Densification in consolidated informal settlements

The lecture will present data drawn from a multi-country/city collaborative study to examine self-built housing in old established low-income neighborhoods. The location of many of these consolidated settlements makes them increasingly desirable locations sand a likely target for back-to-the-city densification and urban regeneration governmental policies. This threatens to generate pressures for displacement and to enhance gentrification. The challenge will be to ensure mixed-use and mixed income residential development associated with densification and infilling.Peter M. Ward holds the C.B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair in US-Mexico Relations, and is professor in the Department of Sociology (College of Liberal Arts), and in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs where he also serves as the Associate Dean for Research. He has worked as housing policy adviser for the Mexican government and held senior academic positions at the University of London and the University of Cambridge prior to moving to Texas in 1991. He was formerly director of the Mexican Center at the University of Texas LLILAS, and served as Executive Editor of the Latin American Research Review between 2002-07.