Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8

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Habitat International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint

Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing)

landscapes of Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica)
Femke van Noorloos a, *, Griet Steel a, b
a
International Development Studies, Dept. Human Geography & Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.115, 3508 TC Utrecht,
The Netherlands
b
Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA), Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, Box 3615, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Globalization and changing mobility patterns have significantly altered the urban landscapes of Latin
Received 13 April 2015 America over the past decades. Efforts by the state and the private sector to regenerate urban areas and
Received in revised form free up land for the sake of investment and wealthy city dwellers have shaped processes of privatization
31 July 2015
and socio-spatial segregation. While ‘privileged mobilities’ such as lifestyle migration can be assumed to
Accepted 8 August 2015
Available online xxx
play a role in such urban transformations, research on the link between urban change and lifestyle
migration in Latin America is still in its infancy. This paper focuses on the impact of lifestyle migration on
the extent and speed of socio-spatial change in intermediate cities and urbanizing regions. More
Keywords:
Lifestyle migration
concretely, the paper underscores the importance of lifestyle migration in shaping contemporary urban
Gentrification space in Latin America by comparing socio-spatial transformations in Cuenca, an intermediate city in
Spatial segregation southern Ecuador, and the urbanizing coast of Guanacaste province in northwest Costa Rica. These
Urbanization research sites currently are two of Latin America's main destinations for international lifestyle migrants,
Latin America and hence are experiencing escalating real estate development. Both areas have developed into
increasingly exclusivist spaces and as such show that intermediate cities and urbanizing regions can no
longer escape the spatial segregation, gentrification and inequality that used to be associated almost
solely with metropolitan centers.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction (Inzulza-Contardo, 2012; Janoschka, Sequera, & Salinas, 2014).

Under the influence of globalization and changing mobility
patterns, urban landscapes in Latin America have changed signifi-
cantly over the last decades. Cities are increasingly characterized by
social exclusion, crime, and the physical creation of class barriers
(Angotti, 2013; Portes & Roberts, 2005; Roberts, 2010). In
geographical terms, boundaries between center and periphery
might be blurred, but in terms of socio-economic opportunities the
distinction between poor and more prosperous urban residents is
still very sharp (Perlman, 2010). Some of these urban trans-
formations can be traced back to concerted efforts by the state and
the private sector to ‘regenerate’ urban areas and free up land for
the sake of investment; the possible consequences include gentri-
fication, displacement, and, indirectly, socio-spatial segregation
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: H.J.vanNoorloos@uu.nl (F. van Noorloos), g.steel@uu.nl
(G. Steel).
While the roles of local elites and traditional mobile groups such as
foreign entrepreneurs and tourists in this process have been
documented (Steel, 2013; Torres & Momsen, 2004), few authors
have explored the role of lifestyle migration in current trans-
formation processes in Latin American cities.
The role of mobilities in engendering urban transformations has
been widely recognized in relation to South-North migration, yet
when it comes to reversed flows of lifestyle-related mobilities
(North-South), the literature is more scarce and recent.1 The fact
that lifestyle migration has surged only recently in many areas,
together with the difficulty of capturing the phenomenon in sta-
tistics, renders it largely invisible in urban debates. Nevertheless,
1
There has been some conceptual confusion around the phenomenon of lifestyle
migration. At least a variety of terms is used for similar phenomena including
residential tourism, retirement migration, amenity migration, North-South migra-
tion, and second home development. In accordance with Williams and Hall (2000)
we conceptualize lifestyle migration as a hybrid form of privileged mobility that
ranges from permanent migration to prolonged tourism.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
0197-3975/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
2 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8
lifestyle migration is a salient aspect of current globalization pro-
cesses; its influence on urban space is evident in cities and incipient
urban areas such as Cuenca, Ecuador; Panama City, Panama; San
Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Granada, Nicaragua; Guanacaste, Costa
Rica; and Northeast Brazil.
In Latin America, most lifestyle migrants are North Americans
who move either temporarily or permanently to the continent in
search of a more relaxed lifestyle, a lower cost of living and better
weather conditions. Together with wealthy domestic migrants,
returnees and foreign entrepreneurs, they are investing increas-
ingly in Latin American real estate markets and converting specific
areas of the Latin American city into new spaces of consumption
more amenable to Western lifestyles. Cuenca and Guanacaste are
two of Latin America's most popular destinations for international
lifestyle migrants, and as such are experiencing escalating real es-
tate development. In this paper we elaborate on how this recent
process has accelerated and extended pre-existing processes of
socio-spatial segregation in intermediate cities and urbanizing re-
gions,2 suggesting that segregation is not confined solely to met-
ropolises and megacities of the continent.
By drawing on these two cases, we aim to deepen the debates by
eliciting the role of lifestyle migration in contemporary urban
transformations and patterns of urban socio-spatial change in Latin
America. At the same time we widen the geographical basis of the
lifestyle migration debate by including urban and urbanizing re-
gions and by focusing on Latin American destinations, and thereby
provide new insights into lifestyle migration's local implications.
First we introduce a conceptual outline on urbanization, spatial
segregation and lifestyle migration; then we present the two case
studies of Cuenca and Guanacaste; and we finalize with some
concluding reflections.
2. Urbanization, spatial segregation and lifestyle migration in
Latin American cities
Across the globe, globalization and neoliberalism have left their
imprint on the urban landscape. As cities started to engage in
‘entrepreneurial urbanism’, the focal point of urban governance
moved from managerialism or strategies that were primarily ori-
ented towards the State-led provision of services and facilities for
the urban population, to an entrepreneurial stance on economic
development (Harvey, 1989). Neoliberal policies have transformed
the city from a center of production and work to a place of global
capital in which the urban space has been converted into what
Smith (1996) calls the ‘revanchist city’. Privatization and
commodification of urban space often result in displacement and
gentrification, for example through rapidly rising consumption
prices and real estate values. Nasser (2003) argues that this rising
expense burden results in social exclusion and creates ‘outsider’
zones, over which locals have lost participatory power.
In Latin American cities, this neoliberal approach to urban
development has resulted in the increasing commodification of
land. This conversion of land into a marketable commodity has
been intensified by a real estate boom dominated by foreign in-
vestors, national elites, transnational migrants, and lifestyle mi-
grants such as old and early age pensioners. In the neoliberal era, a
significant portion of foreign investment has flowed into the real
estate sector; Latin America's less industrialized urban areas such
as those in Ecuador and Costa Rica are no exception (Roberts, 2010).
These investments, with their social exclusion mechanisms, are not
2
Cuenca (Ecuador) is an intermediate city while Guanacaste (Costa Rica) is a
coastal region in which tourism and real estate have generated urbanization on a
smaller scale.
Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
without consequences. Processes of gentrification e typical to Latin
America are gentrification through housing revitalization (Inzulza-
Contardo, 2012), the privatization of public space, as well as com-
merce and tourism-related gentrification (Janoschka et al., 2014) e
in tandem with increased urban crime and violence, have led to a
rise in socio-spatial segregation. Angotti (2013) speaks in terms of
“enclave urbanism” as the conscious design and development of
fragmented cities and metropolitan regions in Latin America. He
argues that these separate enclaves contribute to “the fragmenta-
tion of urban space into exclusive, elite residential enclaves and
ghettos, malls, and business districts” (Angotti, 2013:11). Indeed,
the number of gated residential communities has skyrocketed
across the continent (Alvarez-Rivadulla, 2007; Borsdorf, Hidalgo, &
S
anchez, 2007; Coy, 2006). In other words, the creation of new real
estate markets is intrinsically linked with gentrification in Latin
America; these developments in turn are closely interlinked with
active government and private sector-led regeneration strategies
and land market liberalization (Inzulza-Contardo, 2012; Janoschka
et al., 2014). However, the role of new and different privileged
consumer groups e such as lifestyle migrants e in the increasing
monopolization of space and urban functions, as well as socio-
spatial segregation, has not yet been systematically analyzed.
While lifestyle migration is leaving clear marks on the social,
economic, cultural and spatial landscapes of many regions in Asia,
Africa and Latin America, the literature pays scarce attention to the
implications of the phenomenon for the destination areas located
outside of Europe and North America, and their populations.
Despite recent calls for a better analysis of lifestyle migration's ef-
fects (Janoschka & Haas, 2013; van Noorloos, 2012), a thorough
empirical and in-depth account of lifestyle migration's local con-
sequences and responses in the global South, moving beyond the
migrants themselves, still seems challenging apart from some
notable exceptions. Some studies e while acknowledging the
inevitable complexity of measuring change in a multifaceted global
context e do provide accounts of local impacts such as the eco-
nomic implications of lifestyle migration and residential tourism
(Hoogendoorn & Visser, 2010; van Noorloos, 2012; Visser, 2004) or
of socio-political conflicts and struggles over space and meaning e
including land and water conflicts (Bastos, 2013; Bonilla & Mordt,
2011; McWatters, 2009; van Noorloos, 2011). Others address
shifting local power relations and inequalities (Aledo, Loloum,
Ortiz, & García-Andreu, 2013; Barrantes-Reynolds, 2011;
Janoschka, 2009) and spatial and environmental change (van Laar,
Cottyn, Donaldson, Zoomers, & Ferreira, 2013; van Noorloos, 2012;
Roma
n, 2008; Spalding, 2013). However, many of these studies
focus on rural areas.
In terms of urban areas, various authors observe the importance
of segregated urban areas, such as gated communities, in contem-
porary lifestyle migration in Latin America (Jackiewicz & Craine,
2010; Matteucci, 2011). Enriquez (2008) frames lifestyle migra-
tion in coastal urban areas in Puerto Pen~ asco, Mexico as ‘defensive
urbanism’ consisting of condominium complexes and gated com-
munities that are closed off from their surroundings through high-
level security, regulation and walls as well as with a lack of public
access (e.g., restricted access to beaches) that implies the privati-
zation of public space. Such defensive urban types confer social and
economic exclusivity and distance (Enriquez, 2008). Their periph-
eral and diffuse character, set apart from the pre-existing urban
nucleus, further engenders a social separation between lifestyle
migrants and other populations (see also Matarrita-Cascante &
Stocks, 2013). Urban fragmentation and segregation also can take
different forms; network-type enclaves (Rodgers, 2004) and
gentrified inner-cities surrounded by peripheral local neighbor-
hoods are other possibilities.
It is notable that the changes related to lifestyle migration
 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8
mainly take place in intermediate cities and incipient urban areas.
As such, lifestyle migration can be connected to ‘planetary urban-
ization’, understood as a process whereby socio-spatial arrange-
ments and infrastructural networks e those that lie well beyond
traditional cities e have become integral parts of a worldwide
‘urban condition’ (Brenner & Schmid, 2014; Lefebvre, 2014). Thus
non-metropolitan areas also are subject to urban transformations
such as spatial segregation that used to be associated almost
exclusively with metropolitan centers. The supposedly livable and
harmonious urban environments of smaller cities for example
increasingly are jeopardized by the growing imbalance between
the livelihoods of local residents and those of transnational elites
(Steel, 2013).
In this paper we aim to analyze further the intersections of
lifestyle migration and contemporary Latin American processes of
urban segregation and fragmentation by focusing on two specific
cases: the intermediate city of Cuenca in Ecuador and the urban-
izing coastal region of Guanacaste in Costa Rica.3
3. The case of Cuenca
At 2500 m above sea level, Cuenca (Fig. 1) is an intermediate city
located in the Andean Highlands of Ecuador with a population of
505,585 inhabitants (INEC, 2010).4 Beginning in the 1950s, many of
the city's inhabitants started migrating to the United States (US) e
and also to Spain after the 1980s crisis e in search of better liveli-
hood opportunities (Albornoz & Hidalgo, 2007). More recently
however, counter flows of migration have occurred. The global
financial crisis of 2008 as well as significantly decreased labor op-
portunities in the US and Spain means that ever more Ecuadorian
migrants are returning to their home towns (Pes
antez, 2011). In
addition, a striking number of lifestyle migrants from the US,
Canada and other Western countries are considering Cuenca as an
attractive, low-cost retirement destination (Hayes, 2014, 2015). As a
result, the number of retirees has increased exponentially, espe-
cially since the city of Cuenca was recognized as the world's
number-one retirement destination by the International Living
website in 2010.5 Although exact statistical data on the numbers of
lifestyle migrants does not exist, the US embassy estimates that
there are roughly 4000 English speaking expats living in Cuenca.6
Advocates argue that because the city is big enough to absorb
the growing numbers of lifestyle migrants, significant alternations
to the city's dynamics or its urban identity will not result. However,
in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of these forces we
take a closer look at the daily routes, routines and real estate in-
vestments of lifestyle migrants, to see how they intersect with well-
to-do Ecuadorians. Most lifestyle migrants in Cuenca live in pent-
houses and newly-built condominiums in what is locally referred to
as ‘gringolandia’, which is located in the Northwest suburb of the
city along Avenida Ordo
n
~ ez Lasso (Fig. 1). However, contrary to
what the nickname might suggest, this neighborhood is far from
being exclusively inhabited by North American migrants. Actually
the dominant real estate investors in the area are returning Ecua-
dorian migrants and (upper) middle-class Cuencanos. In fact, in
some extreme cases, local condominium developers explicitly have
3
Our findings are based on various fieldwork episodes between 2008 and 2014,
in which semi-structured interviews, participant observation, focus groups and the
review of secondary materials (e.g., media, policy documents, websites) were the
main techniques (for more detail on the Costa Rica case, see van Noorloos, 2012).
4
These statistics refer to Canton Cuenca and include some rural communities.
5 7
International Living http://internationalliving.com/2010/04/cuenca-ecuador%
e2%80%94il%e2%80%99s-no-1-retirement-haven/(accessed 20/07/2010). In 2015,
the same website elected Ecuador as the best retirement haven.
6
Personal communication, March 2014.
Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
3
refused to sell their condominiums to foreign buyers because they
are considered to be too demanding (Cuenca High Life, 2013). For
instance, these buyers place much more emphasis on official papers
and authorized agreements than local buyers. Although the
discrimination against foreigners is absolutely no visible trend in
Cuenca, it clearly illustrates the possibility that the real estate
market in Cuenca is strong enough to exclude certain buyers.
At the same time, the interest of lifestyle migrants in purchasing
real estate seems to decrease as they have shifted away from buying
to renting. In order to explain this decreasing interest, academics
and local newspapers refer to the age and limited purchasing po-
wer of the migrants (Cuenca High Life, 2013; Hayes, 2014, 2015). In
our interviews, it became clear that an additional aspect must be
taken into account. Instead of investing in real estate, several mi-
grants indicated that it is more beneficial to open a savings account
at an Ecuadorian public bank. By putting their savings in a bank,
these migrants earn 10 percent interest on their invested capital.
Moreover, these accounts are guaranteed by the Ecuadorian state;
real estate investments are less predictable. As one of our in-
formants explains, “When I invest all my money in real estate, I do
not have cash in my hand for daily spending. Although now I just
rent a relatively cheap apartment in the historic center of Cuenca. I
have put my savings in the bank and I can live quite comfortably
from my yearly interest”.7 Lifestyle migrants’ increasing demand
for rentals coincides with a growing number of migrants who rent a
place in the historic center of Cuenca, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site since 1999. According to Hayes (2015), these rentals contribute
to certain forms of gentrification in which apartments and historic
buildings are renovated and refurbished in such a way that only a
more affluent group of clients can gain access to them.
The shift to rentals shapes the contours of how lifestyle migrants
influence socio-economic inequality and spatial segregation in the
city. Instead of contributing to large-scale city invasions in which
local populations are displaced and have to make way for ethnic
enclaves or exclusive gated communities, it is instead a rather ‘quiet
encroachment’8 that typifies the growing presence of lifestyle mi-
grants in the city of Cuenca. As their Spanish language skills are
often very basic, many lifestyle migrants make use of their English
language networks in order to find an apartment. There are, for
instance, just a few expats who can find their way to the rental
advertisements in the local newspapers. Hence lifestyle migrants
generally make use of international real estate agents that provide
full management services in English at a premium price. These
agents operate completely separate from the local rental market.
When it concerns access to health, living and entertainment
services, retirees prefer to fall back again on a narrow network of
people who speak English that are recommended by other lifestyle
migrants or that are promoted via international advertisements
online. The choice of Cuenca as a place to retire is generally based
on international lifestyle marketers (Hayes, 2014). Lifestyle mi-
grants' favorite bars, restaurants and supermarkets are those that
offer Western products, provide English-speaking services (or at
least menus in English); these places generally can charge higher
prices than local establishments. In addition, advertisements,
entertainment, and cultural events well as other announcements
are posted on the ‘Gringo Tree’ website, an online platform for
expatriates living in Cuenca (and Quito). These are just a few ex-
amples of how the livelihood of lifestyle migrants in Cuenca runs
around a restricted number of places in the city and within
Focus group, 31 March 2014, single female from the United States.
8
Bayat (1997) uses this term to describe the resistance strategies of ‘ordinary’
people. In our view the term can also be adopted for the analysis on how more
affluent groups try to strengthen their (political) position in the urban landscape.
4 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8
Fig. 1. Map of Cuenca. Source: author's research.
networks of English speakers. As far as they build upon encounters
with the local population, these networks generally are restricted
to a number of English-speaking Ecuadorians. As a result of their
own migration experiences, these Ecuadorians are well-equipped
to benefit from the money brought in by foreigners.
In other words, the presence of lifestyle migrants in Cuenca
leads to a popping-up of small ‘hubs of gringolandia’ in different
parts of the city. Lifestyle migrants in Cuenca do not intrude into
any specific area of the city. Instead they gain ground by domi-
nating specific nodes of exclusivity and affluence that are not
spatially concentrated but rather are dispersed across the city.
These nodes e which Rodgers (2004) refers to as ‘fortified net-
works’ e partly build upon local networks of affluence and
contribute to a further polarized and fragmented urban environ-
ment characterized by of islands of wealth and islands of poverty.
The urban impacts of lifestyle migration are embedded in local
socio-economic and spatial structures and as such are difficult to
distinguish from other ongoing processes of gentrification and
segregation in the city of Cuenca. However, the conglomeration of
these different urban processes shapes the growing disparities
between those who have access to global interconnectivity and
those who do not.
4. The case of Guanacaste
For decades, Costa Rica has been a well-known relocation
destination for North Americans. The flow of lifestyle migrants has
recently intensified and extended geographically to new coastal
areas such as the northwest coastal region of Costa Rica in Gua-
nacaste province (Fig. 2). In the 2000s, this traditional cattle
farming region converted into an urbanizing hotspot for tourism
and real estate. It is estimated that about 5 percent of the popula-
tion are permanent lifestyle migrants, while between about 8
percent and 12 percent of the population consists of temporary
lifestyle migrants at any given moment of the year (van Noorloos,
2014).9 Indeed, permanent migrants are still a small group; many
9
The research area includes the coastal area of Guanacaste province between
Papagayo and Pinilla.
Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
people use their property as a second home or as an investment. In
Guanacaste, buying property is the main modality for lifestyle
migrants. These migrants are mostly from the US and Canada;
Guanacaste also attracts Costa Ricans who originate from the
country's Central Valley. Individual house buying has paved the
way for an extensive real estate sector where most properties lie
within residential projects and housing developments. The de-
velopers and investment capital mainly come from the US and
Canada, although there is also much domestic investment; in
addition, collaborations between North American and Costa Rican
investors are common (van Noorloos, 2012, 2014). Local and do-
mestic elites are strategic brokers that enable real estate invest-
ment, for example in assisting investors with complying with
coastal governance regulations10 these elites often have been
among the first actors to establish second homes in Costa Rica's
coastal areas since the 1950s. Hence, although we can observe a
clear ‘foreignization’ of space (Zoomers, 2010), it is also evident that
pre-existing power structures and local elites are essential toward
enhancing and shaping the socio-spatial implications of lifestyle
migration.
Lifestyle migration in a region such as Guanacaste introduces
new privileged populations and hence inevitably creates social
inequalities which are clearly marked in the landscape. This is
particularly visible in the prevalence of gated communities or
‘fortified enclaves’ (Caldeira, 2000); about half of the completed
developments on Guanacaste's coast are advertised as such. These
gated communities are master-planned by the developer and pro-
vide a high standard of on-site service (including exclusive
communal areas, private nature reserves, recreation facilities, golf
courses, marinas, shopping centers and medical services) and an
exclusivist sense of community among the inhabitants. Security
measures including gates are an important part of this. While
defensive urbanism and ‘fortified enclaves’ thus clearly abound, the
impermeable character of the borders and the strong sense of
10
Coastal land concessions cannot be granted to: foreigners that have lived in
Costa Rica for less than five years; to corporations with more than 50 percent
foreign capital; or to corporations established by foreigners or with residence
outside Costa Rica (law no. 6043, Ley sobre la Zona Marítimo Terrestre, ZMT, of
1977).
 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8 5

Fig. 2. Coastal Guanacaste, Costa Rica: Planned, and completed residential tourism ‘entities’ (plots, houses and apartments) (2011). Source: author's research.

community are not always a reality as a result of the temporariness
and absenteeism of the population for example.11 All-inclusive
gated communities are not the only destinations for lifestyle mi-
grants in Guanacaste; there are also condominiums, villas, and plot
subdivisions with varying degrees of security and community
building. Also, gated communities are not a new concept intro-
duced by lifestyle migrants alone; since the early 2000s, Costa
Rican elite and middle-class investors and home buyers acquired
increased spending power and so started looking for complete
housing solutions (such as gated communities and condominiums),
especially in suburban areas of the Central Valley (Roma
n, 2007).
While such residential projects are not clearly concentrated in
certain areas but rather scattered around the landscape, segrega-
tion is often visible on a micro scale.12 Indeed, rather than a large-
scale spatial segregation, lifestyle migration and the related real
estate and construction industry have enhanced fragmentation;
new residential projects and their related services have often been
inserted into existing coastal communities (see also Roitman &

11
This temporariness and absenteeism also is related to the fact that residential
tourism and short-term tourism are deeply intertwined. Large gated communities
tend to feature large international hotels; furthermore, the houses and condo-
miniums frequently are rented out to short-term tourists.
12
Coastal areas as well as the hills adjacent to the coasts are popular sites for
lifestyle migrants. Moreover isolated coastal areas and small towns towards the
interior of the province are envisaged to be the new development areas.

Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
6 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8
Giglio, 2010). This spatially uneven development has led to frag-
mented land markets. The influx of new high-income population
groups who are willing and able to pay large sums for real estate,
next to local and immigrant groups with much lower incomes,
means that average household incomes in such areas become
meaningless for predicting land and real estate prices. Indeed, in
Guanacaste there has been no even spreading of an expensive land
and housing market in the area, but rather a fragmentation and
differentiation of land prices. Even on a micro scale, land prices vary
by more than $700 per square meter (valorizations by Ministerio de
Hacienda, 2010) depending on location (urban-central or rural,
beachfront or interior); accessibility; quality of housing; and ame-
nities including ‘tourist quality’ such as beach views.
Real estate growth and the influx of new elites have caused
some direct displacement of local populations but this displace-
ment is mediated by various local factors. Recent pressures on land
have not led to massive displacement because of the low popula-
tion numbers, low agricultural use of land, fragmentation, and
spatial characteristics of the investment. Indeed, most displace-
ment had already taken place during earlier ‘land grabs’ (Edelman,
1998) so that the impact of current land sales is not particularly
high. Moreover, land transactions have been mostly voluntary,
although not entirely free from structural factors such as power
differences and clearly influenced by broader processes of societal
change (van Noorloos, 2011). For example, land rents have been
captured mostly by external real estate speculators rather than
local populations who were often in distress or unaware of the
value of their land. In addition, land conflict and privatization has
increased.
Nevertheless, the main cause of local population exclusion is the
rise in property prices e and consumption prices more generally.
With the arrival of higher-income groups and those who are pre-
pared to pay ‘tourist prices’ for property or rental housing, large
parts of the local population find that affordable housing becomes
out of reach. In the coastal area of Guanacaste, indeed, prices for
land and housing have skyrocketed, especially between 2000 and
2008 (van Noorloos, 2012, 2014). Because of the high prices, lower-
income groups, including younger generations and immigrant la-
borers, are unable to buy property in certain areas. Hence lifestyle
migration-related gentrification has clearly led to displacement in
indirect ways. Although the tourism real estate industry has
brought employment and business opportunities to Guanacaste,
there is a mismatch between income levels and the real estate
market; hence a large part of the real estate market is inaccessible
for local and low-income immigrant populations.
5. Conclusion
In order to link the discussions on lifestyle migration to the
urban debates concerning Latin America, this paper has compared
lifestyle migration dynamics in two different urban areas: the in-
termediate city of Cuenca and the urbanizing region of Guanacaste.
We have focused our empirical analysis on social and spatial
Table 1
Comparison: Cuenca, Ecuador and Guanacaste, Costa Rica.
Cuenca
Urbanity Intermediate city
Lifestyle migration Retirement migration
Real estate market Mostly renting; addition to strong local
market
Spatial segregation ‘Fortified networks’
Impact of lifestyle Relatively low and invisible
migration
Please cite this article in press as: van Noorloos, F., & Steel, G., Lifestyle migration and socio-spatial segregation in the urban(izing) landscapes of
Cuenca (Ecuador) and Guanacaste (Costa Rica), Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.014
changes in these two popular Latin American destinations in order
to elicit the role of lifestyle migration in ongoing urban trans-
formations. Table 1 systematically compares the two cases.
In both urban areas we have observed significant forms of direct
and indirect displacement. Local residents living centrally in
Cuenca's historic buildings have to make way for high class enter-
tainment facilities and for people who can afford to buy or rent a
renovated and refurbished house in this part of the city. Through
rising land and housing prices, local residents in Guanacaste are
expelled to more remote and less expensive areas in the region.
They lose ground to large scale condominium developments in the
better-located, urbanizing parts of the region. However, these
forms of displacement only partly explain the main processes of
urban change we have described in this paper. It is rather the way in
which both areas have developed into increasingly exclusivist areas
that marks the current intersections between lifestyle migration
and other urban dynamics in the regions under study.
In the Guanacaste case, we clearly observed several forms of
residential segregation and social exclusion through increased
privatization and securitization in coastal areas, of which gated
communities or ‘fortified enclaves’ are the most exemplary forms.
In Cuenca, we identified exclusivist nodes or ‘fortified networks’
across the city that bind and demarcate the socio-spatial move-
ments and activities of lifestyle migrants. The rise of high quality
restaurants and other luxury establishments are the physical evi-
dence of the growing discrepancies between those who have access
to migration and those who do not. In line with neoliberal de-
velopments, and exacerbated by deregulation and laissez-faire ur-
ban policies, space and services are becoming increasingly
fragmented. Spatially, gated communities, condominium buildings
and other elite types of housing are mixed with the housing types
of other social groups in both cases. Across the cities under study,
this results in a fragmented landscape as the price of real estate
differs significantly, even at the neighborhood level. At the same
time, while services such as security, health, entertainment and
transport have become more widely available across the city, due to
privatization they remain largely inaccessible to certain parts of the
population. These deepening social disparities, fragmented social
landscapes and a ‘foreignization’ of space are symbolically repre-
sented via the use of English on billboards and in the streets, in the
foreign influences in the architecture (see also Klaufus, 2012), and
the images of ‘white’ families in advertisements (see also
Torkington, 2013).
Nevertheless, in order to contribute to the broader discussion on
the link between lifestyle migration and urban change, we need to
scrutinize any simple attempt at evaluating the real impact of
lifestyle migrants. Cities are by definition very hybrid and socially
divided spaces in which social heterogeneity, mobility, historical
trajectories and policies emerge as intermingling factors of spatial
fragmentation and segregation. The current urban transformations
and the growing pressure on land and housing markets in Cuenca
and Guanacaste cannot merely be ascribed to the rise in lifestyle
migration. In both regions, international flows of migrants
Guanacaste
Coastal area in the process of urbanization
Broader lifestyle migration, incl. temporary and seasonal residential tourists and younger
people
Mostly buying; lifestyle migration drives market
‘Fortified enclaves’
Relatively high and very visible, gentrified
 F. van Noorloos, G. Steel / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e8
converge with local urban segregation and fragmentation dynamics
that were already in motion before the arrival of lifestyle migrants.
Lifestyle migration merely impacts on the extent and speed with
which these patterns of socio-spatial change take place; and still
these impacts vary according to the level of urbanization. In an
intermediate city such as Cuenca, lifestyle migrants’ use of existing
housing, together with prior socio-spatial segregation processes
and the traditional importance of local elites, amount in relative
terms to lifestyle migration having a low level of direct impact. On
the other hand, in urbanizing regions such as Guanacaste, a new
real estate and construction industry is created with the explicit
aim to attract and profit from lifestyle migration through smart
marketing and housing speculation. Hence social and spatial im-
pacts are more visible in the case of Guanacaste than in the case of
Cuenca. Nonetheless, even in Guanacaste, with the existing de-
mand of local and domestic elites and the pre-existing national
dynamics of gated community expansion, the way has been paved
for these dynamics to emerge.
In other words, the urban transformations we have described in
this paper are encapsulated in ongoing processes of socio-spatial
change. As a result we could not clearly disentangle the impact of
lifestyle migration from the local dynamics of gentrification, urban
regeneration and spatial segregation. In the urban and urbanizing
regions we have studied, processes of spatial segregation are sha-
ped by a complex assemblage of different factors and triggers of
which lifestyle migration is just one. This is why studies on the
urban impact of lifestyle migration should drop a narrow distinc-
tion e which is still maintained in rural studies e between lifestyle
migrants and locals. In multifaceted urban areas, lifestyle migrants
connect and co-exist with certain local elements while remaining
separated from others; the lifestyle migration industry also in-
termingles with certain existing social, economic and spatial
elements.
This is why further research on urban lifestyle migration should
give more attention to the chain of actors involved in the produc-
tion of lifestyle migration spaces. In-depth research on the
powerful industries related to lifestyle migration will contribute to
a better understanding of how the interactions between real estate
brokers, local elites, foreign entrepreneurs and lifestyle migrants
have contributed to a new socio-geographical hierarchy in the ur-
ban spaces in developing countries. As Woods (2011) also argues,
the transformative impact of lifestyle migration on local space can
only be understood in concert with other globalization processes
such as tourism, overseas investment and property speculation as
well as the arrival of transnational companies and cultural hy-
bridization. It is exactly these processes that deserve more atten-
tion in future research on urban lifestyle migration in developing
countries.
Acknowledgments
This research has benefitted from the Flemish University Council
VLIR-UOS, from the LANDac project and from CEDLA. We would like
to thank Dr. Paul van Lindert and Dr. Naxhelli Ruiz for the coordi-
nation process of this special issue. We would also like to thank the
editors of Habitat International and an anonymous reviewer for
their useful comments on earlier drafts.
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