Social housing and transit-oriented developments.

The case of Bogota

1
Laura Amézquita

1
Research Group in territorial economy (GRET), Université de Neuchâtel, Fbg de l’Hôpital 27 CH-2000
Neuchâtel, laura.amezquita@unine.ch
2
Pedro Héndez
2
Research Group in architecture, city and territory, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 74b #23b 59
110911 Bogota Colombia , hendezp@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Housing provision in Latin American cities has experienced an important segmentation according to
householders’ purchase power, which demands it and consequently infers a spatial order. The production and
expansion of the city under these characteristics, as the case of Bogota, encourage housing production with
high quality criteria in a formal real estate market for high income householders. At the same time, these logic
rejects they cannot pay, who stand the persistence of an informal labor market and allocations in city
peripheries. In Bogota, as other Latin America cities, low income families use to place in difficult allocations
which exclude them to the city’s benefits, so must transfer part of their time and their productivity in daily
travels to work places and other urban equipment. Their accessibility is conditioned by a faraway allocation
from work centralities and the infrastructure available to connect them in not efficient enough.
Transit-oriented Development (TOD) comprises a planning approach which combines principles of urban
development when are implemented jointly contribute to creation of compact communities with strong social
tissue and organized around a high quality massive transport system. The present paper makes an emphasis in
social housing allocation with possibilities to carry on territorial strategies that promote the mix of uses
through TOD. In this regard, housing buildings will be near to other urban equipment, subsequently distances
and commuting will be reduce, therefore we will have less dependency to motorized ways of transports. Also
we stimulate walking and cycling, improving environmental achievement of entire city. One of TOD’s principle
consists in developing a compact city and with mixed land uses, thus densification should be positive and
functional at the same time that we mitigate accessibility problems of the lowest income. Hence, study social
housing allocation and its accessibility inside urban system is fundamental.
The principal idea is that the no cost housing requires no cost transport, considering the cheaper mode of
transport are walking and biking. We consider that it is quite contradictory the concept of no cost housing if
people has to spend a lot of money in daily commutation.

The article constants difficult allocation and access of social housing intended for low income families and
relate it with the possibilities of TOD in Bogota in actual period and future perspectives.
KEYWORDS social housing, TOD, Bogota, Latin America city

AUTHORS BIOGRAPHY
LAURA AMÉZQUITA: PhD Student Université de Neuchâtel (Switzerland), member of Research Group in
Territorial Economy (GRET). Economist and Political Scientist (University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia),
Master in Urban Studies and Regional Planning (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris, France).
PEDRO HÉNDEZ: Architect, Master in Building Construction and Specialist in Land Markets and Policy in Latin
America (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia)Member of Research Group in Architecture,
City and Territory of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia

1
1 Introduction
The continuing needs of social housing in cities with high socioeconomic inequality, such as
Latin America’s have undergone difficult pressures to solve. Traditionally found in
developing housing projects on the peripheral areas.

This document aims to revise the location of housing under the light of the functional
possibilities offered by the Transport Oriented Development -TOD-. The spatial order of the
housing allocation with an emphasis on low-income segments and accessibility within the
urban complex is studied here. It tests the hypothesis of an existing segregating spatial
order that perpetuate breaks in functionality and social mobility. We want to empathize
that exist a spatial order in the housing allocation that converts transport costs in land cost,
and it is more expensive for the lower income segments of the population because of the
distance from house to work, because more distance causes more cost of transportation,
this means more expensive access to urban services.

After this brief introduction TOD criteria are presented as conceptual and methodological
alternative to understand the problems presented in Bogotá. Then we evidence this
problem through the review appraisal of the distances and travel times supporting by
citizens. Finally, some final considerations are exposed.

2 TOD Criteria

The concept of Transit-Oriented Development –TOD- has been seeking to generate urban
development around stations of mass transit systems in order to minimize travel times in
the last stage of travel. For travel destinations such as employment or study centers are
located at a very short distance from the station (SDP, 2015).

At this point it is essential to emphasize that in the case of Bogotá, according to data
presented by the Mobility Survey of Bogota in December 2015 (SDM, 2015), the 32.48% of
travels in city are walking travel (over 5 million and half), there are trips that are not made in
other modes, for example runners-BRT- (Bus Rapid Transit, Transmilenio in Bogota’s case)
represented only the 13.39% of total trips. It means that walking trips are part of the system
transport, also the cycling trips, which are 4.89% corresponding to 784,502 of total trips. For
having in mind some magnitudes, they are a little more than cab rides.

This amount of travel by bicycle and walking propose a reflection on whether we should
only focus on development to mass transit systems or we should also be oriented non-
motorized transport modes (Suzuky et al, 2015 and Moller, 2009). Consequently, in
proportion of total modes used, sustainable non-motorized modes (walking, biking) are
more used than mass transit transport and have the advantage of being nonpolluting.

The critical variable for citizens to measure efficiency in commuting is expended time. Now,
we have the classic equation (speed = distance / time), if we want to reduce the time, we
must observe the equivalence (time = distance / speed). So it is possible to obtain a shorter
time increasing speed, which is what has traditionally way. The simple idea of wasting time
in travels decreases life quality in the city. Nonetheless, we propose other alternatives to
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reduce travel time, which, putting social and no cost housing near to work centralities with
hospitals, schools, for example needed for dwellings, in order to decrease the distance
traveled.

The technology strategy to address this problem has been to design public transport
vehicles with greater capacity (articulated buses and trains), while the territorial strategy
could be changing the allocation patterns of travel origin (housing) and destination (place of
work or study), through urban standards that allow mixing of land uses (housing, offices,
commerce, equipment). Under this logic, we have acquires Transit Oriented Development
principles , which not only encourage the possibility of location of land uses that create jobs
close to mass transit stations, but also equipment for education, health and social welfare
and low-cost housing to reduce travel times of dwellings, who are traditionally located on
the periphery, affecting their quality of life, and holding high opportunity cost of that time in
terms of it use in other activities, training, productive or spending time with family, that
affect the general well-being of the city, including her productivity. This improved use of
urban space suggests even financing infrastructure for walking and cycling commuting for
short trips arranged through land planning instruments.

3 Housing allocation

The dissociation between places of economic activity and housing presents problems
affecting both the productivity and enjoyment of the city. The housing allocation in front of
the equipment in the city means different pendulums for dwellings in their daily activities. In
reviewing the mapping exposed by SDP (2014a, 2014b) we observe higher densities towards
the northwestern and southwestern border of the urban area of Bogota, with values up to
350 inhabitant per hectare (hab / Ha); while the center of the city has densities near 80 hab
/ Ha. In Figure 1 we cite the maps presented in such works, in the left population density
and right population density of employment centers identified in 2014. Here it is clear the
dissociation between housing and employment centers, if we juxtapose one map on
another is hardly found intersections, because the most crowded area is faraway more than
12 kilometers to the most important work centrality (downtown in Bogota city). This
distance generates daily pendulum movement of working population. At least, it represents
24 kilometers of distance every day.

If we calculate Euclidean distances we find that the southwest of the city to the downtown
employment centers are found to 12.6 km, and between the neighboring municipality of
Soacha (conurbation municipality of Bogota) and can reach up to 15 km. These tours clearly
are not made in a straight line, thus generate them in the topology of town spreads 15.4 km
and 18 km respectively (Héndez, 2016).

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 Figure 1. Population density of Bogotá and Identification employment centers

http://www.sdp.gov.co/
portal/page/portal/Porta
lSDP/Noticias2014/Libro
Source: SDP (2014a) “Aglomeraciones y condiciones de vida en Bogotá” p 24 and p 32 (modified for noticing
economic activity clusters ) and SDP (2014b) “El plan urbano del centro ampliado de Bogotá” p 28.

The difficulty in accessing both employment centers and all kinds of facilities in the city by
that dissociation is more felt for homes that are located in the periphery, which are
generally less valued by land market. The exercise presented below, based on housing prices
determined by Amézquita et al (2015) for 2012, shows the distances between homes and
equipment of education and culture in Bogota. We calculate the nearest distance between
housing and equipment and we determinate two price ranges, one high (above average)
and another low price (below average), with the aim of illustrating that these long distances
between housing and activities of people spaces, usually punish more to lower-priced
homes (classified as social housing).

Figure 2 shows the left side all housing units in the city and on the right side only the low
price, under the same parameter, the nearest distance to education equipment are shown.
The map on the right shows that it is precisely the houses located in the periphery that have
greater distances, which are classified as low price. Also, Figure 3 shows the distances to the
nearest culture equipment housing on the left side the total homes in the city and the right
to social housing. Given the lack of equipment, in general, they are distant from residential
places, but particularly low-price housing. This shows that for population located in the
periphery it is more costly in terms of commuting this location; implicating also its
opportunity cost in time.

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Figure 2. Nearest distance between housing and education equipment, total housing and low price
housing.

Source: Done by the authors based on statistics of Amézquita et al (2015)

Figure 3. Nearest distance between housing and culture equipment, total housing and low price
housing.

Source: Done by the authors based on statistics of Amézquita et al (2015)

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4. Final Considerations

In Bogota, about 20% of the average productivity of the city is wasted in congestion
(Alfonso, 2013). This situation is exacerbated by the fact that housing allocations determines
that a big part of workforce is subjected to long commuting times to go to the employment
centers. Still more differentiated people in lower-price housing, correspond to social
housing, suffer this situation (Aliaga and Álvarez, 2010 and Rios, 2010).

Firstly we have encouraged car dependency for high-income population segments and for
lower income citizens’ dependency to bus system it. The alternative defended here is
related with TOD principles, which explicitly favors the use of non-motorized means.

The housing allocation far away from sources of employment, education and culture
equipment, as we evidenced here, obstructs the enjoyment of the city. The prevalence of
social housing in peripheral areas in the absence of infrastructure which connect places of
residence to the workplaces is also verified here. Moreover, in Bogotá it is felt high density
of certain centers with buildings of commercial, institutional and industrial and other land
uses, where there is little mixing with residential.

As not-cost housing is located in peripheral areas, we propose to locate it in walking

(walkable) distances to work centralities. This makes possible that people use the low cost
mode of transportation and low cost housing.

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