Thomson Reuters Foundation ~ Latin American Governments Fail To Tackle Booming Urban Slums: Report

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BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Latin America’s booming urban slums look set to continue their rapid expansion as government housing policies fail to tackle an explosion in informal housing, legal experts said on Monday.

Some 113 million people across the continent — or nearly one in five people — live in sprawling slums which are fuelling inequality and social exclusion, they said in a report.
“State policies on housing — even those enshrined in the region’s constitutions — have not been able to respond to the rise of urban populations…,” the study said.
Mass migration from rural to urban areas from the 1950s onwards means 80 percent of Latin America’s population of around 600 million now live in cities — a higher number than in any other region in the world.
The report examines housing legislation and policy in 11 countries, including Latin America’s largest economies — Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Argentina.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/latam-housing.html

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