tijuana, Mexico. Urban Studies, 49(2): 270-287.

Perramond, E. 2008. The rise, fall, and reconfiguration of the ejido. Geogra 98 (3): 356–71.

Week 7. In Tijuana no readings

Week 8. Urban containment and ‘densification’ policies in Mexico

Required

Bengston, David, Jennifer O Fletcher, and Kristen C. Nelson. 2004. Public policies for managing urban growth and protecting open space: policy instruments and lessons learned in the United States. Landscape and Urban Planning, 69: 271–286.

McConnell, Virginia and Keith Wiley. 2010. Infill Development: Perspectives and Evidence from Economics and Planning. Resources for the Future Discussion Paper.

Peña, Sergio. 2011. Recent Trends and Practice in Spatial Planning in Mexico: The Municipal Planning and Research Institutes. Gestion y Politica Publica XXI(2): 408-450. (email)

Week 9. Presentations no readings

Week 10. Implementation and policy reform

Required

Pressman, Jeffrey and Aaron Wildavsky. 1973. Implementation–How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland; Or, Why It’s Amazing that Federal Programs Work At All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes. Buy the book!

Dolowitz, David and Marsh, David. 2000. Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 13(1): 5–24.

Ward, Peter M. 1995. “Policy Making and Policy Implementation Among Non-PRI governments: The PAN in Ciudad Juárez and in Chihuahua,” in Opposition Government in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. (email) 8

Fuentes Flores, Cesar and Luis Cervera Gomez. 2004. “La gestión del suelo urbano en Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua: La difícil transición de la gobernabilidad autoritaria a la gobernabilidad democrática.” In Payan Alvarado, Luis Antonio and Tabuenca Cordoba, Maria Socorro (Eds). Gobernabilidad o ingobernabilidad en la región Paso del Norte.

Recommended

Cabrero, Enrique. 1995. La nueva gestión municipal en México: Analysis de experiencias innovadoras en gobiernos locales. Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Docencia Económica

SMALL GRANTS

The Latin American Cities Initiative will provide funding for student capstone research on planning and urban policy in Latin America, as well as support in identifying clients and topics, beginning in 2019. If you are interested in applying, please contact ciudades@luskin.ucla.edu.

 

SUMMER INTERNSHIPS

The Latin American Cities Initiative will assist students at UCLA Luskin to find an internship in a planning or policy field in Latin America, in collaboration with Luskin Global Public Affairs. Recent GPA Fellows from Luskin have interned at World Vision in Honduras; ITDP, Laboratorio de la Ciudad, World Resources Institute and the Instituto Mexicano de Servicios Sociales in Mexico City; the Urban Planning Department of Panama City, Panama; la Red Communitaria Trans in Bogota, Colombia; and the Instituto de Sexualidad Humana in Republica Dominicana. Email ciudades@luskin.ucla.edu for more information.