Housing and Habitus. Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico by INFONAVIT / Harvard GSD

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

How do national policies unfold ...

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

... in complicated local territories?

HOUSING AND HABITUS

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing. Edited by Diane E. Davis, Jose Castillo and Yuxiang Luo Book Design Yuxiang Luo Copy Editing Margaret Scott This book presents a range of essays, research projects and design proposals developed in the Option Studio course “Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico” during Spring 2015 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The studio and this book were made possible through the support of INFONAVIT, the National Workers’ Housing Authority in Mexico.

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

OVERVIEW

This book presents a range of essays, research projects and design proposals developed during Spring 2015 at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Under the guidance of professors Diane E. Davis and Jose Castillo, 13 students explored housing complexities, challenges and opportunities in Mexico. The interdisciplinary studio focused on ďŹ ve sites in Metropolitican Oaxaca. All served as a basis for exploring and rethinking social housing production from an urban, social, economic and political perspective. The work presented in this book was supported by INFONAVIT, the National Workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Housing Authority in Mexico.

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

TABLE OF CONTENTS 0.

OVERVIEW.....................................................................................................................007

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................0 1 1 A. INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT, POLITICS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF HOUSING............................................................0 13 Diane E. Davis and Jose Castillo B.

COURSE FRAMEWORK.................................................................019

CRAFT...............................................................................................................................037 CRAFT AND THE PROCESS OF CITY MAKING..............039 Jose Castillo A.

THE OAXACAN SPRAWLOPOLIS...........................................047 Gustavo Madrid Vazquez B.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ﬁeld trip photos) ..............................059

OAXACA’S CRAFT ..........................................................................086 Clayton Adkisson and Allyssa Williams D.

OAXACA’S HERITAGE ..................................................................098 Jesica Bello and Aliza Sovani E.

OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE ..................................................... 108 Duncan Corrigall and Yuxiang Luo F.

POLITICS........................................................................................................................1 2 1 POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN OAXACA ................................1 23 Diane E. Davis A.

OVERPOWERING URBANIZATION .........................................13 1 Sofìa I. Viguri Gómez B.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ﬁeld trip photos) ................................139

HOUSING AND HABITUS

OAXACA’S SOCIOECONOMICS ...............................................156 Allison Green, Amanda Huang and Ning Pei

OAXACA’S WATER POLITICS ....................................................168 Man Su and Teng Xing

OAXACA’S URBAN REGIME .......................................................178 Kyle Belcher and William Rosenthal

THE PRODUCTION OF HOUSING..................................................................... 191 COMPLEX SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS....193 Eduardo Rojas A.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ﬁeld trip photos) ................................201

PROJECT 1: BEYOND OAXACA................................................232 Jesica Bello and Ning Pei

PROJECT 2: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.....................254 Clayton Adkisson, Allison Green and Allyssa Williams

PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES ....................................274 Duncan Corrigall, William Rosenthal and Aliza Sovani

PROJECT 4: HOUSING + .............................................................298 Kyle Belcher and Amanda Huang

PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA ...............................................324 Teng Xing, Man Su and Yuxiang Luo

CONCLUDING REMARKS...................................................................................357 DESIGNING HOUSING AS HABITUS ..................................358 Diane E. Davis, Jose Castillo and Yuxiang Luo

CONTRIBUTORS.........................................................................................................363

Photo by Margaret Scott

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION A.

INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT, POLITICS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF HOUSING Diane E. Davis and Jose Castillo B.

COURSE FRAMEWORK

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT, POLITICS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF HOUSING BY DIANE E. DAVIS & JOSE CASTILLO D. E. Davis; Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. J. Castillo; Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

INTRODUCTION TO CRAFT, POLITICS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF HOUSING

“...Why are the recent changes in national policy not yet well reflected in denser housing production at the local level? Why is housing production likely to exacerbate social problems or spatial exclusion than reverse it? ” In the past several years, Mexico’s national authorities have deployed a range of policies and incentives to help meet the housing needs of a growing population in a rapidly urbanizing country. Primary among these tactics has been the reliance on private housing developers to supply much of the new housing, including the bulk of affordable or “social” housing built over the last several years. The spatial consequences of these trends are significant, because much of this new housing has been built in the urban periphery where land costs are low, contributing to significant and extensive urban sprawl. Notably, these peripheral areas often lack even the most minimal infrastructure and services, including adequate transportation. Prospective homeowners frequently weigh the merits of affordability over accessibility. In the face of this

dilemma, the demand for recently built housing has started to decline, as consumers find it harder to cover mortgage payments in addition to the high costs of commuting. Such conditions create problems for all actors involved, as developers find themselves with over-supplied and undervalued housing, residents find their situation increasingly precarious as housing values decline (often in the face of high rates of abandonment), and local authorities face severe fiscal constraints in providing the infrastructure needed to integrate newly settled areas into the urban fabric. In each case, the isolation of already peripheral residential developments is thus reinforced. The severity of this situation requires a rethinking of housing policy and demonstrates the need to connect housing supply and affordability

HOUSING AND HABITUS

directly to location and accessibility. Through the National Development Plan, the federal government has stated broad goals of densiﬁcation for metropolitan regions across the country. And with strong institutional support and ﬁnancial backing from INFONAVIT, Mexico’s National Worker’s Housing Authority, Mexico is trying to incentivize the creation of dense, compact environments. INFONAVIT is the federal agency responsible for the origination of home mortgages for workers across the country. Inherent to its mission is the imperative to address the challenges of producing sustainable urban housing nationwide, particularly as the country faces grave challenges of urban sprawl. This priority also reveals emergent concerns about quality of life, in which the success of housing programs is not merely measured by the number of units produced, but also by how well they are embedded within a vibrant urbanity and larger networks of infrastructure, transport, services, education, and economic opportunity. Internationally, research strongly suggests that this conception of housing can improve social outcomes for families, as well as overall competiveness for cities and nations alike.1 Yet despite the historic shift in the direction of Mexico’s national housing and urban policy, and despite INFONAVIT’S current priorities, the vast majority of housing development in Mexico still occurs in poorlyconnected, low-density suburbs. With row upon row of single-family

INTRODUCTION

homes often placed far from jobs and services, housing developments frequently fail to deliver the type of shelter that can help families better access opportunities or build assets. Diverse research and data from Mexico confirm that many of the newest neighborhoods built through INFONAVIT mortgages suffer from abandonment, diminished property values, widespread mortgage delinquency and default, and high long-term costs to the public sector associated with steep needs for basic infrastructure, transport, and social services.2 These conditions foreground an important question: why are the recent changes in national policy not yet well reflected in denser housing production at the local level? Why is housing production likely to exacerbate social problems or spatial exclusion than reverse it? And what might be done to remedy this state of affairs? With these questions as a guide, and armed with logistical as well as financial support from INFONAVIT, GSD students turned to the city of Oaxaca, a mid-sized locale in a southern region of Mexico known for its cultural diversity, a strong tradition of indigenous heritage, and a local economy associated with small scale craft and agricultural production. At present, Oaxaca is facing urban sprawl consistent with the challenges seen across Mexico. Complicating matters, Oaxaca City and the municipalities that surround it are also known for a

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

history of opposition to the modernist project of the center. In Oaxaca City, which also serves as the state capital, these historical tensions have been exacerbated by a range of more contemporary social and political conﬂicts that have generated questions over who gains and who loses from current investments in the city as well as the pending plans for its future transformation into a modern metropolis. The studio asked students to use housing as a lens to understand the developmental history of the city while also conceptualizing housing as the key to transforming the built environment, achieving sustainable urbanism, and politically accommodating the social, cultural, and urban priorities of its residents. In this larger endeavor, CRAFT served an operative concept around which questions of housing and socio-political as well as economic transformation inevitably revolved. In Oaxaca, craft as a notion must be understood as relating as much to indigenous creation as to the construction of art, food, and tourism activities that have – and hold the potential to – inform the material and intellectual production of place. Likewise, POLITICS became a critical reference point for rethinking the role and potential of housing. In simple terms, politics denotes the power structures – whether local, state, or national – that impact the territory and set limits on what would be politically possible through regulatory actions undertaken in the form of urban planning by governing

authorities, particularly with respect to the PRODUCTION OF HOUSING. In Oaxaca, the politics of planning and governance must be seen as both barriers and enablers to any change in housing production, and in turn to the city’s economic, social, and political future. The studio expected students to critically ponder these inter-related ideas, and to use those reflections on the craft and political specificities of Oaxaca as a basis for developing innovative approaches and projects for sustainable urban housing, particularly as it could relate to INFONAVIT’s mission nationwide. The projects presented here are the culmination of those efforts. Thirteen students spent fourteen weeks developing concepts and formalizing projects, before presenting them to a jury of architects, planners, urban designers, historians, political scientists, artists, and representatives from INFONAVIT. Building on knowledge and a feel for the city cultivated through a 9-day fieldtrip and a wide range of readings, reports, guest lectures, and exercises, the students developed a deeper understanding of the current challenges to housing production in Oaxaca. To understand craft production in Oaxaca, they identified the economic flows of craft and agricultural goods and mapped sites of craft or agricultural production and tourist activity. To better grasp the political complexities of the city and region, they identified the primary social and political actors involved in governance and opposition, they met

HOUSING AND HABITUS

and interrogated the primary urban planning stakeholders operating in Oaxaca at three levels of governance, and mapped the configuration of social and land settlements in Oaxaca that most resist the modernist “center,” ranging from ejidal lands to municipalities governed by the “usos y costumbres” governance regime.3 Finally, in taking seriously past patterns of housing production and how they might have a bearing on future possibilities, students mapped current housing trends, identified categories of housing investments, located major infrastructural networks, and catalogued the wide range of stakeholders involved in permitting, financing, and approval of housing. One of the most significant challenges facing the students was site location, which was not unrelated to the larger aims the students hoped to achieve by rethinking housing and its relationship to craft and politics. Site decisions were complicated by the fragmented governance structure of the city (comprised of 18 different municipalities), which made it politically difficult to advance densification aims understood at a larger scale.4 In the end, all the students focused their attention on municipalities near Oaxaca de Juárez, the historical, cultural, and political heart of the city. With a gradient of distance from the center of Oaxaca, they selected a wide range of microenvironments that allowed each team of students the opportunity to advance new ideas about housing production – whether in terms of new

INTRODUCTION

typologies, alternative connectivities, or unexplored locational synergies – with the aim of offering new projects capable of jump-starting more sustainable urbanism in Oaxaca.

(Endnotes)

See for example Bramley and Power (2008) on increased access to opportunities, Fadda et al on quality of life, Glaeser (1999 and 2013) on human capital and labor markets, Carlino and Chatterjee (2007) on invention, and Marchand and Charland (1992) and Slack (2002) on infrastructure savings.

2 See for example Monkkonen (2011 and 2012); Fuentes and Hernandez (2014). 3 This is an historical form of customary law unique to Oaxaca and only recently approved as co-existing with federal regulations about the form and nature of municipal governance. For more details see the chapter by Soﬁa Viguri in this volume. 4 The state of Oaxaca is even more disjointed: with 570 municipalities it is Mexico’s most fragmented state.

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

COURSE FRAMEWORK

TENG XING YUXIANG LUO MARGARET SCOTT NÃ&#x2030;LIDA ESCOBEDO RUIZ CLAYTON ADKISSON JESICA BELLO KYLE BELCHER ALIZA SOVANI NING PEI JOSE CASTILLO DIANE E. DAVIS ALLISON GREEN DUNCAN CORRIFGALL AMANDA HUANG WILLIAM ROSENTHAL ALLYSSA WILLIAMS MAN SU

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

Photo by Allyssa Williams

STUDIO OVERVIEW

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

This is the 2nd studio sponsored by INFONAVIT, the National Workers’ Housing Authority in Mexico. INFONAVIT is the federal agency responsible for the origination of home mortgages for workers across the country. Inherent to this work is the imperative to address the challenges of producing sustainable urban housing nationwide, particularly as the country faces grave challenges of urban sprawl. In the past several decades Mexico’s national authorities have deployed a range of policies and incentives to help meet the housing needs of a growing population in a rapidly urbanizing country. Primary among these tactics has been the reliance on private housing developers to supply much of the new housing built in recent years, including the bulk of affordable or “social” housing. The spatial consequences of these trends are signiﬁcant, as much of this new housing has been built in the urban periphery where land costs are low, contributing to signiﬁcant and extensive urban sprawl. Notably, these peripheral areas often lack even the most minimal infrastructure and services, including adequate transportation. Prospective homeowners frequently weigh the merits of affordability over accessibility. In the face of this dilemma, the demand for recently

INTRODUCTION

built housing has started to decline, as consumers find it harder to cover mortgage payments in addition to the high costs of commuting. Such conditions create problems for all actors involved, as developers find themselves with over-supplied and undervalued housing, residents find their situation increasingly precarious as housing values decline (often in the face of high rates of abandonment), and local authorities face severe fiscal constraints in providing the infrastructure needed to integrate newly settled areas into the urban fabric. In each case, the isolation of already peripheral residential developments is thus reinforced. The severity of this situation requires a rethinking of housing policy and demonstrates the need to connect housing supply and affordability directly to location and accessibility. Through the National Development Plan, the federal government has stated broad goals of densification for metropolitan regions across the country. This studio seeks to generate new ideas for meeting goals of densification and fostering sustainable urbanism through the lens of housing specifically, identifying a clear role for INFONAVIT as a key partner in facilitating sustainable urban housing across Mexico.

Photo by Margaret Scott

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS The group was composed by a group of 13 students from Architecture, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, representing different states and countries. The initial research projects were developed in groups of 2 and a total of 6 topics were addressed: craft, heritage, architecture, socioeconomics, water politics, and urban regime. The subsequent design proposal were developed in groups of 2 or 3 and a total of 5 projects were presented in 5 different sites of Metropolitan Oaxaca. Students, teaching assistant, research assistant and professors had the opportunity to travel, discuss and share with them different ideas and perspectives about housing and urbanism, leading to productive and thoughtful dialogues and experiences.

Professors DIANE E. DAVIS Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design.

JOSE CASTILLO Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design

Teaching Assistant MARGARET SCOTT Master in Urban Planning (MUP), â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;15.

Research Assistant NĂ&#x2030;LIDA ESCOBEDO RUIZ

HOUSING AND HABITUS

Students CLAYTON ADKISSON Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. KYLE BELCHER Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘15. JESICA BELLO Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. DUCAN CORRIGALL Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II), ‘15. ALLISON GREEN Master in Urban Planning (MUP), ‘15. AMANDA HUANG Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘15. YUXIANG LUO Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II), ‘16. NING PEI Master in Urban Planning (MUP), ‘15. WILLIAM ROSENTHAL Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. ALIZA SOVANI Master in Landscape Architecture I AP (MLA I AP), ‘15. MAN SU Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. TENG XING Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. ALLYSSA WILLIAMS Master in Landscape Architecture II (MLA II), ‘15.

INTRODUCTION

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

JESICA BELLO ALLISON GREEN NING PEI WILLIAM ROSENTHAL JOSE CASTILLO MAN SU ALLYSSA WILLIAMS KYLE BELCHER DIANE E. DAVIS DUCAN CORRIGALL ALIZA SOVANI YUXIANG LUO CLAYTON ADKISSON AMANDA HUANG MARGARET SCOTT

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

ALIZA SOVANI NING PEI YUXIANG LUO TENG XING JESICA BELLO ALLISON GREEN MAN SU MARGARET SCOTT AMANDA HUANG ALLYSSA WILLIAMS

Photo by Jose Castillo

CLAYTON ADKISSON

HOUSING AND HABITUS

JOSE CASTILLO AMANDA HUANG DUNCAN CORRIGALL JESICA BELLO TENG XING ALIZA SOVANI MARGARET SCOTT

INTRODUCTION

CLAYTON ADKISSON DIANE E. DAVIS KYLE BELCHER WILLIAM ROSENTHAL ALLYSSA WILLIAMS YUXIANG LUO MAN SU

Photo by Jose Castillo

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

INTRODUCTION

CLAYTON ADKISSON ALIZA SOVANI DUNCAN CORRIGALL JESICA BELLO KYLE BELCHER WILLIAM ROSENTHAL AMANDA HUANG ALLISON GREEN ALLYSSA WILLIAMS MAN SU DIANE E. DAVIS MARGARET SCOTT NING PEI TENG XING YUXIANG LUO

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

CHAPTER 2

CRAFT A.

CRAFT AND THE PROCESS OF CITY MAKING Jose Castillo B.

THE OAXACAN SPRAWLOPOLIS Gustavo Madrid Vazquez C.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ﬁeld trip photos) D.

OAXACA’S CRAFT Clayton Adkisson and Allyssa Williams E.

OAXACA’S HERITAGE Jesica Bello and Aliza Sovani F.

OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE Duncan Corrigall and Yuxiang Luo

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

CRAFT

CRAFT AND THE PROCESS OF CITY MAKING

A CONVERSATION WITH JOSE CASTILLO Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

CRAFT AND THE PROCESS OF CITY MAKING

“If I’m reclaiming craft as a lens for city making, it should be a lot about reclaiming the sense of histories, reclaiming the sense of agencies, and reclaiming the idea that there are multiple and often contradicting ideas of doing things.” Mexico’s privatization of social housing supply has produced a sprawling landscape made of inaccessible, peripheral estates.1 In such process of marginalization, the logic of finance has dominated, depicting places and their territorial identities within a framework of monetary land value and real estate, thus eclipsing other material and intellectual aspects of place making. Reflecting upon such urban dynamics, Jose Castillo raised the idea of “craft.” Based on Richard Sennett’s concept in The Craftsman,2 he defined craft as a process of “thinking through making,” and reclaimed it as a way of addressing histories, cultures, politics and spaces through tangible human agencies. Therefore, in the current debate of making cities and, more specifically, producing housing in complex regions such as Oaxaca, can this very notion of craft become

an operative lens via which designers and planners regain their optimism in producing better housing and fairer cities? The following conversation is about how this idea of craft can address complex territorial dynamics, reclaim human agencies in the production of housing and cities, and envision alternative models of generating knowledge and transforming places. Yuxiang Luo: You conceptualized craft as a process of “learning by doing,” which embodies the interaction among different human actors and reﬂects the relations between humans and their territories. How does this particular view of the society compare with the logic that guides the current ways of making cities and providing social housing in Oaxaca, Mexico? Jose Castillo: The mechanism of city

HOUSING AND HABITUS

making and social housing production in Oaxaca, Mexico had a lot to do with the law of finance. In fact, INFONAVIT itself is now a financial agency, not a builder. The abstract force of finance can affect people’s conception of material realities, specifically, in the forms of location and rent. In Oaxaca, the spatial economics reinforces the rigid perception of the region’s geography as a central valley with peripheral locations: the center is valuable, while the peripheries are cheap. Therefore, the peripheries attracted a lot of the social housing projects that, ironically, turned out to be undesirable precisely due to their location. However, the so called peripheries did not use to be treated as places of emptiness or exclusion. They were treated as places of their own forms of production and incredibly rich local dynamics. YL: So, we are saying that each locale within the large region of Oaxaca has had its own “territorial DNA,” which cannot be reduced to a numeric value for reductionist cross-comparison, which seems to only serve the financing of urban development. JC: Exactly, there is the economist’s model of cities based on density and centrality, but can we envision other models that explain and guide territorial development? Affordability is indeed a reason for people’s choice of location, but not the only reason. In the so called peripheral regions of Oaxaca, people cultivate complex forms of territorial connections. For example, people living in Zaachila are

CRAFT

not necessarily poorer than people in the central valley; they stay in Zaachilla because they are connected to certain ways of producing corn and pottery, and are tied to their own social norms and cultural systems. Similarly, communities in Etla are connected to the river and its textile economy. Essentially, the choice of location is not only about economic reactions. YL: Right. So the speciﬁc connection between people and their territories can be termed as the “craft” with which people adapt to their lands, cultures, economies and societies. JC: Yes, but it is not only about people adapting to the environment. Craft can also modify the territorial DNA of the place. When human actors interact with the endowment of their territory, they can change the reality of the place throughout time. Economies grow, and cultures change. In this way, the territory is not just a closed system, and craft is really the feedback between people and place. YL: When you talk about such capacity for people to creatively transform places, are you saying that craft can also be understood as a process of discovering and generating new knowledge? Finance, as an organizing principle that people adopt, has its own knowledge and techniques that rationalize the world and produce socio-spatial realities accordingly. Craft, as you have argued, should also be able to generate new knowledge in society. Then, how does craft work as a knowledge-generating mechanism?

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– compared with those more abstract knowledge such as finance and economics? JC: Again, the key difference here is about their attitudes towards human agency. Each of the more abstract disciplines has its own technique or expertise: for example, there are techniques about economics, statecrafts, and technology. In my opinion, these forms of knowledge tend to be only available to and understandable by a small group, such as a guild. When I talk about craft, however, it cannot be all exclusive, because the connection between human and place is inalienable – as long as people inhabit territories, they naturally interact with and transform the place. YL: So, we are differentiating “codified knowledge” from “tacit knowledge.” The former is mainly managed by exclusive professionals, whereas the latter belongs to the society. Particularly, because of the fundamental complexity of the society as a whole, tacit knowledge is never complete or definite. This incompleteness refers back to your idea of craft as “learning by doing.” Similarly, tacit knowledge is generated through the process of searching and making, before one reaches a final, codified conclusion. JC: Yes, and this is a very important distinction, for it connects the concept of knowledge to the concept of democratic decision making. Historically speaking, professionalized

expertise has become a tool for blinding and disempowering people who only have asymmetrical access to codified knowledge. This power dynamics can relate to the production of the city and housing too. Right now, city making and housing production become only the expertise of the few. I often wonder: in Oaxaca, at what point in history did we lose the capacity for non-experts to be engaged in the process of remaking territories? Therefore, I think human agency is not only crucial in generating knowledge itself, but also a vital form of participation – so that the tacit knowledge of the society can be valued and utilized in the production of cities. In this way, craft is a tool for democratizing knowledge. YL: Then, how does the democratization of knowledge realize itself in the design world? In the process of city making and housing design, how can architects, urban designers and planners substitute their codified knowledge of the profession with the tacit knowledge of craft and territories? JC: Let me make a metaphor. Think about a music producer. She does not make everything from start to finish, but she is a facilitator who gives advice at some point. Maybe architects, urban designers and planners should see themselves as producers, who trust the experience of their collaborators and facilitate the common sense of the society, rather than imposing “innovative solutions”

HOUSING AND HABITUS

that are totally disconnected from the reality. I think city making can be like that: a lot of common sense, and only some innovation. In Oaxaca and Mexico in general, someone at some point invented the idea that large scale accumulation of repetitive housing is good enough, and we since then have lost the sensitivity to look at the inner dynamics of communities and the complexity of public spaces. If I’m reclaiming craft as a lens for city making, it should be a lot about reclaiming the sense of histories, reclaiming the sense of agencies, and reclaiming the idea that there are multiple and often contradicting ideas of doing things.

CRAFT

production in Oaxaca, which was able to resist the hegemony of global brands and quick returns. You wait for a wild plant to grow for 15 or 20 years, which in itself is a revolutionary process: it is connected to the community and territory and offers a different kind of pleasure, and the traditional mezcal thus acts as an identity marker for local craft, as each bottle still traces and reﬂects its origin and the person that made it. Yet, with all its slowness, the traditional mezcal is still capable of breaking the commercial paradigm, or inertia, that sees nature as a rent-extracting tool. Maybe we should think about city making more like mezcals, with a sense of human agency, and with great respect for time.

YL: Right, but even if we as designers realize that we need to shift our role from project-designing architects into process-facilitating producers, do you think there is an institutional inertia that prevents us from changing the business model of city making? Maybe the large-scale replication of housing across peripheries is “inert,” precisely because certain governments and ﬁnancial sectors do see value in those rapid and rigid projects, more than in alternative city-making processes that respect the tacit knowledge of society. How do you think we can overcome such institutional and business inertia?

YL: I’m fascinated by the competition between traditional mezcal and global brands. From a demand side point of view, it is really the different preferences among consumers that ultimately allow multiple brands to coexist. Because someone values cheap price whereas others value the cultural essence, different modes of supply can ﬁnd their niches within the market and in the society, thus withstanding monopoly of only one design. For cities, similarly, it is crucial to discover that there are different types of demands for communities and spaces.

JC: I think craft is precisely the way of overcoming that inertia and, if you’d like to say, monopoly, as long as we factor in choice and time. Let’s think about the traditional mezcal

JC: Yes, as in mezcal production where time allows different brands to be made and tested by consumers, in cities, time allows human behaviors to adapt, choices to be made, and

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socio-spatial realities to be changed – incrementally. So, designing the city is neither about having a rigid regulation based on rationalistic concepts that put everyone into the same category, nor about abolishing intervention altogether so that individual actors can pursue their own interests – think about the negative externality in that case. Either end of the extreme would be a monstrous hegemony of just one ideal, thus not truly pluralist in essence. Going back to the idea of craft and city making, the individual actors, with their own crafts of navigating the world, should be able to also interact with others that embody rather different crafts; meanwhile, they should also be able to talk to and influence those top-down decision making agencies, who at the moment prioritize the financial perspective over territorial dynamics. It’s important to allow regulatory frameworks to slowly change behaviors, and in reverse, the behaviors to change the rules. There needs to be the channel for rules and behaviors to have feedbacks with each other, in an organic system. YL: Right, so think back about craft and Oaxaca. Even though each region has its distinctive territorial dynamics and behaviors of their human agencies, the geographical, political and economic models that depict Oaxaca as center versus peripheries have prevented the potential establishment of pluralist, mutually-influencing territorial dynamics. Territorial complexities do not find a channel to

influence housing provision, because these complex craft dynamics are not “visible” to decision makers. Instead, the system that got imposed on the Oaxaca region is a rigid system that supplies housing monotonously and negates and represses local differences, in a very confident way. JC: Regarding that kind of confidence, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that: “all certainty leads to violence.” Without room for doubts and agonistic negotiation, there will be violence due to the reaction to exclusion. This is manifested in many of the historical and contemporary urban and global events. YL: Right, specifically in Oaxaca, the urban framework aims to perpetuate fixed relationships among regions and their human agencies – such as core vs. periphery, rich vs. poor. However, Oaxaca’s diverse crafts demand mutation, and, in the end, because each place has its own craft and dynamics to be expressed, the nonconforming framework will lead to multiple forms of violent resistance in Oaxaca. JC: Exactly, such theoretical violence is indeed reflected in Oaxaca’s local politics and protests. They were regarding, for example, education and the construction of major projects. When you produce a non-adaptive system, the organization is bound to disappear. We as designers who envision alternative models of territorial relationships should avoid such closed, rigid frameworks.

HOUSING AND HABITUS

In fact, an open system is precisely what this Studio tried to explore and foster. In our design inquiry, we saw different design approaches targeting different locations in Oaxaca. The multiplicity of techniques and tools could produce more nuanced ways of addressing housing and urbanization. There were several questions and several answers. This way of doing design research, as well as the recognition that multiplicities should be prioritized over homogeneity, was important for topics such as housing. For housing production as part of city making, there is not one craft, but multiple crafts.

(Endnotes)

1 Diane Davis and Jose Castillo, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Introduction to Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing,â&#x20AC;? in Housing and Habitus: Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico, ed. Diane Davis et al. (Cambridge: Harvard GSD / INFONAVIT, 2015). 2 Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

CRAFT

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CRAFT

THE OAXACAN SPRAWLOPOLIS URBAN REGIONAL CONSTRUCTION IN THE CENTRAL VALLEYS

BY GUSTAVO MADRID VAZQUEZ PhD in Urbanism; Director, espacio entre tiempo estudio.

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THE OAXACAN SPRAWLOPOLIS: Urban regional construction in the Central Valleys

“...the unique relationships between people, territory and urban space has made the Oaxaca Valley one of the most interesting social and urban laboratories in Mexico.” OAXACA REGION Imagine for a moment, a stretch of land larger than 500,000 acres surrounded by massive mountain formations. The territory is divided into three valleys, each one with a unique geography. A river flows through each valley. The largest runs through the plain from the east, another flows from the northwest. These come together as one river, flowing south for hundred miles to the Pacific Ocean. The mountains around this land provide water, forest, wildlife, and other primary resources. The valley provides a large extension of fertile land, enough to support the rise of some of the ancient civilizations of the American continent. Known popularly as the Oaxaca Valley, this physiographic conformation in southwestern Mexico is really comprised of three different valleys: Etla to the north, Zaachila to the south, and Tlacolula to the east. This

OAXACA REGION

system is hugely relevant to the history of Mesoamerican civilization. We have evidence that before European colonization, this area was populated by at least 350,000 people1, and was part of an extensive urban system that covered the mountains and the valley. This urbanization was made possible by this very unique geography.

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The valleys have an elevation of 1500 and 1600 MASL, and the mountains that surround them reach 3 000 MASL in a relatively short distance. The rise of human civilizations in the region was closely related to its enclosed geography that provided insulation from other parts of the continent. The Oaxaca Valley region may be one of the clearest examples of regional construction in ancient times. AN APPROACH TO THE CITY CONCEPT But this essay is not about the ancient history of the region. Regional construction has continued to the present, and the unique relationships between people, territory and urban space has made the Oaxaca Valley one of the most interesting social and urban laboratories in Mexico. Here, we consider the current complexity of the Oaxacan urban region, providing an overview of several phases of urbanization. MINING AND THE RAILROAD IN OAXACA CITY While industrialization is closely linked to urbanization in many cities around the world and in Mexico, Oaxaca City never had a signiﬁcant transformative industry. What can be understood as Oaxaca’s industrial period began with the advent of the railway in the late 19th century, which permitted the expansion of extractive activities. Some mining had taken place in the Central Valleys since the Spanish conquest, though not as much as other states, such as Guanajuato, San Luís Potosí or Zacatecas.

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Oaxaca produced lesser amounts of silver, gold, and iron, which was enough to sustain a prosperous local bourgeoisie. But the construction of the railway between Puebla and Oaxaca in 1892 marks the very beginning of the industrial era in Oaxaca. The journey to Mexico City that had once taken fourteen days, could now be made by train in fourteen hours. Mineral exploitation dramatically increased. A new regional railway was built, and some factories appeared in and around the city. The ﬁrst electrical plant was also built at this time. Even with this mining and industrial activity, Oaxaca maintained a very compact structure, with its city limits similar to what they had been in the 17th century. It was other, smaller cities and villages across the valleys that experienced signiﬁcant growth during the mining era; some of these cities acted as regional capitals, such as Villa de Etla in the North, Ocotlán and Ejutla in the south and Tlacolula in the east. Oaxaca City at that time was bordered by towns near the historic city, including San Felipe del Agua, San Martin Chapultepec, Jalatlaco, and Ixcotel; a ring of other small villages enclosed the city. During this industrial-mining era, a nascent public transportation system in the Oaxaca City included a tram drawn by mules. Four lines with more than 10.5 miles of rails covered the city. One of these lines connected Oaxaca and San Felipe del Agua,

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which were separated by 2.5 miles, was in fact a metropolitan line. That metropolitan line ran northeast from Oaxaca City, crossing the Jalatlaco Bridge and going straight to San Felipe, behind the Aguilera Hacienda. That tram line may be the beginning of the conﬁguration of the modern city of Oaxaca. A little closer by in the same direction, another northern line connected the city with the main rail station and the customhouse. The urban structure of the city was still very compact for another half century, with only minor population increase and extension. While Oaxaca City maintained a very stable population for almost half century, it began to grow in the 1950s. The population increased to 48,000, which was more than double the maximum average population since the time of the colony. It was at this time that it became necessary to ﬁnd new space for the city’s expansion. In the seventies, eighties and nineties, the growth accelerated with thousands of people moving from rural settlements to the city. New neighborhoods started to appear near the city, and the historic boundaries of the central city shifted; a new concept of urban space was created: conurbation. URBAN GROWTH AND METROPOLITANIZATION Oaxaca City grew quickly and a model of metropolitanization became clear by the 1970s. Oaxaca City was an

extended urban area with a very clear central core defined by the historic district. At this time, the population of Oaxaca City increased to 100,000 and many of the villages from the outer ring became part of the city. The end of the 20th century was the most intense period of urbanization that the city has known; it began with a timid rural immigration and continued with a massive wave of farmers beaten down by the new free market economy. The frenzied urban growth continues today. After the 1976 Vancouver Habitat meeting, many Mexican cities approved, for the very first time, urban plans with a metropolitan emphasis. Oaxaca was one of them in 1979. But the city was expanding faster than the political structures could manage, and in short time, the urban metropolitan area was many times bigger than what the plans contemplated. Two factors help understand these new urban structures: the physiography of the place and the preexisting infrastructure. The configuration of the metropolitan urban area includes both the concentric growth around the old settlements and the extension of the urban fabric by way of railroads and roadways. The absence of regulation facilitated the dominance of self-built housing that stretches for many miles. They urbanized the hills, originally keeping productive lands free of development,

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but when agricultural land lost its value with the neoliberal era, the central part of the valley system, too, became part of a metropolitan area that included nineteen municipalities and now encompasses twenty-two according to the National Population Council (CONAPO)2. At the end of the 20th century, the population of this metropolitan area was around half a million people and growing. Basic services, transportation, garbage collection and employment were all serious problems, and the pressure on the territory began to create a new urban configuration. In 2015, according to the forecasts of CONAPO, this metropolitan area will reach 650,000; keeping this area working and healthy will present major challenges. REGIONAL MORPHOLOGY One aspect of today’s urban phenomenon is that many different urban configurations and social realities can persist in same territory. Metropolitan areas, diffuse developments, urban rings, regional configurations, etc. can exist at different levels of urban organization in the same area. Purely physical connections become less relevant; territorial organization today has more to do with time, speed, connectivity and other non-traditional aspects of urban studies. At the end of the 20th century and the

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beginning of the 21st, new global and local changes have strongly shaken human society. For the very first time, most of the population of the world is urban; Latin America is the most urbanized region of the planet with 80% of its inhabitants living in cities. In Mexico, seventy-eight percent of the population lives in urban areas, so managing urban phenomena has become all the more critical. For most Mexican cities, this change was traumatic. Even now, this transition is only very superficially understood. Around 59 metro areas— four of which are very large—and at least forty other large municipalities concentrate most of the Mexican population. These hundred urban areas will demand particular attention in the coming years. Many of these cities are leaving behind the metropolitan to become increasingly regional urban spaces. This relatively recent configuration is, in fact, one of the most characteristic qualities of the contemporary urban movement. Many factors contribute to this process, but one, in particular, is basic to understanding this reality. Increasingly, urban areas— rich and poor, small and large— have access to better, faster systems of communication. Public transportation, private vehicles, and a communications network provide faster connecting capacities than would once have been imaginable. Now a large part of the Mexican

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OAXACA REGION population has access to smart phones3 and data connection systems of 3G or 4G. Most of the main cities in the country contain mass transit systems, sometimes poorly designed but with good coverage.

the relationships between urban settlements in this region come from very ancient times. The rise of new technologies, in this case, facilitates the connectivity of the regional structure.

As people are able to travel and communicate at faster speeds, new ways to use the territory become possible. That means that settlements in a regional conﬁguration are better connected, and people can move as freely as ever over the geography of the extensive urban areas, such as the regional conﬁguration of the Central Valleys in Oaxaca.

At least ﬁfty-four municipalities4 conﬁgure this huge urban region. Thousands commute every day between the central, densest part of the region and the exterior settlements. A variety of modes of motorized transportation and real time communications maintains this complex urban structure functional, but a big urban area also means big challenges.

These advances in communication have contributed to Oaxaca’s urban regional development, as has the pre-existing coherence of the Central Valleys as a social and physiographic region. For centuries, people from all parts of this region have maintained close commercial and social contact;

The main challenge currently is the uncontrolled sprawl of its urban poles and the proliferation of new urban territories inside the regional area. The central core of this structure includes the municipality of Oaxaca de

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JuĂĄrez and part of the metropolitan area, which is still in expansion, taking more and more free land, producing a landscape without green space. We can ďŹ nd the same phenomenon in many of the more important settlements of the urban region, such as Zaachila, Villa de Etla and Tlacolula, which are still growing in concentric way, extending the urban area. But urban growth has other features. The same communication networks that allow the connectivity in the regional urban system permit the rise of new urban areas between existing cities. These new developments are typically built by the private sector in conjunction with government housing agencies; most have been built in the

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past two decades. The private sector now controls housing development under lax federal regulation and supported by municipalities, which hold the power to determine urban development on their land by constitutional mandate. As such, diffuse housing developments are increasing in number throughout the valleys, typically near roadways that communicate the region. The Tlacolula Valley has the majority of these developments but the other two valleys also have many. These developments consist of dozens or hundreds of single-family houses placed as separated pieces in closed urban conďŹ gurations over the regional complex. This sprawl has other perpetrators.

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The placement of certain government facilities has also contributed. Ciudad Judicial (“Judiciary City”) and Ciudad Administrativa (“Administrative City”), both huge bureaucratic complexes, were built far outside the city in Tlacolula Valley and Zaachila Valley, respectively. The location of these government facilities in the ﬁrst decade of this century is the consequence of an emergent urbanization without controls. Since the construction of Ciudad Judicial, huge extensions of land in the surrounding area of Reyes Mantecon have been subdivided for urban development. Streets have been built over what was not long ago part of the valley’s natural environment. The land is not yet occupied, but those responsible for the subdivision speculate on the land on which future families will build their home through an unregulated process. Finally, in recent years, an even more extreme form of urban occupation has begun to appear. This is the ﬁnal expression of the regional urban construction. Small developments built by the poorest sectors of the population are springing up in many different parts of the interurban territory. The particularity of this new form is its complete lack of connectivity with any major or medium-sized urban settlement. These settlements are also separated from main roads. The parcel divisions are small, around 1000 square feet. These newly urbanized

spaces are practically hidden from the common eye. They lack basic services and infrastructure. Their population must travel many miles every day to reach their jobs and schools and to access health care and other basic services. This relatively recent situation in the urban region of Oaxaca is the natural consequence of the denial of opportunities to many citizens around the rest of the state of Oaxaca. The residents of rural areas and other cities are the most recent wave of immigration to the area of Oaxaca City, yet they can no longer access space inside the metropolitan area as their predecessors did. The regional space must accommodate this new urbanization. The urban regional phenomenon in the Oaxaca valley has many expressions, but the same underlying motivations: accessing better economic opportunities, superior infrastructure and a better connected territory. This situation has been produced, consciously or unconsciously, by many circumstances of the last decades. The advances in communication technology at the turn of this century have been critical. The concentration of services, schools, infrastructure and opportunities in the city combined with the increasing difﬁculties of a livelihood based in agriculture, have all contributed to the integration of this huge urban structure, the regional city of the Central Valleys, the sprawlopolis of Oaxaca.

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CONCLUSION Oaxaca City is one of the fifty-nine metropolitan areas in Mexico and one of the one hundred main urban settlements in the country. Its urban configuration looks similar at some scales to many other cities in the country. But an in-depth analysis of this urban structure shows evidence of particular forms of settlement. Every day in the Oaxaca regional area, some 800,000 people travel in the limits of the local, metropolitan or regional structure of the city. Some must travel long distances to carry out their daily activities, and others move only within very small areas due to economic and social barriers. An economic analysis of this situation reveals a clear pattern in the urban structure. Wealthier people live close to the amenity-rich central area of the city. Poorer people live much further from these favored areas. As a result, the poor part of the population in the metropolitan area spends more than thirty percent of its income on transport5—and some who move at the regional scale spend even more. The regional configuration of the city carries complications and challenges but at the same time presents opportunities. If we improve connectivity, especially through making the metropolitan and regional public transportation system more efficient, and if we find a way to densify building, it may be possible to develop the region sustainably.

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In order for this to happen, the city must remain compact, requiring high density settlements that are easily and quickly accessed. It is necessary to develop new mechanisms to preserve agricultural land and wild natural areas in order to preserve the regional ecosystem. That means understanding that urban activity is now part of this ecosystem and that human beings interact with and depend on the region’s resources—water, forests, farmlands, wildlife, etc. The power of the regional configuration is in the possibility to concentrate all kinds of capital that can benefit more people. In that sense, the most important capital that a regional urban area has is, in fact, its human capital. A bigger concentration of people means a huge concentration of creativity and knowledge, the foundation of innovation and economic dynamism. Many other cities around the country have begun to develop similar urban regional structures. Extending analyses of the city to this kind of urban structure with the objective of better understanding of the regional urban configuration of Mexican urban areas is a deeply needed exercise. Knowledge of the details of these new urban forms is a powerful tool in the search for better solutions to the challenges faced by many intermediate and smaller cities. This regional area is an open space

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for new ideas, proposals and projects. It is a fertile ﬁeld for urban planners, architects, engineers, designers, and other creative people, who are both needed and welcome.

(Endnotes)

1 John K. Chance, Razas y Clases de la Oaxaca Colonial, Mexico: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1982. 2 CONAPO, INEGI (Consejo Nacional de Población, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática), Delimitación de las zonas metropolitanas de México, 2000, 2005, 2010. 3 “The First Place to Look.” Digital Marketing Research & Insights. Accessed November 8, 2015. 4 This is the number of municipalities with a very close daily interaction, if we consider trips made in public transportation as reference. But the total number of municipalities in the Central Valleys region exceeds one hundred. 5 Oaxaca Secretary of Mobility and Transportation, Public transport perception study in the metropolitan area of Oaxaca, 2014.

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SITE ENCOUNTERS OAXACA FIELDTRIP: CRAFT

Street scene on Calle Macedonio Alcalá, Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Parade on Calle Macedonio Alcalá, Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Parade on Calle Macedonio Alcalá, Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Preparing hot chocolate at Chocolate Mayordomo, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Allyssa Williams

Discussing artisan production at Chocolate Mayordomo, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Mezcal tasting in Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Street scene, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Margaret Scott

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Selling wares on Calle Macedonio Alcalรก, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Margaret Scott

Understanding Oaxaca’s urban morphology , Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Yuxiang Luo

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Street scenes, Teotitlán del Valle Photos by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Street scenes, Teotitlรกn del Valle Photos by Margaret Scott

Weaving tapetes, Teotitlán del Valle Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Preparing the comal, Teotitlán del Valle Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

Kitchen scene, Teotitlán del Valle Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to a mezcal palenque, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to a mezcal palenque, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca Photos by Allyssa Williams

Visit to Monte Alban, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to Monte Alban, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Photos by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

Visit to Monte Alban, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CRAFT

BY CLAYTON ADKISSON & ALLYSSA WILLIAMS C. Adkisson; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). A. Williams; Master in Landscape Architecture II (MLA II).

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Our research of craft included different products created throughout Oaxaca. The various crafts of Oaxaca are relevant at a regional and global scale. This is especially true of Oaxaca’s renowned gastronomy, textiles, and many other crafts that we investigated. These crafts included the colorful textiles, mescal, metates, and other products from Oaxaca’s periphery towns. We found Oaxaca’s craft production was due largely to the biodiversity of the Oaxacan region. Not only does Oaxaca produce some of Mexico’s greatest variety of ﬁbers and dyes, but it maintains many of the regional traditions that surround craft as well. These traditions vary depending on the communities that participate in craft which make the products as diverse as the crafters.

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We found many of the products maintained a system of subgroups that all contributed to the production of certain crafts. Metates for example are not the result of one craftsperson, but also involve metateros (those who remove stone from the quarries and make metates), finishers (those who finish metates from purchased blocks of stone), and traders. These tiered systems of economy that surround the crafts of Oaxaca affect several families who participate in craft. We also found these craft economies are sensitive to their environment and to the economic flux of tourism. Ultimately, the depth of Oaxaca’s craft is deeply embedded within the culture of the people and their communities.

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OAXACA’S CRAFT WEAVING Materials: wool, dyes Locations: Teotitlán del Valle, Villa Hidalgo The state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico has a noteworthy tradition of finely crafted textiles, particularly handmade embroidery and woven goods that frequently use a backstrap loom. Oaxaca is home to several different groups of indigenous peoples, each of which has a distinctive textile tradition. The region’s biological diversity yields Mexico’s greatest variety of fibers and dyes, and “the technical sophistication of Oaxaca’s textiles is unparalelled in the country.” HOJALATA Materials: tin Locations: Oaxaca de Juárez, Ocotlan de Morelos Hammering designs out of tin that become frames for photographs, mirrors and paintings, treasure boxes and decorative embellishment like Frida’s winged heart, is a traditional art form in Oaxaca, Mexico. You can find handhammered tin in all the markets, made with varying levels of quality. Known as hojalata, hand-hammered tin is beautiful and lightweight.

METATES Materials: granite Locations: San Sebastian Teitipac, San Juan Tetipac, Magdalena Ocotlan Manufacturers included metateros (those who remove stone from the quarries and make metates), ﬁnishers (those who complete metates from purchased blocks of stone or clean up crudely shaped manos and metates), and traders. Production begins with the removal of stone from one of the many quarries in the region southeast of the city of Oaxaca. Metateros in this region exploit a granite stone, some of which is metamorphosed granite. CHAPULINES Materials: grasshoppers, spices Locations: varies After being thoroughly cleaned and washed, they are toasted on a comal (clay cooking surface) with garlic, lime juice and salt containing extract of agave worms, lending a sour-spicy-salty taste to the ﬁnished product. Sometimes the grasshopers are also toasted with chili, although it can be used to cover up for stale chapulines.

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ALEBRIJE Materials: copal wood, paint Locations: La Union de Isidoro, San Antonio Arrazola, San Martin Tilcajete The original designs that Pedro Linares made as alebrijes have fallen into public domain. However, according to Chapter Three of the Mexican federal copyright law, enacted in 1996, it is illegal to sell crafts made in Mexico without acknowledging the community and region which they are from. It is also illegal to alter the crafts in such a way as to be interpreted as damaging to the culture’s reputation or image. BARRO NEGRO Materials: clay Locations: San Andres Solaga, San Bartolo Coyotepec, Santa Maria Atzompa, Barro negro pottery is a style of pottery from Oaxaca, Mexico distinguished by its color, sheen and unique designs. Oaxaca is one of few Mexican states which is characterized by the continuance of its ancestral crafts, which are still used in everyday life. Barro negro is one of several pottery traditions in the state and is one of the best known and most identiﬁed with the state.

MEZCAL Materials: agave Locations: Pan american highway, various locations Mezcal is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from the maguey plant native to Mexico. The maguey grows in many parts of Mexico, though most mezcal is made in Oaxaca. There is a saying attributed to Oaxaca regarding the drink: “para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien también” (“for everything bad, mezcal; for everything good, the same”).

BASKET WEAVING Materials: plant fibers Locations: Santa Ana del Valle, Santo Tomas Jalieza, Villa Hidalgo The plant fibers used to make the baskets is picked young and green, much easier to manipulate. Then, it is washed and stripped. After the basket is complete, the sturdy handles are wrapped with palm leaves. Most of the Zapotec women in the central valleys of Oaxaca prefer these baskets for daily shopping use. The handle fits easily over the crook of the elbow, is smooth and comfortable.

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OAXACA’S CRAFT CHOCOLATE Materials: cocoa, spices, nuts, milk Locations: varies The most popular way to drink chocolate is via a hot beverage. Hot chocolate is a wonder in Oaxaca and is made with either water or milk. This is your best bet for the pure chocolate ﬂavor. Bread made with egg yolk is served on the side and it’s ok to dunk the bread if you wish. A variation of the hot chocolate is champurrado, a hearty drink made with cocoa and corn. This is thicker than chocolate de agua or chocolate de leche. MOLE Materials: varies Locations: varies All mole preparations begin with one or more types of chili pepper. The classic moles of central Mexico and Oaxaca, such as mole poblano and mole negro, include two or more of the following types: ancho, pasilla, mulato and chipotle. Other ingredients can include black pepper, achiote, guaje, cumin, cloves, anise, tomatoes, tomatillos, garlic, sesame seeds, dried fruit, hoja santa and many others. CHEESE Materials: milk Locations: varies Queso Oaxaca is a white, semihard cheese from Mexico, similar to unaged Monterey Jack, but with a mozzarella-like string cheese texture. It is named after the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, where it was ﬁrst made. The string cheese process, originally from Italy, which is used to produce mozzarella, was brought to Mexico by the Dominican monks that settled in Oaxaca. However, as goat milk was unavailable, they started using cow milk instead.

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ADKISSON, WILLIAMS

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

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ADKISSON, WILLIAMS

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CRAFT

Research indicates that women are often exploited within 5HVHDUFK LQGLFDWHV WKDW ZRPHQ DUH RIWHQ H[SORLWHG traditional handicrafts production as well as labor-intensive ZLWKLQ WUDGLWLRQDO KDQGLFUDIWV SURGXFWLRQ DV ZHOO DV work. ODERU LQWHQVLYH ZRUN

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&2 23(5$7,9(6 96 9,//$*( 5(6285&(6 7KH ZHDYLQJ FRRSHUDWLYHV RI WKH VPDOO WH[WLOH The weaving cooperatives of the small textile village Santa YLOODJH 6DQWD $QD GHO 9DOOH VWUXJJOH SROLWLFDOO\ ZLWK Ana del Valle struggle politically with the rest of the village WKH UHVW RI WKH YLOODJH RYHU UHVRXUFHV 7KHVH over resources. These cooperatives were established in the FRRSHUDWLYHV ZHUH HVWDEOLVKHG LQ WKH ÂśV WR 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to help weavers gain a larger part of the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s KHOS ZHDYHUV JDLQ D ODUJHU SDUW RI WKH LQGXVWU\ÂśV market-share, dominated by their larger western neighbor, PDUNHW VKDUH GRPLQDWHG E\ WKHLU ODUJHU ZHVWHUQ TeotitlĂĄn del Valle. QHLJKERU 7HRWLWODQ GHO 9DOOH

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ADKISSON, WILLIAMS

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

OAXACA’S CRAFT N 6GQVKVNCP FG 8CNNG

Teotitlán del Valle A case study on the relationship between craft and housing

Space of production

Space of exhibition

Space of residence

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Where attached, housing units appear to sit atop or directly adjacent (in courtyard typology) to production areas. These conditions enforce the nature of the small-scale, “cottage industry” production methods.

Exhibition space is a common method for showcasing handicrafts to visiting tourists. It appeals to the artistry of “making,” offering visitors insight into the production process. Granted, only the largest, most successful craft houses can afford to support such real-estate.

Space for handicraft production appears to be correlated to the size of the household labor force employed. Larger production facilities seem to engage more immediate housing parcels, while nicer production facilities tend to be located tangential to nicer housing areas.

ADKISSON, WILLIAMS

OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HERITAGE

BY JESICA BELLO & ALIZA SOVANI J. Bello; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). A. Sovani; Master in Landscape Architecture I AP (MLA I AP).

INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

HOUSING AND HABITUS

Local indigenous heritage and universal world heritage are at once opposing and united in Oaxaca, Mexico. A state of pristine coastal beaches, extreme mountainous terrain, lush agricultural valleys and rare biodiversity has garnered a multitude of festivals, gastronomy and craft traditions speciﬁc to the Olmec, Zapotec and Mixtec indigenous population that have long lived there and are unique to the state at a national scale. In Oaxaca, there exists a historical legacy of interrelations between humans and nature; examples include endemic plants for mezcal production, wood harvesting for Alebrijes as well as ﬁber and dye yields for textiles. In Oaxaca, the discussion of heritage as relevant for contemporary society is like a pendulum swinging between preservation and conservation, between tourism-centric development and the sustainable management of the landscape. The conversation surrounding ‘heritage value’ is very much alive in Oaxaca as evidenced by the law of Usos y Costumbres whereby over one-third of Oaxaca’s 570 municipalities are run under semi-autonomous governance, thus granting indigenous communities the right and responsibility to self-govern. Perhaps of inverse logic, heritage in Oaxaca transitions in scale to that of outstanding universal value with two inscriptions of UNESCO World Heritage [source: UNESCO World Heritage List descriptions]:

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Historic City of Oaxaca & Monte Alban Inscription Date: 1987 Criterion IV: Among some 200 pre-Hispanic archaeological sites inventoried in the valley of Oaxaca, the Monte Alban complex best represents the singular evolution of a region inhabited by a succession of peoples: the Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs. The City of Oaxaca, with its design as a check board and its iconic architecture, has developed over more than four centuries as evidence of the fusion of two cultures Indian and Spanish. Mitla Inscription Date: 2010 Criterion (iii): The botanical evidence from Guilá Naquitz cave related to the domestication of other plants, squash, gourds and beans, linked with the archaeological evidence from Cueva Blanca and Gheo Shih, can together be seen to be an exceptional testimony to the evolution from hunter-gathering to more settled communities in this area of central America. Heritage conservation in Oaxaca thus exists under the title of ‘Biocultural Heritage,’ or a complicated web of national level policy for the preservation of cultural heritage and nature conservation, regional semi-autonomous governance of land resource management and a local craft economy that heavily relies on the tourism sector as much as the rich biological diversity.

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Topography Image Source: CONAFOR.

Annual Average Temperature Image Source: CONAFOR.

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Geological Geological Zones Zones Image Source: CONAFOR.

1 (6)

5 3 (9) 2 (53)

6 (3) 10 (11) 8 (5)

9 (10)

7 (30)

Number of local species Image Source: CONAFOR.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HERITAGE

Indigenous Groups Image Source: Centro Binacional.

Archaeological Sites Image Source: INAH Inventory.

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Mezcal Production Zone Image Source: CONAFOR.

The distribution of natural protected areas (shaded) and indigenous and community conserved areas ICCAs in Oaxaca state (icons) Image Source: Gary J. Martin, “Indigenous and community conserved areas in Oaxaca, Mexico,“ Management of Environmental Quality, 2010.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HERITAGE

Biocultural designated areas

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National protected areas

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Tourism routes

Artisanal routes

Archaeological routes

Historic landmarks routes

BELLO, SOVANI

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HERITAGE

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Mit

Town Craft Town Sitio Arqueologico Ruta Arqueologica Ruta Turistica Oaxaca Metro

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ARCHITECTURE

BY DUNCAN CORRIGALL & YUXIANG LUO D. Corrigall; Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II). Y. Luo; Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II).

HOUSING AND HABITUS

The architecture of Oaxaca contains and shapes the social practice of human settlement. This research focuses on the architecture of three typical blocks of housing found in Oaxaca de Juárez, and the social conditions they create: 1, the Spanish Colonial courtyard houses in the city’s historic center; 2, peri-urban housing in the snaking streets past the breakdown of the Indes’ grid; and 3, a traditional rural settlement outside but nearby the city. These differences in physical form correspond to different degrees of sociability, inﬂuenced by the larger demographic trend of growth and expansion. The population of Oaxaca grew steadily between 1930, when the Indes’ grid was still adhered to, and 1980 when it ﬁrst showed signs of breaking down. At this point the valley urbanized - with the city population growing exponentially quicker than the rest of the valley. At this point sprawl began, with no further adherence to the original Spanish city grid. However, within the historic center, the courtyard typology does remain. Houses in the Historic Center are built right up to the street, with ornate doors that open to ‘portales’, a semi-enclosed band that can be shut off or opened to the street. This leads to a communal courtyard which in turn leads to individual rooms. The houses thus create a gradient from fully public (the square, the street) to semi private (portales, courtyards) to fully private (rooms).

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In the periphery, the grid and courtyard typology disappears. Instead, the street facades are eroded to create various conditions of porosity. In a way, this articulation of street facade can be conceptualized as related to Oaxaca’s vernacular architecture, which is characterized by porticos that mediate the private realm and public domain. In the urban periphery of Oaxaca, the front space of buildings opens up the house to the public, sometimes appropriated by commercial activities, and the front space, although potentially conceived as contributing to the publicness of the place, is also an expression of individuality. The space communicates the individual identity to the outside world. In the villages, the social condition and physical environment shape each other in yet another different way. Santa Ana del Valle is noted for its strong social cooperation, which contains various forms of public festivals and ﬁestas. However, sociability is not observed in the blank walls of the streetscape. Collective zones in both the public domain and private realm follow the same insular spatial logic. Other social practices in the neighborhood include collective making of mole for weddings, communal drinking, and mandatory public work done by households. However, residences do not create street-facing collective zones either. Social cooperation is contained in the family court of each family. Various activities can take place in the court, with non-family members tolerated within the private domain.

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OAXACAโ S ARCHITECTURE

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While the population of Oaxaca state (left) has continued its century-long rise, the center of the city Oaxaca de Juรกrez (middle) has plateaued. Despite the plateauing of Oaxaca de Juรกrez (right-below), the population of Oaxaca Metropolitan continues to rise (right-above), indicating the expansion of the city periphery.

Population growth, 1995-2010

Population growth mapped to urban areas

Outline of 2012 INFONAVIT funding boundaries

This can be seen in the maps above - showing Oaxaca de Juรกrez with no population growth (grey), compared with the municipalities around it growing quickly (red).

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“Rural Settlement” Santa Ana del Valle, Oaxaca

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OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE

“Urban Core Settlement” Centro, Oaxaca A 100x100 meter Code-of-the-Indes grid dictated the urban structure of Oaxaca from its founding as a Spanish city in 1521 until well into the 20th Century. Even its ﬁrst spark of rapid growth from 1940-1980 only extended the grid. However, somewhere between 1980 and 2000 the grid lost its inﬂuence, and city sprawl greatly expanded the extent of Oaxaca city.

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Spanish colonial cities were structured around one or more central squares. Oaxaca’s Zócalo (main square) is split in two around its Cathedral. It was considered an exclusive space until young American travelers in the 1960s, ignorant of local social norms and wearing imitation peasant dress, began to ﬁll the plaza. It has remained a crucial, socially inclusive space ever since.

Private Public Houses in the Historic Center are built right up to the street, with ornate doors that open to ‘portales’, a semi-enclosed band that can be shut off or opened to the street. This leads onto a communal courtyard which in turn leads on to individual rooms. The houses thus create a gradient from fully public (the square, the street) to semi private (portales, courtyards) to fully private (rooms).

Buildings in the Center are almost universally 2-story and designed to sustain regular earthquakes with thick, buttressed adobe or masonry walls and relatively few door or window openings. To offset the relatively bland appearance this creates, residents used to invest in ornate entryways, elaborate ironwork, and either different colored stonework or painted stucco.

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OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE

Vernacular architecture of Oaxaca

Architecture of Oaxaca’s urban periphery

V.S.

Periphery: breaking

Urban core: alignment

V.S.

Urban core: collective space is produced in courtyards

Periphery: collective space is produced in the front

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2002

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2012 New buildings built between 2012 - 2012.

San Jacinto Amilpas, a municipality on the inner periphery ring (identiﬁed on a previous page), saw high rates of growth after the liberalization of the banks and INFONAVIT: growing 252% from 3800 to 13800 people between 1995 and 2010. Housing built over this period took many forms: new mass-housing developments, inﬁll housing and new detached dwellings.

The mass-housing in San Jacinto Amilpas is all of a similar type: identical row housing, all twostory, with little private outdoor space. The housing orientation appears to relate only to the property boundaries, as they do not always reflect the dominant street grid. At the same time, discrete individual developments are occurring, infilling formerly unbuilt areas. Some may be selfbuilt, others developer driven. They are overwhelmingly two-story with flat roofs, but often leave exposed reinforcing steel that comes out of columns, implying the potential for a later vertical extension.

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OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE Architecture of Villages: In the village of Teotitlán del Valle, a significant degree of social cooperation (for craft production) is documented. However, one does not find the street facades to be open and social. This is because the social functions of village life are contained within the large domestic courtyard instead. The morphological change of the house and urban layout reflects the unique structure of social relationships and craft economy. Courtyard Internal portico

Shop and Exhibition Room Street Canopy / Portico

House Additions

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1 House The courtyard typology of familybased production.

2 Gallery Textile stores and cultural display spaces. 3 Main Street Concentration of commercial activities for tourists and locals.

1 2

4 Market 7 3 6 5

Outdoor textile market within the craft village.

5 Plaza Public space within the village.

6 Community Museum Neighborhood-funded museum showcasing the local pride and value. 7 Monument The church also attracts tourists as a historical heritage. Comparison With A Pure Production Village: Santa Ana del Valle, which does not fully integrate markets spatially in its economy, does not see the similarly diversiďŹ ed urban fabric. DiversiďŹ cation of Urban Fabric: It is not only the house itself that changes. When tourism enters local craft economy, the urban fabric of the craft village also adapts to the change relationship among various spaces of production and consumption.

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OAXACA’S ARCHITECTURE Inter-regional Competition Among Craft Villages: Comparing Teotitlán and Santa Ana, the former is dominated by the merchant class and independent weavers, while the latter is mainly composed of contract weavers. Economically, contract weavers in Santa Ana do not have access to market information or the capital to establish their own business, so they are mainly producing for the merchants based in Teotitlán. Such regional political economy of Oaxaca craft industry has spatial consequences / enablers. Teotitlán is well connected to the Pan-American Highway, as merchants from Teotitlán also have economic powers to persuade the tour buses from Oaxaca City to drive to Teotitlán instead of Santa Ana. The road linking the highway to Teotitlán is also filled with small shops and exhibition rooms for incoming tourist. The diversification of urban fabric that enables a flourishing tourist market takes place in Teotitlán but not in Santa Ana.

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Speciﬁc Spaces in the Craft Village of Teotitlán: As has been said, the power dynamics are not just spread across different villages. Within the same village setting, different classes interact with each other in the process of craft economy. And there are different spatial realms, derived from or related to the rural and indigenous housing prototype, where those competitions and negotiations take place.

Space 1- Courtyards: Courtyard is a space of familial consolidation. However, the inwardness can also allow the merchant class to ensure that the contract workers do not gain access to market knowledge. Buyers and merchants use contracts to limit the economic power of contract weavers; courtyard houses without street-front articulations conﬁne contract weavers spatially.

Space 2- Stores and Galleries: The streetfront does become articulated when there is the access to market. Those who own the street-front space are thus the player who dominate the market - speciﬁcally, independent weavers and merchant classes (gallery owners). Gallery owners and independent weavers also control the discourse power regarding textile’s quality presentation.

Space 3 - Market Place: Within the market place, there is ﬁerce competition among different gallery owners. However, not every merchant in town has the access to market space. To be able to sell and interact with buyers directly will give weavers ﬁrst hand information about the changing taste and price of the consumer. A lot of contract weavers and lesser independent weavers lack such knowledge.

Space 4 - Detached Exhibition Room: The indigenous typology of the portico can be understood as a way to articulate the street-front. In the case of exhibition rooms along the road to the village, the portico becomes detached from the house itself. Essentially, it is the public function of the craft economy site that matters the most, when the town is trying to attract visitors.

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Photo by Margaret Scott

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CHAPTER 3

POLITICS A.

POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN OAXACA Diane E. Davis B.

OVERPOWERING URBANIZATION Sofìa I. Viguri Gómez C.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ﬁeld trip photos) D.

OAXACA’S SOCIOECONOMICS Allison Green, Amanda Huang and Ning Pei E.

OAXACA’S WATER POLITICS Man Su and Teng Xing F.

OAXACA’S URBAN REGIME Kyle Belcher and William Rosenthal

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POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN OAXACA

BY DIANE E. DAVIS Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

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POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN OAXACA

“The region’s unique character is not only reﬂected in the strength of social movements struggling to maintain their administrative autonomy ... and in the strong cultural tradition of political independence and distinctiveness from the nation, but also in its wide range of community governance traditions and arrangements.” Oaxaca is understood to be Mexico’s most diverse state, and the cultural history of this region establishes a set of unique political conditions that have framed and will continue to frame any efforts to produce a new housing agenda for its capital city.1 Indeed, the social history of Oaxaca has a direct impact on contemporary politics in the city, both in terms of governance and with respect to the politics of urbanization. The region’s unique character is not only reﬂected in the strength of social movements struggling to maintain their administrative autonomy visà-vis the Mexican state and its local actors, and in the strong cultural tradition of political independence

and distinctiveness from the nation, but also in its wide range of community governance traditions and arrangements. Close cultural ties among families and linguistic groups proud of their unique indigenous identity, coupled with a history of contentious efforts to organize and govern this diversity, have contributed to political fragmentation, with the Oaxaca metropolitan area hosting 22 different municipalities. All these factors must be taken into account when thinking about the forms and objectives of any new housing proposals for the city. Oaxaca’s political culture of independence from the nation owes

HOUSING AND HABITUS

in no small part to its indigenous history and ethnic diversity. The state of Oaxaca is home to more indigenous groups than any other state in Mexico, a fact which also manifests in high degree of ethnic and linguistic fragmentation, both social and spatial. The 2010 census ranked Oaxaca as the state with the largest number of people (33.8% of the state’s population) speaking indigenous languages.2 Fifty-eight percent of the state’s population is considered to be of indigenous descent,3 with the most common indigenous languages -out of a total of 15 - being zapoteca, mixteca, mazateco, and mixe.4 At the same time, Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in the country. According to the marginalization index developed by the Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL) 5 and the Consejo Nacional de Población (CONAPO)6 to measure education, housing, and income deﬁcit, Oaxaca ranks third in marginalization at the national level. In 2010, 29.4% and 28.1% of the state’s population lived in municipalities with high or very high levels of marginalization, correspondingly.7 This means that more than sixteen percent (16.83%) of the state’s population of 15+ years of age is illiterate and 57.77% of the working population receives less than 2 minimum monthly wages. In terms of living standards, 61.77% of the population lives in towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants, and 23.66% of housing has no access to running water.

POLITICS

Statistics for the Oaxaca Metropolitan Area show a different distribution of marginalization levels, with 34.8% of the population with a high degree of marginalization, with 12.9% of the metro population with a very high degree,8 suggesting that quality of life and services are better administered in the metropolitan area. Although the metropolitan area distinguishes itself in terms of quality of life, the city’s residents and its political leaders have by and large embraced the region’s cultural history as their own. This is perhaps best evidenced in the form of the Guelaguetza, which is an annual festival mounted and hosted in Oaxaca de Juárez. The festival’s purpose is to bring all the region’s traditions together in a single celebration with dance and music. The word Guelaguetza derives from a Zapotec word meaning “gift” or “sharing.” During the days of the Guelaguetza, which occur every year in July, representatives from all the ethnic and language groups organized at the village level across the state, march through the streets of Oaxaca de Juárez to present proudly their cultural heritage, met by thousands of residents and tourists alike. Just as the Guelaguetza is celebrated on the city’s sacred Cerro de Fortín hill overlooking the city’s historic downtown, the metropolitan area is host to a number of other historic cultural landmarks. Several are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites, ranging from pre-Hispanic monuments to colonial streets. In

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the town center of Santa Maria del Tule, one of the metropolitan area’s 22 municipalities, the Tule Tree (El Arbol del Tule) has born witness to over 2 millennia of the region’s history. Nearby Monte Albán is considered to be one of the first examples of urban civilization in the Americas, influenced by the Aztecs and the Maya, and later inhabited by distinct groups such as the Olmec, Zapotec, and Mixtec.9 Even within the capital city itself, Oaxaca’s Spanish colonial grid pattern is home to as many as 1200 listed monuments, including historic houses, a cathedral, civic plazas, as well as temples and convents, with the historic center covering 544 hectares in Oaxaca de Juárez.10 The city’s historic streets and buildings are protected by the country’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia), and in accordance with the Municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez, which carefully designates the design and construction limitations placed on historic buildings, often significantly restricting any alterations to existing structures, and capping heights to preserve the historic center’s traditional architecture. Oaxaca’s rich history continues to play an important role in shaping the city and region’s growth to this day, driving much needed economic growth through traditional craft and tourism, while also limiting development through cultural and historic protections, which in turn have a significant impact on the region and the city’s ability to produce social housing, or housing of any kind.

As such, the significance of this cultural history cannot be ignored when thinking about supply and demand for housing. For one, it helps explain why the city has so many tourists, who in turn have a direct impact on land usE, property values, and the nature of the labor force in the city. For instance, in 2011, only in the municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez, 897,565 tourists arrived by plane, out of which 10.4% were foreign visitors.11 This type of flow of people has a direct impact on housing affordability and the amount of available land. And with so many historical sites governed by historic preservation restrictions imposed by national authorities, any changes in land use intended to densify and/or incentivize housing in Oaxaca de Juárez will entail knowledge of and capacity to politically negotiate with a wide range of authorities operating at different scales. Just as important, the cultural history of the region is reflected in a unique local governance system, called Usos y costumbres. The Usos y costumbres system (UyC) is a traditional governance system that relies heavily on political participation at the municipal level, granting greater governing authority to indigenous communities and their leaders through open assemblies, while also encouraging community members to take on responsibility for civic duties. The UyC system was formally recognized in 1995, and 418 of the state’s 522 municipalities are now regulated by the UyC customary laws rather than the electoral party system.

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In the metropolitan area, 19 of the 22 municipalities are regulated through the usos y costumbres system, with the exception of the following three: Oaxaca de Juárez, Santa Lucía del Camino, and Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán.12 Usos y costumbres exemplifies not only the plurality of the state’s identity and governance traditions, but also the state’s tendency toward political fragmentation. The fragmentation in Oaxaca’s governance extends to the relations between social groups, and is exemplified in the ongoing activism of the Sección 22 Teacher’s Union. The Sección 22 teachers’ union in Oaxaca reflects the deep-rooted tradition of self-governance in the region, as teachers represent important linkages to some of the most marginalized and vulnerable communities in the state. The teachers’ ongoing strike (and attendant occupation of Oaxaca de Juárez’s principal plaza, the zócalo) is part of a broader conversation about the role of the state government in a region with strong allegiances to local and autonomous governance and significant social and spatial fragmentation. Currently, the teachers’ union and the state government continue to dispute the balance of power between the powerful union and the government’s desire for greater control over the dispersed public education system. The current conflict in Oaxaca establishes a framework for understanding contemporary politics in the city, in no small part because it carries forward a long tradition

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of active mobilization among the city’s residents, many of whom have struggled to assert their autonomy vis-à-vis the governance structures associated with the PRI-dominated Mexican political system. For decades, citizens from the city and surrounding communities convened once a year in the main plaza of the city to give voice to their claims to citizenship: protesting not just oneparty rule, but also the domination of the so-called center over the periphery, with Oaxaca being one of Mexico’s most isolated states and one with limited infrastructural connection to the capital city and head of government. Such annual demonstrations continued even after the PRI lost power nationally (albeit not locally), coming to a head in 2006 when the striking teachers - who had occupied the zócalo for 23 days and were demanding higher wages and increased educational resources, among other things - were attacked by both municipal and federal police, leading to large scale violence. The violence not only inspired striking teachers to redouble their efforts to control the zócalo, it generated sympathies among a larger circle of loyalists and pro-democracy movements across Mexico. These events lead to the formation of the APPO, or Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca. The APPO not only declared itself to be the true governing body of the Oaxaca, in a challenge to the legitimacy of formal governing institutions, thus complicating politics at the level of the city. It also

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claimed to have found its popular authority by calling out government ofﬁcials for corruption and abuse of power, including with respect to the destruction of main squares and public spaces in the center of the city, calling for broader economic, social and political transformations in the ways decisions made, as well as for several targeted changes in the state’s constitution.13 Accordingly, any movement forward on new housing production, particular in relationship to the resources, plans, and efforts associated with formal governing bodies at the city, state, or national level, must be able to take into account the legacies of this particular movement and the larger political and cultural context of Oaxaca’s history of autonomy, self-governance, and citizen mobilization.

SEDESOL or Secretary of Social Development is the Mexican ministry in charge of developing policies and programs that promote social welfare to reduce poverty, social exclusion, and social

CONAPO or National Population Council is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Secretary of Interior in charge of generating and processing demographic information to promote population planning and support other government agencies.

CONAPO, “Oaxaca,” in Grado de Marginación por municipio, 2010.

CONAPO, Zona Metropolitana de Oaxaca: Grado de marginación urbana por AGEB, 2010.

UNESCO, Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán, 2015. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/415/

Ayuntamiento del Municipio de Oaxaca de Juárez, “Dirección General del Centro Histórico,” in Plan Parcial de Conservación del Centro Histórico de Oaxaca de Juárez, 1998.

Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Centro de Educación Continua Unidad de Oaxaca, “Agendas de Competitividad de los Destinos Turísticos de México 2013-2018,” in Estudio de Competitividad Turística del destino de Oaxaca de Juárez. SECTUR. p 29.

Instituto Estatal Electoral y de Participación Ciudadana de Oaxaca, Nueva Cartografía Electoral, 2015. Available at: http:// www.ieepco.org.mx/index.php/academia-virtual/9uncategorised/751-nueva-cartograﬁa-electoral.html

(Endnotes)

To examine the capital city of Oaxaca de Juárez is also to consider the embeddedness of the city in its metropolitan region. The study explores not only Oaxaca de Juárez, but also the 22 municipalities with which the city shares borders, resources, and population.

2 INEGI, “Porcentaje de población de 3 años y más que se considera indígena por entidad federativa,” in Principales Resultados de Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010.

INEGI, “Principales lenguas habladas en Oaxaca,” in Principales Resultados de Censo de Población y Vivienda, 2010.

SEDESOL, “Indicadores de Marginación en Oaxaca,” in Catálogo de Localidades, 2010. Available at: http://www. microrregiones.gob.mx/catloc/Default. aspx?tipo=clave&campo=mun&valor=20

For more on the APPO, see Gustavo Esteva, The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, APPO: A chronicle of radical democracy.

Latin American Perspectives 152(34), 2007: 129–144.

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OVERPOWERING URBANIZATION CONTENDING INSTITUTIONS OF LAND DEVELOPMENT IN OAXACA

BY SOFÌA I. VIGURI GÓMEZ Urban Development Consultant, IADB.

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OVERPOWERING URBANIZATION: Contending Institutions of Land Development in Oaxaca

“Oaxaca is quintessential in its ability to bring forward two institutional forces that contest and continuously undermine municipal control over the process of urbanization.” Oaxaca is located in Southwest Mexico; in this state, where 95% the population lives in either poverty or extreme poverty (CONEVAL, 2010)1, there is a glaring need for housing. According to data collected through INEGI’s 2010 Census, 75% of the housing stock in Oaxaca is in need of improvement or complete replacement due to disrepair. Approximately 31 thousand families lack access to housing (Ponce, 2011, based on INEGI and ENIGH 2010). Despite the latent demand, development of formal housing in the capital city of Oaxaca has slowed down during the last decade. The matter is not one of insufﬁcient purchasing power –INFONAVIT data states that over 120 thousand workers in the metro area are eligible for a credit; rather, the system appears to be disjointed. On the one hand, large housing developers now dismiss the possibility of investment claiming

“the social landscape is too complex”. On the other, formerly growing communities such as Etla –which received 19 INFONAVIT developments at the beginning of the century– have cut off the issuance of housing permits and are now “closed to development”. What is the source of the halt? The real estate market in Oaxaca certainly responded to the financial crisis and to the instability of federal housing reform in 2012, just like any other city and region in the nation. Also, Oaxaca presents many of the shortcomings that have caused housing developments to fail in other parts of the country – e.g. lack of urban infrastructure, poor quality of housing materials, lack of technical and financial capacities in municipal governments–. Nonetheless, difficulties for housing development in Oaxaca preceded the financial crisis, and more recently, the market has

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not picked up the way it has in other Mexican states. Other factors may be able to hint an explanation. In this essay I will argue that Oaxaca is quintessential in its ability to bring forward two institutional forces that contest and continuously undermine municipal control over the process of urbanization, which has had a direct impact on the ability to attract investment into housing. The first is the political weight of ejidos and the second is the rule of customary law; these emerged frequently as relevant topics during fieldwork. They are both present in many states, but are exceptionally strong in the Metropolitan Zone of Oaxaca, where 54% of the total municipal area is considered social land2 and 57.1% of it is ruled by usos y costumbres. Many lands that could now be considered “infill” under INFONAVIT’s urban containment rings3, are in one or both of these two conditions. In this context, my main hypothesis is that during the past 15 years housing development grew into lands involving ejidos and customary political systems, and as it did, private developers grew less willing to navigate a permitting and decisionmaking process that is increasingly regarded as convoluted, opaque, and parochial. On their part, local stakeholders also struggled to channel interests over land through existing institutions, due to the contested, ambiguous, and fragmented urbanrural institutional order in Mexico. For the interests of this book, it

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will suffice to say that in order to implement innovative designs and financial models for more dense and smart social housing in Oaxaca, creativity will not be enough. Investment will first need to be drawnin through new governance structures capable of restructuring power dynamics and re-building the trust between private developers, existing communities, and local authorities. CONTENDING INSTITUTION NO.1: THE AGRARIAN NUCLEI Land in Mexico is either public, private, or social; the last is managed by either ejidatarios or comuneros, which are organized around agrarian nuclei; these groups of farmers have governance systems of their own that are formally recognized by the Mexican State. Due to the special attributions and protection given to them by the Agrarian Law, agrarian nuclei have been said to be a “fourth power” in the Mexican political system4 (Lozano, 2012). Through the “comisariado ejidal” –a member of the nucleus that represents them in dealings with the Federal Agrarian bureaucracy– these farmers have been granted a direct and independent influence on political decisions over land. Depending on the location and size of the nucleus, their power may sometimes allow them to override municipal and state authority altogether. A state official in Oaxaca has pointed out that “comuneros operate under the inaccurate logic that Agrarian Law gives them the faculty to do whatever they want with

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the land, without any regard for what has been dictated by the General Law of Human Settlements –which has precedence over the Agrarian Law5”. This independence is problematic, since ejidatarios often divide and sell their plots for development but are not responsible for providing basic infrastructure, a matter that the municipal authority must see through. Planned urban growth is almost an impossibility, as there is no obligation or mechanism of coordination between rural and urban authorities. Fieldwork revealed that often times there is no single line of communication between municipal ofﬁcials and agrarian leaders; rarely have they ever met each other.

The outcome is a fragmented system of governance over land, where ambiguities are exploited as convenient. Private developers looking for –cheap– lands and reasonable development timelines, are expected to pay a fee to the comisariado ejidal in order to fast-track the disincorporation6 of ejido land. This process is highly proﬁtable for ejido authorities, who may or may not have the consent of the whole ejido assembly7 to sell the land. Meanwhile, the fee represents an extra expense for a developer that is already facing high permitting and constructions costs in comparison to the rest of the country8. Finally, in most of these dealings, municipal authorities have no say –and often remain uninvolved– over the land acquisition process,

which means that all their power is in the land development stage. The consequence is a highly politicized system for the incorporation of the plots into the official city limits and the issuance –and repeal– of construction licenses. CONTENDING INSTITUTION NO.2: CUSTOMARY LAW Oaxaca is a state of exceptional ethnic diversity; 35% of its population is indigenous, with origins stemming from 16 different ethnic groups9, which speak 15 distinct languages with over 160 linguistic variations. This diversity is reflected in the political system as well. Out of 22 municipalities in the metropolitan area of Oaxaca, 10 of them are governed by customary law or usos y costumbres, which have their roots in the traditional social organizations and ways of life of indigenous communities. This means that the election of municipal authorities and decisionmaking processes are different from traditional party politics. People who live in municipalities ruled by usos y costumbres hold relatively tight community bonds and have codes of behavior that identify them as a distinct social group; normative features in the way of life include tequio and guelaguetza10. Coexistence between traditional communities and dwellers of new housing developments in Oaxaca has proven difficult. Newcomers do not necessarily adhere to customary norms or participate in the mandatory

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community work that earns locals their place in society, which gives way to feelings of exclusion and disenfranchisement from the part of outsiders. Fieldwork suggests that these tensions are not only culturallydriven; there is an important resource management undertone generating competition amongst existing and new settlements. The chronic lack of water, and the insufficient space in public hospitals and schools feed animosity. Although some these issues should be prevented in the planning process, there is a reported lack of compliance with neighborhood agreements on the part of developers. During initial stages of the project, private entities negotiate benefits for the neighbors, such as the donation of parks; but once the development is completed these sometimes fail to be followed through. A hypothesis is that the agreements are not signed with the community directly, but with public officials; accountability and enforcement is particularly challenging in a context where the term in office lasts only three years, given the fact that developers can and often do renegotiate with new administrations. The unintended consequence is that resource competition worsens the social divide in these customary communities. INSTITUTIONAL GRIDLOCK? The provision of equitable and sociallyintegrated housing for the urban poor in Oaxaca is a challenge shaped by multiple layers of official and unofficial institutional arrangements, and the risk of an oversimplified narrative

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is great. The data, dynamics, and interpretations presented here only begin to scratch at the surface of what merits a much more texturized exploration. Nonetheless, it is possible to begin to put forward some initial observations and hypotheses about key issues to address. Although there may certainly be resistance to outsiders and a sense of competition for common pool resources, this is not a mere “Not in My Back Yard” case. The cultural and ethnic nuances of communities in Oaxaca serve as an example of the limits to the rationalizing vision of housing provision as stewarded by Federal policy; what James Scott denounces as the modern state’s tendency to “reduce the chaotic, disorderly, constantly changing social reality beneath it to something more closely resembling the administrative grid of its observations” (Scott, 1995:210). The relative cohesiveness and strong political organization embedded in usos y costumbres communities in Oaxaca serve as one of the starkest examples of how the easy solution of large-scale and lowcost housing projects has an impact on the social fabric of cities. At a broader scale, the processes of agrarian land disincorporation and regularization processes merit revision. What was initially meant to guarantee access to land for the rural poor has become a justiﬁcation for the neglect of the urban poor11, pushing on them the costs of speculative practices by landholders and promotores. The ﬁrst cost relates

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to the long and difﬁcult administrative procedure that makes members of the agrarian nuclei wait until the value of the land is high enough to pay off the time and resource expenses of discorporation12. The second cost comes with regularization, which requires a 2/3 vote for the ejido or communal assemblies; in many cases, members ask irregular occupants for a “fee” in order to participate in CORETT’s regularization procedures. What Ananya Roy (2009) describes as the phenomenon of the “un-mapping of cities” (tolerated irregularity) allows multiple actors to proﬁt from the gray areas left by an unclear distribution of power and competences in the processes of urbanization.

in poor municipalities, are absent in planning for housing provision. Their participation is often limited to the issuance of permits, the inspection of minimum building standards, and the collection of property taxes. Their parsimonious attitude towards the emergence of underserved irregular settlements is considered admissible, expected, and even justiﬁed within the current institutional framework. The “territorialized ambiguity”14 of agrarian and urban law is fertile land for authorities at all levels of government to disentangle themselves from the obligation of providing shelter for the urban poor.

Indeed, at its core, the case of Oaxaca exposes the systemic lack of fit between agrarian and urban regimes in Mexico: their power imbalances, formal ambiguities, and divergent scales of operation. As echoed in the writings of Azuela, Prud’homme and many other scholars, the extremely centralized control over the distribution, registration, disincorporation, and regularization of rural land has undermined the capacity of state and municipal authorities to plan for urban expansion. In fact, one could even think it has exempted them from doing so; whether out of frustration for the inability to norm the dealings of agrarian nuclei, the financial strain of expanding urban services, or the political profitability of regularization policy13, the fact of the matter is that local authorities, particularly those

(Endnotes)

67% in poverty, and 28% in extreme

poverty.

2 68% is categorized as ejidos, and the remaining 32% is managed by agrarian communities.

In the MZO many lands in the NorthEast (east of Santa Lucía del Camino) are located within polygons that are considered to be within the urban core and the first ring of urbanization, according to the National Housing Commission (CONAVI) standards. Rings or “Perímetros de contención urbana” have been federally determined through a geospatial analysis. The core is considered a consolidated area with full access to jobs, urban infrastructure, and services. The first ring is considered “in process of consolidation” and is defined as areas with access to urban infrastructure and services greater than 75%; the second ring is territory “contiguous to the urban area” which is defined by a spatial buffer. This methodology seems rather blunt (for example, it does not take into account topography, permeable lands, or other natural features) but serves to give a general sense of the spatial and infrastructure implications of expanding cities.

The other three being the Federation, the states, and the municipalities.

Agrarian Law, Article No. 87: “The incorporation of ejido lands to urban development must comply with the laws, regulations, and valid plans related to human settlements” (IIJ UNAM, 2.

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The process through which social or common land is introduced into the civil law system and subject to privatization.

On legal grounds, lack of consent from the Ejido Assembly makes the discorporation illegal –consent can take up to two years–. The patchiness and opacity of land acquisition in the ejido context transcends the overseeing capacity of a Federal institution such as INFONAVIT. This is why it is possible to ﬁnd INFONAVIT housing developments with an ambiguous land tenure situation.

Construction permitting takes over three months (97 days). In addition, construction costs in Oaxaca –as calculated by the World Bank using standardized procedures– are among the highest in the country (equivalent to more than double the average yearly income).

These are communitarian services; tequio is the collective work in the ﬁelds for the collectivity, and guelaguetza is the offering of presents to the governing body as a symbol of the people’s trust on them in veiling for the community’s progress.

Azuela lucidly explains that even though the Federal government claims CORETT only deals with regularization, and leaves urbanization to local authorties, “the step is obvious, CORETT sails using a white ﬂag… additionally it can grant right certiﬁcates to solar urbano, which function as if it were an agrarian title, when in reality it is urban growth” (Azuela, 1996).

An additional cost comes from lost investment in formal housing due to the lengthy permitting process that these dealings entail.

As Varley and many other have exposed in their studies on Mexico: “It is in short, the existence of the ejido that has enabled Mexico to have such a successful tenure legalization program; and success in delivering the goods to the residents of illegal settlements is needed if clientelism is to deliver continued electoral support for the party in government.” (Varley 1999: 239).

14 Roy.

A concept that I borrow and adapt from

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SITE ENCOUNTERS OAXACA FIELDTRIP: POLITICS

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“United for Development“ Photo by Margaret Scott

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Meeting with the State of Oaxacaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Infrastructure and Planning Department (SINFRA), Ciudad Judicial Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Meeting with the State of Oaxaca’s Infrastructure and Planning Department (SINFRA), Ciudad Judicial Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Street protest in Oaxaca de Juárez (above) | Civic events (below) Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz and Allyssa Williams

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“Yes to Equality Between Men and Women,” Oaxaca de Juárez (above) | INFONAVIT development, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca (below) Photos by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juárez Photos by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photos by Margaret Scott

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Visit to the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Nélida Escobedo Ruiz

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Community meeting at the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Margaret Scott

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Community meeting at the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to the INFONAVIT Primero de Mayo housing development, Oaxaca de Juรกrez Photo by Margaret Scott

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Street scene, “Justice“, Oaxaca de Juárez Photo by Margaret Scott

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCIOECONOMICS

BY ALLISON GREEN, AMANDA HUANG & NING PEI A. Green; Master in Urban Planning (MUP). A. Huang; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). N. Pei; Master in Urban Planning (MUP).

HOUSING AND HABITUS

Oaxaca’s social and economic demographics tell the story of a fragmented state with much to offer. One of Mexico’s most economically poor states is rich in local cultural and history. The challenge is bridging the economic gap between the central Oaxaca de Juárez and the other municipalities of the Oaxaca State. If Oaxaca de Juárez is the heart, then the surrounding municipalities ﬁll the role of other vital organs. Products from the craft and agricultural villages make the tourist economy of Oaxaca de Juárez possible. The 22 municipalities of Oaxaca form a network of skills and products with Oaxaca de Juárez working as its central point of consumption and economic driver but the relationship between Oaxaca de Juárez and its surrounding municipalities is anything but a perfect symbiosis. Oaxaca is one of Mexico’s three poorest states

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and while its capital enjoys 56% of the state’s gross revenue, its neighboring municipalities suffer a major lack of necessary human development tools, such as educational and health facilities and employment opportunities. In some municipalities even public access to potable water and electricity is difficult to come by. A major challenge in increasing socio-economic equity is measuring Oaxaca de Juárez’s responsibility to the well-being of the entire state of Oaxaca. Every day, Oaxaca de Juárez benefits from the human capital, crafts and agriculture originating from its surrounding municipalities. How does this interplay between urban center and suburban periphery begin to operate in a manner that is truly symbiotic and not just extractive? How does Oaxaca not only benefit from but invest in the talent developed in its peripheral municipalities?

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCIOECONOMICS

Scarcity of Economically Active People (EAP) and Population This map shows the correlation between population density and the number of people active in the formal economy across the 22 municipalities in Metro Oaxaca. The shaded areas depict the municipalities with the least amount of density as well as the least amount of EAP, emphasizing the center and periphery discrepancy. The yellow lines represent major routes connecting the center and the periphery.

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Further Examination: EAP and Population Density Blue dots represent population density; grey/black dots represents the number of people active in formal economy. Patterns we have identiďŹ ed from this map include: the municipalities that are denser typically have more people active in the formal economy; there are other municipalities with moderate population density but have large number of people active in the formal economy, which include Oaxaca de JuĂĄrez. It is important to note that the municipalities with large number of people active in the formal economy are concentrated in the central area of Metro Oaxaca.

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OAXACA’S SOCIOECONOMICS

Availability of Electricity and Housing Program Investment This map shows the correlation between housing quality and the investment in housing programs across the 22 municipalities in Metro Oaxaca. We used availability of electricity as a representative measurement for housing quality. Yellow dots represents the number of households with electricity; black dots represents the concentration of investment in housing programs. Patterns we have identiﬁed from this map include that the municipalities with larger number of households with electricity are the ones located in the central area of Metro Oaxaca, such as Oaxaca de Juárez, Santa Cruz Amilpas, Santa Lucia del Camino, and San Sebastian Tutla. These presumably are municipalities with better housing quality. As for the concentration of investment in housing programs, the investments are highly concentrated in municipalities on the western periphery. However, other municipalities on the periphery are not receiving as much as investments as Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan and Santa Maria Atzompa.

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Population Density and Housing Program Investment This map shows the correlation between population density and the investment in housing programs across the 22 municipalities in Metro Oaxaca. Blue dots represents population density; white/pink dots represents the concentration of investment in housing programs. Patterns we have identiďŹ ed from this map include that the municipalities located in the central area of Metro Oaxaca such as Santa Cruz Amilpas, Santa Lucia del Camino, and San Jacinto Amilpas have high population density. However, the municipalities with higher investment in housing programs are the ones located on the periphery, such as Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan and Santa Maria Atzompa. This intrigued us to further look into the spatial distribution of investment in housing programs in correlation with other metrics.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCIOECONOMICS

Increase (percentage) in Housing Program Investment This map helps to identify the municipalities that have experienced the most increase in percentage of investments in housing programs. Santa Maria Atzompa, besides ranking 2nd amongst all 22 municipalities in terms of investments received in 2011, has experienced the most increase in percentage from 2005 to 2011 (from 6,600 thousands of pesos to 120,000 thousands of pesos). Some other peripheral municipalities in the south of the Metro also experienced higher percentage of increase in investments in housing programs. These municipalities are San Bartolo Coyotepec, San Agustin de las Juntas, and Santa Maria Coyotepec.

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Increase (percentage) in Number of Housing Which are the municipalities that have experienced the most increase in the number of housing units in the past ďŹ ve to ten years? How do they compare with the municipalities that received the most amount of investments in housing programs? Through mapping, we were able to identify the municipalities that have experienced the most increase in number of housing units and where are they located spatially. The top three are Santa Maria Atzompa, San Jacinto Amilpas, and San Pablo Etla. Among these three, Santa Maria Atzompa has received the most housing investments (2nd amongst all 22 municipalities with 120,000 thousands of pesos in 2011).

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCIOECONOMICS

Gender, Family and Urban Form in The Oaxaca Metropolitan Area The increase in female-headed households throughout the Oaxaca Metropolitan Area poses an interesting question for how the changing dynamics of the family will function to shape the relationships between social and political elements of life in the region. An exploration of craft, politics and housing dynamics in four Oaxacan municipalities experiencing the highest increases in female-headed households serves as a framework for interpolating patterns in the urban form of each municipality that indicates forces in the political, social and built environment that function as enablers or obstacles to the emerging female-headed household structure.

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A CASE: San Antonio De la Cal - Housing and Politics San Antonio De la Cal maintains a relatively high population density but many community members have low educational attainment and are not covered by IMSS. The Municipality has displayed a high increase in the number of housing units despite a signiďŹ cant decrease in state investment towards housing production and improvement. Housing quality is moderate in the municipality and many have access to water electricity and drainage. The municipality has established a goal of improving living conditions for those living in exclusion zones through the provision of basic social infrastructure, health and education.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCIOECONOMICS

A CASE: San Antonio De la Cal - Craft and Politics Political actors in San Antonio De la Cal include the representatives of communal goods and ejido commissaries as well as organizations representing the motorcycle taxi industry and a womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest group that includes 400 female community members. Depending on land tenure and property, families have different forms of income. Families with secure land tenure can plant crops and raise livestock that provide meat and milk while families without land participate in the wholesale tortilla market, sell limestone or keep small shops. Men sell their skills such as carpentry and and masonry in Oaxaca de JuĂĄrez. Domestically the tortilla is a dominant driver of the municipal economy and provides opportunities for women who are heavily engaged in the process of producing tortillas as tortilleras. Two unions of tortilleras consisting of more than 200 members each are currently in the process of formalization. Its estimated that the total number of women who participate in the tortilla industry is around 3600. The trade is traditionally passed down from one generation of women to the next. Possible improvements to the local tortilla industry include an expansion of the distribution capacity which is now limited.

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A CASE: San Antonio De la Cal - Craft and Housing The most recent planning document released by San Antonio De la Cal expresses government interest in investing in reviving food and craft traditions. Crafts in the municipality are a vanishing practice and young people currently show little interest in learning crafts because of the limited demand for artisans in comparison to other tradesmen and laborers. The strength of tortilla making as a lucrative tradition advanced by the family shows the potential of using the home as a tool for engaging young people in the waning craft industry and affording them skills that can be passed on.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WATER POLITICS

BY MAN SU & TENG XING M. Su; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). T. Xing; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD).

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The city of Oaxaca de Juárez is located in the middle of the Central Valley of Oaxaca. It has a closed system of water: water comes from either mountain flows or aquifer storage. In the North, water flows from the Etla mountains into Rio Atoyac, the only semi-permanent supply of surface water in the Valley. The water runs from north to south, goes through Oaxaca de Juárez and eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean. In the South, government agencies have initiated the Paso Ancho project, a dam to be built in the south of the Valley to provide water for the coming thirty years. However, the project is widely criticized for not being sustainable yet uses a lot of the federal money that could have been used to improve existing water pipe quality. Water pollution, mismanagement of water delivery, poor infrastructure of piping, decreasing quality of aquifers, natural evaporation and flooding crisis make water supply constantly an issue in the Metropolitan region. The water delivery system relies on buying water from other towns and then delivering it through pipas, or water delivery trucks. Furthermore, in the historic center of Oaxaca de Juárez, due to the tourism industry, bottle water is consumed in large quantities (Mexico being the second most bottled water consuming country other than the U.S.).

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Plants grow where water exists. The shortage of water could barely support the development of local agricultural industry. While farmland takes up a large portion of the land in the valley and 73% of water uses, it only contributes to 5% of the regional GDP. Oaxaca’s water supply ability has also reshaped its urbanization and farmland relationships. In most municipalities of Oaxaca, farmland size has been constantly reducing due to the urbanization process, which began to accelerate in 2000. However, in certain municipalities, farmland sizes has been increasing due to the higher production rate and economic value of produce, such as San Lorenzo Cacaotepec and Santa Maria Atzompa. Among all agricultural plants, green alfalfa has the highest economic value ratio per square meter and is grown where water can be sufﬁciently supplied. Water supply is one of the major issues in community development in Oaxaca. Developers, central government, local municipalities, INFONAVIT and residents in Oaxaca are all in the battle for water, ﬁghting for equal access to clean and affordable water.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WATER POLITICS

A. Macro scale analysis Geographic Overview Valle de Oaxaca

Geographic Overview: Valle de Oaxaca

Sectional Geography: rainfall, vegetation, geography, climate The geographic characteristics of a valley has determined the environmental setup for the region: climate, rainfall precipitation, seismic features, agricultural patterns, infrastructural requirements for urbanization, and so forth.

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Sectional Geography: transportation infrastructure

Sectional Geography: seismic activity

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OAXACA’S WATER POLITICS

Etla

Oaxaca

Paso Ancho

Water Resources: The city of Oaxaca de Juárez is located in the middle of the Central Valley of Oaxaca. It has a closed system of water: water comes from either mountain flows or aquifer storage. In the North, water flows from the Etla mountains into Rio Atoyac, the only semi-permanent supply of surface water in the Valley. The water runs from north to south, goes through Oaxaca de Juárez and eventually flows into the Pacific Ocean. In the South, government agencies have initiated the Paso Ancho project, a dam to be built in the south of the Valley to provide water for the coming thirty years. However, the project is widely criticized for not being sustainable yet uses a lot of the federal money that could have been used to improve existing water pipe quality.

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Water Distribution: Water pollution, mismanagement of water delivery, poor infrastructure of piping, decreasing quality of aquifers, natural evaporation and ﬂooding crisis make water supply constantly an issue in the Metropolitan region. The water delivery system relies on buying water from other towns and then delivering it through pipas, or water delivery trucks. Furthermore, in the historic center of Oaxaca de Juárez, due to the tourism industry, bottle water is consumed in large quantities (Mexico being the second most bottled water consuming country other than the U.S.).

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WATER POLITICS vulnerability

Water

Wells and aquifer vulnerability

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sources of Water

s and aquifer vulnerability

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Urbanization vs Farmalization water usage

Urbanization vs Farmalization: water usage Urbanization has reshaped the landscape of farmland in Valle de Oaxaca. While farmland takes up a large portion of the land in the valley and 73% of water uses, it only contributes to 5% of the regional GDP. In most municipalities of Oaxaca, farmland size has been constantly reducing due to the urbanization process, which began to accelerate in 2000. However, in certain municipalities, farmland sizes has been increasing due to the higher production rate and economic value of produce, such as San Lorenzo Cacaotepec and Santa Maria Atzompa. Among all agricultural plants, green alfalfa has the highest economic value ratio per square meter and is grown where water can be sufďŹ ciently supplied.

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OAXACAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S URBAN REGIME

BY KYLE BELCHER & WILLIAM ROSENTHAL K. Belcher; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). W. Rosenthal; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD).

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The urban region of Oaxaca de Juárez is composed of 22 autonomous municipalities making it one of the most politically fragmented and diverse areas in Mexico. How did this region urbanize and become so fragmented? What natural and structural factors – cultural, governmental or otherwise – have inﬂuenced urbanization? By analyzing current patterns in Oaxaca’s urban form for moments of continuity and discontinuity, historical patterns, contemporary political boundaries and their relationship with natural features, we hope to understand how the land has helped shaped urban form. At the same time, Oaxaca’s diverse

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histories of distinct cultural groups, their struggle for political representation and for physical control of land has had a tremendous impact on Oaxaca’s urban form. From these studies we believe that two general patterns emerge in Oaxaca: patterns of autonomy or isolation, and patterns of fragmentation. By understanding the complementary and progressive nature of these forces of urbanization, which we believe are in part why there is so much touristic attention paid to the region, we are hopeful that the city of Oaxaca de Juárez will be able to address the pressing environmental, social problems facing it today.

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Railroads, highways, and cities

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Traditional conditions for human settlement – rivers, lakes and arable lands – have played a role in Oaxaca’s urbanization. The region was settled many thousands of years ago by the Central Valleys, where Oaxaca de Juárez is situated, with evidence of habitation as old as 11,000 years. The map on the left shows contemporary settlement patterns in the state of Oaxaca with attention to those settlements closest to major rivers. If rivers are a ‘traditional’ infrastructure of human settlements, The map on the next page also depicts modern infrastructures of development: highways, interstates and railroads. It’s worth noting that the area of studio research is at the center of the map where there is the highest concentration of human settlements. It’s easy to see that those settlements branch into three vectors a southern, an eastern and a northwestern. These vectors correspond to the three central Oaxacan valleys, where the urban region of Oaxaca de Juárez is located. Surrounded by mountains the settlements in the central valleys were isolated from other peoples in the country and even in the state. Today, the central valley’s area has seen the most urbanization in the state and indeed is its capital. While the mountains created a physical barrier for travel and trade, they also were (and still are) a unique environment from the valley floor. The surrounding mountains are resource rich cloud forests plentiful in water, timber and biodiversity. The rivers and springs that flow from the mountains are diverted to water crops in the flat valley floor. It seems natural then that we see a pattern of settlement in the valleys that take advantage of less extreme terrain nearest to the Atoyac and Salado rivers. While terrain has clearly had an impact on the physical division and occupation of land, but have those patterns been translated into politics? Has the land been a consideration of political boundaries?

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State Highway Federal Highway Toll Highway Rail Road

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OAXACA’S URBAN REGIME

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1858: 8 Districts

1886: 26 Districts

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1904: 27 Districts

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2014: 30 Districts

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The largest unit of measure of political space within the state is the district. The above set of diagrams shows the development of state districts of Oaxaca over the past 150 years. Over that time these boundaries become less diagrammatic and more accurate, deliberate and sensitive to landscape features. Over that same amount of time the technologies of mapping developed signiﬁcantly so we would expect to see improvement the accuracy of regional demarcation but in the case of Oaxaca, these new more delicate divisions of land hinted at something else entirely. The Mexican Revolution of the turn of the 20th century produced a new structure of land ownership, one that returned lands to traditional and indigenous cultural groups.

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‘Usos y Costumbres’ governance

Communal governance

During the Mexican Revolution Emiliano Zapata famously said, “Tierra y Libertad,” which means ‘land and liberty’ and echoes a quote popular with the revolutionaries, “la tierra es de quien la trabaja,” “the land belongs to the worker.” Success of the Zapatistas allowed for the creation of a new Mexican constitution which established new communal forms of land ownership and redistributed land formerly owned by the state and Mexico’s wealthy rulingclass. Over the following century land reform has worked through the practicalities and politics of land redistribution, but in Oaxaca it is still a very sensitive and complex topic. There are many designations for redistributed land – Communal land, Agrarian land, Ejido land, ‘Usos y Costumbres’ lands – each of which represent a unique type of ownership, political representation and government structure. While we don’t have the room in this essay to go into the details of these classes of land ownership, it’s worth knowing that lands designated as one of these types have relative autonomy from state and federal oversight and political processes. The above maps respectively show the distribution of land designated ‘Usos y Costumbres’ and communal.

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Municipal Boundaries, Usos Y Costumbres and Communal Lands

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This map overlays those two types of governance (‘Usos y Costumbres’ and communal) with the municipal boundaries. If we zoom in on the central valleys in the map, we begin to understand the fragmentation of land tenure in Oaxaca. Understanding that autonomy of these lands makes coordination of solutions to regional urban problems difﬁcult, it’s easy to imagine how difﬁcult it would be to manage regional urban infrastructure like water treatment, sewage treatment or regional public transportation in the central valleys.

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From this study we are left with several assumptions and questions. We believe that the state of Oaxaca, and the central valley too, has historically experienced two phenomenon simultaneously: isolation from outside cultural and political influence, and fragmentation of influence within the state. Fragmentation, we think, is part of the process of land reform that has increased recognition of distinct indigenous populations and cultures in Oaxaca. Relative isolation from outside influence and has allowed for a higher concentration of cultures within the central valley’s region. These conditions of fragmentation in the central valley speak to the difficulty of regional urban politics, but also of the cultural diversity, indigenous heritage and unique environment that have fragmented this region, which are also the reasons why it is so valued by the country of Mexico and the world.

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Photo by Margaret Scott

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CHAPTER 4

THE PRODUCTION OF

HOUSING A.

COMPLEX SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS Eduardo Rojas B.

SITE ENCOUNTERS (ямБeld trip photos) C.

PROJECT 1: BEYOND OAXACA Jesica Bello and Ning Pei D.

PROJECT 2: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED Clayton Adkisson, Allison Green and Allyssa Williams E.

PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES Duncan Corrigall, William Rosenthal and Aliza Sovani F.

PROJECT 4: HOUSING + Kyle Belcher and Amanda Huang G.

PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA Teng Xing, Man Su and Yuxiang Luo

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COMPLEX SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN CENTRAL OAXACA

BY EDUARDO ROJAS Lecturer at the Historic Preservation Program, PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania

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COMPLEX SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS: Institutional Arrangements for Affordable Housing in Central Oaxaca

“Building suitable housing and workspaces for the diversity of Oaxaca’s households and producers is a complex undertaking.” LIMITED HOUSING PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION STRUCTURES Like in most Latin American cities, the production and acquisition of new houses in Oaxaca follows two tracks: the formal process, with producers abiding to norms and regulations and consumers using long-term mortgage ﬁnancing; and the informal process where households selfbuild their shelters incrementally in land subdivided and sold outside the prevailing legal system. In Mexico, formal housing production is responsible for 70% of the housing stock, mostly through government supported housing programs. Both housing production systems foster low-quality urban sprawl as they build houses on cheap land at the periphery of cities and the new neighborhoods usually lack a timely provision of basic infrastructure and urban services. The expansion of Oaxaca over the past ﬁfty years followed this pattern, urbanizing

land located in several adjoining municipalities. Both the new formal housing subdivisions and the informal settlements established in these areas tend to have poor access to urban employment and service centers, lack a reliable water supply, and have very limited access to health, education and recreational facilities. The formal housing market in Mexico supplies a limited variety of housing types designed for a stereotypical household headed by an employee of the manufacturing or services industry with a partner staying at home to care for the children. Newly urbanized territories are ﬁlled with an endless repetition of one or two housing types—continuous or semidetached, single-family houses and mid-rise condominium apartments. However, their size and internal layouts do not fully satisfy the needs of the households that do not ﬁt the stereotype or are in different stages of their family cycles. Extended families

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hardly fit in these homes; households that need to make products or work from home lack sufficient space; and those that want to sell products or services from home find them poorly located for this purpose. The combined shortage of urban services and the unsuitability of the housing typologies are credited for the abandonment of new houses in the urban periphery, a problem that in Mexico reaches 15% of the housing stock—and that is also observable in several Latin American cities. The formal housing production mechanisms described are particularly incapable of supplying affordable housing in the central areas of cities or other sub-centers of metropolitan areas, in spite of the availability of underutilized or empty land in these zones, which already provide access to employment and urban services. For-profit developers and government housing agencies find it difficult to acquire developable lots with dimensions suited to their scales of operation and at prices that allow them to produce houses affordable to the majority of low-income households. New or rehabilitated housing built in central areas concentrate almost entirely in areas favored by middle and upper middle-income households fueling the rapid gentrification of the most desirable inner-city neighborhoods. The limitations of the housing production and consumption system are particularly noticeable in historic centers like the one in Oaxaca. In addition to lacking sizeable lots,

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historic centers have a stock of deteriorated housing whose typologies are no longer in demand and whose adaptive rehabilitation is restricted by historic conservation ordinances. Developers consider these factors a source of additional risk and, as a consequence, in Oaxaca they only undertake projects linked to tourism where they find solvent clients and official support. Also in short supply is affordable rental housing in the formal market. Most renting is done informally, producing overcrowded tenements in deteriorated properties. CAPTURING DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CITY CENTER The research undertaken by the Studio shows that there is ample room for in-fill development and adaptive rehabilitation for housing, workplaces and services in the center of Oaxaca. Like all historic centers in Latin America the historic core is losing population and economic activities, and many buildings are afflicted by functional and physical obsolescence. Beside the loss of the cultural values embedded in the heritage properties, their abandonment represents an under-utilization of capital assets inherited by society. Moreover, the areas surrounding the historic core have sizable quantities of underutilized land due to low-density residential development patterns and the relocation of industrial or service activities. In order to foster the efficient use of Oaxaca’s assets and ensure the sustainable conservation of its

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urban heritage, as discussed in the Studio, the city should aim for the retention of its existing population and look to attract a wide variety of new residents, economic activities and users to the central area. For the historic center of Oaxaca this strategy is complementary to the traditional approach to heritage conservation based on the promotion of tourism-related activities. In the area of Oaxaca inscribed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List the private sector has made significant investments in hotels, restaurants and tourismrelated shops that cater to the large volume of tourists that visit the area. They complement the work of private philanthropy and the government in the conservation of religious and civic monuments. Notwithstanding these developments, the historic center still loses residents and many buildings are only partially occupied, particularly the inner courtyards and the second floor of buildings. Several of the projects developed in the Studio are concerned with these problems. The proposals include: in-fill development in empty lots or underutilized land inside the city blocks for new houses, shops, workshops and service buildings; and the adaptive rehabilitation of heritage buildings for housing, workspace and services aimed at new residents and users. Achieving this objective, however, requires institutional arrangements for the production and purchase of rehabilitated space of greater scope and complexity than the ones currently in use in Oaxaca.

The construction of new in-fill buildings requires developers to have access to empty or underutilized land in the center of the city. Usually these properties are partially occupied or controlled by firms or public agencies lacking interest in their development. Assembling land for infill development requires high levels of coordination between landlords and developers to make the land available, develop it, and share the profits. Such cooperation is rare and the process is plagued with difficulties emerging from speculative behavior on the part of landowners and the negative impact of free riders. Currently there are no developers consolidating infill land in Oaxaca, an indication of the complexity of the process and the lack of appetite on the part of private developers to take on the risks involved. Attracting new uses and users to heritage areas requires a supply of affordable space to live, produce, work and trade. The Studio documented the long established tradition in Oaxaca of producing and selling products from people’s homes and the lack of space and financing to cater to these needs. The space requirements to work and live, or sell and live are significantly different from the stereotypical houses currently built with government support and from the adaptive rehabilitation practices which are almost entirely focused on tourism. Taking care of these needs, as proposed in some of the projects, requires developing different housing production and financing processes.

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Heritage properties suitable for adaptive rehabilitation to new uses in Oaxaca are often large, two story, multiple courtyard buildings that must be subdivided to match current needs and purchasing capacity. Rehabilitated buildings in the historic center can accommodate a diversity of uses: shops in the street front, services and production in the first floor courtyards, and residences in the second floors. Turning single heritage properties into multi use condominiums poses legal and technical challenges that are outside the capacities of traditional developers and pose risks that are significantly different than those of new housing development. This explains the fact that so far the adaptive rehabilitation of heritage properties in Oaxaca responds mostly to the demand of two activities, tourism and culture, and benefits a small proportion of the available stock. There are traditional houses turned into small hotels and guesthouses, small shopping arcades and museums and cultural institutions. The heritage properties rehabilitated for residential uses are mostly leisure second homes. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS Building suitable housing and workspaces for the diversity of Oaxaca’s households and producers is a complex undertaking. The current sector-based and disjoined institutional and financial arrangements are not capable of addressing the Studio’s objectives

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of improving living conditions of the population in the new suburban housing neighborhoods; bringing new residents, producers and users to the center to counterbalance urban sprawl; and diversifying the uses and users in the historic core. Three major issues are of central concern to attain the stated objectives: extend urban services to underserved neighborhoods in the metropolitan area; assemble land for in-fill projects in central areas; and promote multiuse adaptive rehabilitation of heritage properties in the historic center for housing and workspaces. The provision of efficient and affordable services in a metropolitan area requires high levels of coordination among the entities in charge of the services and those managing the territory where they are needed. Oaxaca, like several other cities in Mexico, is in urgent need of metropolitan governance structures to: coordinate the interventions of sector agencies of the federal, state and municipal governments; administer the provision of essential services like transportation, water provision, waste collection and disposal, health, education and recreation; and to manage urban growth to protect the environment and reduce inefficient urban sprawl. Replacing the current inefficient arrangements dominated by sector fragmentation can be accomplished by gradually establishing metropolitan level institutions controlled by the interested entities. There are many successful experiences

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of metropolitan transportation authorities controlled jointly by the municipalities and managed by a stable and highly specialized team of experts. There are also successful experiences in the provision of water and waste collection. Similar arrangements can be used to provide health and education services, manage metropolitan parks, and plan the growth of the metropolitan area. Assembling land for in-fill projects poses a significant public-private coordination challenge that can be tackled by a mixed-capital urban development corporation. The municipality—the entity most interested in promoting this type of development—can join property owners, financial institutions (like INFONAVIT), and interested developers in establishing a corporation that can buy, assemble, sell or rent land for suitable projects. The partners in the corporation contribute cash or land and receive the profits of the land sales in proportion to their contributions. The corporation can take many forms. There are cases where the basic institution is a corporation entirely controlled by public entities that enters into partnerships with private actors on a project-by-project basis. Other types operate mostly in a given area of the city and are linked to specific urban redevelopment projects like the recycling of former industrial sites or decommissioned public infrastructure. The design, financing and implementation of the multi-use, adaptive rehabilitation of heritage

properties is a particularly complex undertaking requiring specialized institutional arrangements to coordinate the interests of the different stakeholders: property owners, conservation boards, developers and the local community. A well-defined and widely supported conservation plan like the one currently in place in Oaxaca is a necessary condition. However, the viability of specific adaptive rehabilitation projects also depends on the type of uses envisioned for the building, their space needs, and the carrying capacity of the heritage properties. Making these conditions compatible with the objectives of the plan is usually the result of complex negotiations between the promoters and the heritage conservation authorities that requires expediency and flexibility on both parts. These projects pose more risks than traditional real estate investments and private developers may need encouragement and incentives to participate. The extra costs related to the conservation of the heritage characteristics of the property are the best-known hindrance. The speculative behavior of property owners is another. The municipal government can intervene to promote this type of projects. In addition to the provision of adequate infrastructure, urban services and public goods in the heritage area, the municipality can expedite the approval process and subsidize part of the extra costs of building conservation, specifically those related to the public good components of conserving the

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heritage property. Making rehabilitated space affordable to low income users will certainly need subsidies from higher-tier government entities. They should cover not only housing but also workspaces. Coordinating the different sources of ďŹ nancing and mitigating the multiple disincentives faced by owners and developers in a deteriorated heritage area may require establishing a specialized development corporation to work with pioneering developers. There are several success stories of this complex and capital-intensive institutional arrangement; Oaxaca needs one to diversify the uses and users of its historic center.

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Visit to the Ciudad Yagul housing development, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to the Ciudad Yagul INFONAVIT housing development, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photos by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to the Ciudad Yagul INFONAVIT housing development, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photos by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to the Ciudad Yagul housing development, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca Photo by Margaret Scott

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca Photos by Margaret Scott

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Valles Centrales de Oaxaca Photo by Margaret Scott

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Oaxaca Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Oaxaca Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Oaxaca Photo by Margaret Scott

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Oaxaca Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to Infonavit housing development, Lomas de Nazareno, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Lomas de Nazareno, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Lomas de Nazareno, Tlacolula de Matamoros Photo by Margaret Scott

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photo by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to INFONAVIT housing development, Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photo by Allyssa Williams

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Visit to housing designed by Dellekamp Arquitectos, near Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photos by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to housing designed by Dellekamp Arquitectos, near Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photos by NÃ©lida Escobedo Ruiz

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Visit to housing designed by Dellekamp Arquitectos, near Fraccionamiento Rancho Valle del Lago Photo by Allyssa Williams

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5 3 4

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PROJECTS

The Studio presents 5 design proposals focused on different sites of Metropolitan Oaxaca and developed in groups of 2 or 3 students. They are presented in order, beginning from the furthest location to the urban center.

PROJECT 1: BEYOND OAXACA Agricultural Conservation by Regional Densiﬁcation PROJECT 2: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED Building a Better Module for Inter-Municipal Development PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES Water and Housing Investment in Oaxaca PROJECT 4: HOUSING + Live/Work Housing in Oaxaca PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA Densiﬁcation of the Historic Center in Urban Oaxaca

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PROJECT 1: BEYOND OAXACA AGRICULTURAL CONVERSATION BY REGIONAL DENSIFICATION

BY JESICA BELLO & NING PEI J. Bello; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). N. Pei; Master in Urban Planning (MUP).

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REGIONAL CHALLENGE Our proposal for the densification of Oaxaca was driven by the fact that throughout its history Oaxaca has always been about the region; beyond the historic center, there are 21 other municipios within metro Oaxaca each of which have emerged out of a rich set of conditions informed by its political history and by its particular geographic and natural context. Clusters of decentralized urbanization are evident when looking at the region, each place having its own particular identity as can be seen in their specific craft or products they produce. But one aspect that ties them all together is the dependency on the landscape, particularly the agricultural landscape. AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE LANDSCAPE After examining the various layers of regional context of Oaxaca, we came to the realization that despite the need for higher density, the region is facing the problem of low density sprawl at the periphery. The sprawl is encroaching upon agricultural land and is jeopardizing the predominant agricultural identity of Oaxaca. Throughout history, the 3 fertile river valleys have made agriculture the principal economic activity of the region. GOAL FOR DENSIFICATION DENSIFICATION In tackling the challenge faced by agriculture and the need for higher density, the aim of our project is to conserve agricultural landscape in housing production at the regional scale. DESIGN PROPOSAL PROPOSAL Our design proposal aims to provide a new housing experience and achieve three objectives, first and foremost, to conserve agricultural landscape and strategically position agricultural activities within our proposed

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housing complex through programming; second, to support densification through housing production that enables residents to embrace a sense of urban living; last but not least, realizing the nature of social housing, we would like to make sure the units we offer are affordable and at the same time provide a wide range of options in regards to housing type and size to the inhabitants. REGIONAL CONSERVATION DENSIFICATION SCORING METRIC METRIC Accompanying our detailed design proposal, we would like to bring to your attention the larger policy implication that would be helpful to INFONAVIT beyond our project. So, this is a metric derived from our design proposal, essentially a point-based rating system used to assess development project with similar approach as ours in hoping to guide subsidy policy. The hope is that priority and more subsidy would be awarded to projects with higher points. The rating system features four scoring criteria. Each of the criteria has a series of credits and each of the credit is assigned a point value. Points are given if the credit criteria the satisfied. Overall this rating system provides a nuanced framework for guiding development, in particular to encourage development projects (with similar approach as ours) that incorporate agricultural landscape and prioritize regional connectivity as demonstrated in more possible points in the metric. Through developing this rating system, the long term aspiration is to encourage and incentivize more projects to embrace this regional conservation densification approach -- which is also very much in line with INFONAVIT’s objective to facilitate sustainable urban housing.

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Zona Metropolitana de Oaxaca

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Valles Centrales de Oaxaca

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Regional Map: Topography

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Regional Map: Aquifers

Regional Map: Land Distribution

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Regional Map: River Network

Regional Map: Political Edges

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Regional Map: Urban Localities

Regional Map: Sites of Interest

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Regional Map: Land Disposition

Regional Map: Flooding Zones

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Regional Section Perspective

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Regional Map

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Site Overview

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Site Plan

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Typical Building Axonometric

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Typical Building Ground Floor Plan

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Courtyard Rendering

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PROJECT 2: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED BUILDING A BETTER MODULE FOR INTER-MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT

BY CLAYTON ADKISSON, ALLISON GREEN & ALLYSSA WILLIAMS C. Adkisson; of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). A. Green; Master in Urban Planning (MUP). A. Williams; Master in Landscape Architecture II (MLA II).

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Over the past two decades, INFONAVIT proved it can effectively mobilize the implementation of massive amounts of needed housing. However, the sprawling tract developments their ﬁnancing model typically supports lack the real qualitative components that build lasting communities. For INFONAVIT to continue ﬁnancing housing developments that will prosper, we argue they must tweak the standards of the large-tract development model to produce more of the vibrant and sustainable aspects that create enduring, livable communities.

most site, our proposal engages the place where Santa Maria Atzompa meets Oaxaca de Juárez, where we hope to create a phase-able strategy by which INFONAVIT can gain intermunicipal cooperation as development expands over time. We project that if INFONAVIT’s ﬁnancial resources can be applied to promote responsible living along the river’s edge, the environmental and social success of the strategy will catalyze municipal cooperation as the model is replicated, and thus spread to incorporate other municipal border issues down river.

In the neo-liberal landscape of Oaxaca where land privatization is quickly erasing ejido tradition, cookie-cutter residential developments are alarmingly reshaping the sub-urban landscape of Oaxaca de Juárez. Oaxaca is a patchwork of sovereign political fragments; to elicit inter-municipal cooperation from these fragments, INFONAVIT must rethink their housing strategy to address common problems bordering municipalities share. If we accept the strength of the large-tract developer model as its ability to deliver mass housing cheaply and quickly, then perhaps we can re-tool it to tackle two of every municipality’s biggest problems: environmental rehabilitation and affordable housing.

The scheme draws its proportions and orientations from the existing land use and drainage paths of the area, incorporating the existing single-family homes into the blocks of the new scheme. The strategy yields new “open-block” morphologies, adapting the traditional Mexican perimeter block into a system of interlaced semi-public courtyards, which weave the activities of daily life together towards the river. From the scale of the unit up to the scale of the block, this module can aggregate to produce endless variations in size and program. This modular versatility prompts programmatic variety, something we noticed happens impromptuly already in many of Oaxaca’s large scale tract developments. As the individual unit modules aggregate, their stacked cores and plenums nest to accommodate passive environmental rehabilitation systems which manage water and utilities as the scheme grows in scale.

Focusing on areas along the Atoyac river basin where multiple municipalities converge, we propose a new model for the development of the riverfront. Considering the northern-

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ez uar eJ D a xac Oa

San o int Jac lpas i Am pa om Atz aria M ta San

Municipal River Borders The municipal border between Santa Maria Atzompa and Oaxaca de Juรกrez faces environmental issue of the Atoyac river basin. This site of common threat produces an opportunity for intermunicipal collaboration for development.

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Santa Maria Atzompa’s Needs

•Desire Desire to preserve traditional culture and arts Wider access to healthcare •Wider

Oaxaca de Juárez’s Needs

•Education •Programming for youth

Housing to accommodate •Housing population growth

•Employment

Child nutrition •Child

•Open Space

Wider access to water and •Wider electricity among the poor Improved quality of •Improved education at all levels

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•Affordable housing •Environmental rehabilitation

Regeneration of green •Regeneration spaces Activities for seniors •Activities Bike infrastructure •Bike Artistic and cultural •Artistic activities Youth entrepreneurship •Youth

Common Needs Diagram The project aims to use the common need of environmental rehabilitation to kickstart the collaboration between two municipalities that can develop livable communities together.

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Bridge Strategy For Trash Clean Up Along River

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Open Block Diagram For A New Typology Of Housing/Urban Development

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Stacking Diagram for Housing Units

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Three-Bedroom Corner Unit

Two-Bedroom Unit

Four-Bedroom Unit

Four-Bedroom Townhouse Unit UNIT MODULE: townhouse

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Three-Bedroom Unit

Retail Unit

Modular Housing Units Layout

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Water Management System In Relation To Stacked Housing Modules

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Perspective: Communal Courtyard

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Perspective: Communal Football Court

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Perspective: Articulation Of The Edge Of The Courtyard

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PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES WATER AND HOUSING INVESTMENT IN OAXACA

BY DUNCAN CORRIGALL, WILLIAM ROSENTHAL & ALIZA SOVANI D. Corrigall; Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II). W. Rosenthal; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). A. Sovani; Master in Landscape Architecture I AP (MLA I AP).

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DESIGN

facing units. Several unit types are provided that capitalize on the year-round water supply. Housing units are paired with ground-floor retail and second-floor adaptable office space. Residents can then lease space to tenants and then charge them for using their on-site water supply, turning homeowners into smallscale utility providers. The main stormwater flow paths from the hill above are addressed through a series of connected stormwater management public spaces that support the hillside informal settlement and slow seasonal flash-flooding along heavily paved roads. Each of these stormwater structures mimic natural hydrologic regimes - riverfront riparian vegetated parks, floodable plazas, curbside bioswales - and increase residential property, commercial value and social equity. The pairing of housing and water investment is both a financial model and an opportunity to encourage good urbanism. Housing is designed around a number of public spaces with urban and infrastructural goals. Rather than releasing the whole site to a single developer to fill with housing, land will be sold in stages to fund each public space in turn and capture the return of increased land value near public investments. Staging the project ties housing development to public benefits in a new, explicit relationship between construction and city improvement.

The cross-subsidy between water and housing investment are designed in two main ways: housing that captures the ample seasonal water supply and retains it on site through the year, and ﬂood resiliency soft-infrastructure strategies that add social and commercial value to the properties around them. Each block is designed around underground cisterns that act as shared courtyards. The arrangement of units maximizes roof area, with secondary outdoor spaces contained within the building footprint and shared between

This project envisages a creative solution that works alongside trends of environmental responsibility in the region’s governance to produce better housing with existing resources. By combining housing delivery with water infrastructure, one has better living environments within better cities, producing a far greater return on investment than if the two categories continue to be treated separately. This design shows how housing can be the driver of socially-oriented living environments that are affordable, equitable and resilient.

The production of housing in Oaxaca, Mexico can be linked to another urgent need in the state: water supply, retention and resilience. By explicitly linking water issues to housing, two enormous categories of government investment cross-subsidize each other. Better serviced and higher quality housing, affordable to the residents of Oaxaca, is paired with infrastructural improvements to address seasonal flooding and insufficient water supply. HOUSING & WATER Low-income housing in Mexico has been produced through subsidies and governmentadministered mortgage financing. This was a quantitative success but qualitative failure. The challenge today is to reinvigorate lowincome housing supply without reverting to a lack in core quality. In Oaxaca de Juárez, 14% of housing units have 24-hour water supply, 52% of households have only a few hours access per week, and 32% of households have no connection at all. Alongside, wet season rainfall causes significant flooding and landslides every year. This project proposes that the necessary investment in water supply be spent at its point of use, subsidizing and being subsidized by housing development.

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PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES CHALLENGES OF HOUSING SUPPLY

1. LOCATION Social Housing is often built on cheap land in the hinterland, 45+ minutes outside of cities and disconnected to services (ie. water)

4. ACCESS 35% of workers in Oaxaca, Oax. are part of the informal sector and do notqualify for social housing mortages.(ranks no.3 nationally.) 65% if the population live below the poverty line

CHALLENGES OF WATER DELIVERY

2. AFFORDABILITY 80% of workers in Mexico earn less than 4x the minimum wage. Without subsidies they would be priced out of the most basic housing.

3. SIZE Raised height and density improves affordability, but does not fully offset the higher land pricesdue to increased labor and material costs.

1. HYDROLOGY Closed water system: rivers and aquiďŹ ers are only replenished by rainfall 2. CLIMATE Tropical savanna; Wet and dry seasons

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RELATIONSHIP OF WATER TO URBANIZATION IN OAXACA Opportunities: 1. Location 2. Affordability 3. Size 4. Access

CHALLENGES OF WATER DELIVERY

WATER MANAGEMENT CRISIS Water coverage in Oaxaca is inferior to 28 of 31 states in Mexico; Oaxaca de Juárez received only 30% of the water that should theoretically be supplied by its main connection to Etla; Of that, 30-50% of Oaxaca de Juárez’s water supply is lost through poor quality pipework within the municipality; 32% of households have no water connection; 52% receive water once or twice per week; 14% have 24-hour supply; Water is not potable; 746mm of rainfall over the wet season causes signiﬁcant ﬂooding and landslides in hill-side residential areas

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INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

PROJECT 3: CENTRO DEL VALLES AFFORDABLE HOUSING FUNDING GAP

MXN$350k condominium

Raised height and density improves affordability but does not fully offset the higher urban land cost

MXN$350k MXN$350k MXN$350k condominium condominium condominium

Given the urgent need to invest in water supply and resilience, we propose combining housing and water funding to achieve both goals

There are many values to water supply, retention and resilience that could cross-subsidize housing

POTENTIAL ECONOMICS OF RAINWATER MANAGEMENT A single home in Oaxaca de Juárez consumes 60.1 m³ of non-potable water/yr

Site area: 13 hectares Average rainfall: 71cm3 Potential water collection on site: 91 million m3

If land sells for $2000 mx/m³

What should the city do with this site? Land value = MXN$ 174.2 million

WATER AND HOUSING INVESTMENT IN OAXACA

Site value as water collector: MXN$ 14.2 million / year

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SITE OVERVIEW & HISTORY 1953 + Papelera Tuxtepec Established + 4 factories + majority private capital

1998 + Sale of company in two packages + Oaxaca de Juárez & Tuxtepec are one package 1991 + only major industry in metropolitan Oaxaca + state-owned + employs 50% of Oaxaca’s industrial workers

2001

2009

2012 + Municipality-led ‘Vision Atoyac’ plan envisions adaptive-reuse of ex-plywoofd factory as new cultural centre

2007 + Shut Down due to failed environmental and social responsability + La Comision Nacional del Agua + La Junta Federal de Conciliacion y Arbitraje

2015 + Property Ownership is the federal level ‘el Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social’ + They won a long trial against the factory union + But ownership in tribunals

2015

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Flooding Pathways Through Neighborhood

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Site Plan

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Neighborhood Section

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Stormwater Infrastructure: Floodable Park

WATER AND HOUSING INVESTMENT IN OAXACA

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Stormwater Infrastructure: Retention Plaza

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Stormwater Infrastructure: River Boardwalks

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Sectional Perspective

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Maximize Roof Area

Shared covered outdoor spaces Block Cistern Central Courtyard

Block Layout BUILIDING

Courtyard Access

/ BLOCK SECTION

Maximize Roof Area

Shared covered outdoor spaces

1-3-bedroom apartments

Adaptable commercial/residential

&RPPHUFLDO JURXQG Ă RRU

Building Layout

TYPICAL BLOCK LAYOUT

WATER AND HOUSING INVESTMENT IN OAXACA

Runoff to shared water cistern Rainwater is gathered, treated, stored and reused on site as non-potable water

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LIVE / WORK Commercial space: 36m2 1-Bed condo: 35m2

LIVE / RENT 1-Bed rental: 35m2 2-Bed condo: 62m2 (+ 12m2)

LIVE 2-Bed condo: 52m2 (+ 12m2)

LIVE 1-Bed condo: 25m2 (+ 12m2)

Unit Types

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PHASE 1 Riverfront Park Neighborhood Stormwater Interventions Neighborhood Blocks INFONAVIT Housing Fovissste Housing

Staging Plan

WATER AND HOUSING INVESTMENT IN OAXACA

PHASE 2 Retention Plaza School Expansion INFONAVIT Housing Fovissste Housing

HOUSING AND HABITUS

PHASE 3 Community Center Football Field Blueway Extensions INFONAVIT Housing Fovissste Housing

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PHASE 4 Bridge to Market River Boardwalk High-end Housing

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Perspective from the bridge

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PROJECT 4: HOUSING + LIVE/WORK HOUSING IN OAXACA

BY KYLE BELCHER & AMANDA HUANG K. Belcher; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). A. Huang; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD).

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This project seeks to offer a new developer model for affordable housing within Mexico, with our speciﬁc site of investigation within the center of Oaxaca de Juárez. Rather than perpetuate the existing large-scale and isolated suburban development model, where each housing unit is replicated out of the housing pipeline; our approach is to instead think of housing as a platform within the existing city, not only to provide housing but also for economic and social development. As part of our platform for housing we developed multiple housing typologies that all focused on ideas of living plus working. We sought units that could facilitate home production (Live/Make), a home and store (Live/Sell) as well as other home businesses (Live/Work). Each house was conceivably also one job, a residential unit but also an economic one. Finally, we sought to develop a platform of housing that can evolve within the existing vacant and underused parcels just outside the city’s core. This is an inﬁll development strategy over time. At the scale of the block, the project attempts to break down the historic

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block dimension (roughly 100 square meters) by introducing a secondary public circulation through the block. The different housing typologies would help organize courtyard spaces and passageways that would also introduce a new level of porosity within the block but also public amenity spaces. Interior public spaces include communal “maker spaces” and classrooms to help individuals grow their home businesses. These spaces would work in tandem with existing governmental and NGO entrepreneurship programs that exist within the city of Oaxaca but aren’t connected with housing. The exterior public spaces include pocket park and playground spaces but also general gathering spaces that can also be used for commerce during the day. The proposal calls for the creation of a new NGO that would organize and program both the interior and exterior “amenities.” This NGO would be made up of funds from the government programs, initial support from the developer but also current private and foundation money to support economic enterprise.

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PROJECT 4: HOUSING + Marian

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PROJECT 4: HOUSING +

TO OAXACA JUAREZ

HIGHWAY

TO SUBURBAN FACTORIES

ǩ7\S ODUJH SDUFHOV RXWV ǩ5HPRYHG IURP VFKRROV commercial centers ǩ'HYHORSHUV DUH UHTXLUH concessions to municipa in the form of the unusa shaped residual lots ǩ7KH VLWH PD\ RU PD\ QR necessary site infrastruc ǩ'HYHORSHU LV QRW UHTXLU amenity or alternative la ǩ/LPLWHG DFFHVVLELOLW\ DQ trafﬁc making home bus

PIPELINE HOUSING Suburban Housing Single typology

•Possible new infrastructure •Developers discretion to provide amenities / alternative land uses

Current Housing Production

•Typical large parcels outside of urban areas •Removed from schools, jobs & commercial centers •Developers are required to give “bonus” concessions to municipalities, this is often in the form of the unusable and irregular shaped residual lots •The site may or may not contain the necessary site infrastructure •Developer is not required to allow for any amenity or alternative land uses •Limited accessibility and daytime foot trafﬁc making home businesses difﬁcult

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HISTORIC CENTER (TOURISM JOBS) ǩ:H KDYH LGHQ near the histo ǩIn close prox center, wholes local shops ǩDeveloper co utilized by the possibility of n ǩ7KH VLWH FRQW infrastructure ǩ$OWHUQDWLYH O ǩ3RVVLELOLW\ IR provide prima residents

WHOLESALE MARKET (SERVICE & COMMERCIAL JOBS)

BENITO JUAREZ UNIVERSITY

PLATFORM HOUSING Inter-Urban Housing w/ Different typologies

Amenities & Services

Housing Production & Economic Development Social Development Political Participation

•We have identiﬁed vacant/abandoned lots near the historic center •In close proximity to highway, historic center, wholesale market, university and local shops •Developer concession zones can be utilized by the greater neighborhood, with possibility of net economic gain •The site contains the necessary site infrastructure •Alternative land uses potentially feasible •Possibility for home businesses that can provide primary or secondary income for residents

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Developer •Provides land similar to current model •Provides rough shell for amenity buildings

INFONAVIT •Contributes funding as part of their increasing social initiatives. •Similar to the Primero de Mayo Development in Oaxaca.

New NGO •Collects the funds from the various agencies for dispersal •Administers programs and property not managed directly by other partners *Runs educational programs on site

Municipality •Provides funding for some basic communal and neighborhood services •Provides discounted land, such as through the Institute a Vivienda

How do we pay for these new amenities?

LIVE/WORK HOUSING IN OAXACA

Philanthropy / Social Programs •Use funds from sources such as the Oaxaca Fund, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship •FAHHO, Alfredo Harp Foundation

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Oaxaca is the perfect place to test the idea of integrating housing with small scale job creation. LIVE/WORK Unlike most other states within Mexico, a majority of the Oaxacan economy is built on small scale businesses, entrepreneurship and craft. 40% of Oaxacans are self employed, and 25% in Oaxaca de Juรกrez.

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10590 sqm

9180 sqm

Possible sites of intervention

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living/working

9600 sqm

lift half level

living services

26700 sqm

working subtract light well /courtyard

22500 sqm

services

working

living services working

ï¬&#x201A;ip & addd

Design stragegy: manipulating a bar

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50 80

11 10

Entry points into vacant lot: An analysis of porosity and accessibility.

50 80

11 10

Primary arteries of circulation: Creating connectivity within the lot to introduce new modes of pedestrian activity (commercial/ retail corridors).

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Secondary arteries of circulation: Structuring secondary and tertiary pedestrian access routes to structure experience and formal housing placement.

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Anchor Programs: Using amenity and retail programming to anchor and facilitate activity between and through the housing lot.

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Phasing of the vacant lot over time: Year 1 Sequence and method of development is dependent on market (supply and demand) as well as growing neighborhood fabric. Using incremental development and strategic insertion as a development tool to increase and empower existing fabric.

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Phasing of the vacant lot over time: Year 10 Housing strategy is mature and embodies elements of retail/commercial activity as well as balanced ratio of social amenities and housing. Phasing over time allows for comprehensive understanding of community needs and is addressed through different apartment/housing typologies.

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Flats Live/Work Neighborhood Amenity

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PROJECT 4: HOUSING + Typology: Flats 2 Bedroom per unit 6 Units shown 30 Units Total

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Typology: Courtyard Studio/1 Bed per unit 4 Units shown 12 Units Total

Conﬁguration 1 1 Bedroom Small ext. work space

Conﬁguration 2 Studio Large ext. work space

Conﬁguration 3 Studio Front work space

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PROJECT 4: HOUSING + Typology: Duplex 2 Bedroom w/ Retail 1st Floor 6 Units shown 26 Units Total

Conﬁguration 1 1st Floor owner operated

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Conﬁguration 2 1st Floor owner leased

Conﬁguration 3 1st Floor owner smaller footprint

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Typology: Split - Level 2 Bedroom w/ 1st ﬂoor work space 12 Units shown 36 Units Total

Conﬁguration 1 1st Floor owner operated Domestic

Conﬁguration 2 1st Floor owner operated Work

Conﬁguration 3 1st Floor owner lease

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Perspective

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PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA DENSIFICATION OF THE HISTORIC CENTER IN URBAN OAXACA

BY TENG XING, MAN SU & YUXIANG LUO T. Xing; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). M. Su; Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD). Y. Luo; Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II).

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The project seeks to question and innovate the business model of Mexico’s national program for housing production and the socio-spatial character of historic urban centers. Specifically, the project addresses the incapability of INFONAVIT (Mexico’s Institute of National Housing Fund for Workers) in building livable communities in Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest and ethnically diverse states. This project, firstly, by bringing the employer back into INFONAVIT’s housing equation, can strategically establish a new partnership, where the employer can bridge the gap between the macro, federal role of INFONAVIT’s finance and the local, territorial need of residential community.

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The institutional involvement of employers also activates the architectural experimentation in the city, where the firm’s existing urban courtyard buildings can be redesigned for domestic, industrial, urban, and communal uses. The resultant typology is a mixture of old and new, public and private, as well as local life and tourism. This hybrid spatial prototype can multiply throughout the city by partnering with other qualified firms in Oaxaca. Therefore, by bringing the residential life back into the tourist-dominant cityscape, the project produces new spatial experiences as well as socioeconomic dynamics, which constitute a system of new urban geographies above the existing city of Oaxaca.

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PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA CRITIQUE: CURRENT MODEL The current housing development model cannot address home buyers’ speciﬁc local demands, due to the lack of agency that can mediate the national scale (INFONAVIT’s funding range) and the local community (housing is a territorial issue).

Individual Home Buyer

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working with an organized community, rather than free-ﬂ oating individuals; Individual possible Home access to the company’s urban land.

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living close to work in the urban area; proximity to education, health, water, and other infrastructures. productivity raised by employee’s increased satisfaction; possible new business typology emerged as the combination of live and work. secured demand before housing development (built-to-suit model with the employer); housing estate being close to urban services. more balanced residents-tourist ratio; greater social diversity and equity in the city; enhanced economic diversiﬁcation.

INNOVATION: PROPOSED MODEL The project innovates INFONAVIT’s business model, by bringing the employer back to the partnership of housing provision. The company is a form of territorial community that workers belong to, and it can become INFONAVIT’s local mediator.

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LIVE + WORK with URBAN RECONNECTION The reintroduced affinity between the worker and the employer for housing production may also result in the physical proximity between place of residency and place of production. This can be interpreted also as reducing transportation costs. However, the very closeness between live and work might also manifest negatively as an inflexible system of labor market and space. Is the new live-work typology going to resemble those secluded “company-towns” that function entirely on self sufficiency? Eventually, to break the rigidity of workers’ housing, both in terms of space and in terms of demographics, is to infuse that typology with urban dynamism. The urban experience is fundamentally about various streams of attachment and disengagement.

PHYSICAL/ACTIVITY HERITAGE It is not feasible to drastically increase the physical FAR in Oaxaca’s historic center, due to the preservation of historical buildings and their facade. However, acupuncture of housing additions can strategically infuse residential life into the city, preserving the life ambiance.

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MAPPING OF CANDIDATE COMPANIES/SITES formally registered on INEGI employing 6-100 people listed as manufacture industry having commercial outlets Finally, the project chose Mayordomo, a local chocolate company, to experiment with the design.

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09. SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC RE-BALANCING

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The commercial outlets of the company are well located in the urban center of Oaxaca de JuĂĄrez, and accessible to pedestrians. The Mayordomo building, like many others within Oaxacaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historical center, follows the courtyard typology of the Spanish style. More than a food manufacturer, Mayordomo has used its urban real estate to branch into service industries. The branding of Mayordomo has also been seeking ways of increasing its public presence for the people in the city. Through a series of physical and business innovation, housing is introduced to the old site of Mayordomo, creating complex conditions of residential, commercial, and urban life within the complex. In this new partnership, various stakeholders are brought together with aligned interests and contributions.

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GROUND FLOOR PLAN Mayordomo’s restaurant, store, bar, kitchen, and production site.

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TERRACE PLAN Roof-top dining, chef’s house, private court, and housing units.

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UPPER FLOOR PLAN Boutique rental apartments, and workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; housing units.

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The housing structures are built upon the original building with a system of “plugs” that consists of physical structural frames, circulation systems, building infrastructures, and various smallscale public/private spaces.

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The commercial courtyard, looking at the workerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house.

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The communal courtyard, looking at the workerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house.

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The commercial courtyard, looking at the boutique rental.

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The street life.

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PROJECT 5: ABOVE OAXACA Transitions | From Public Sphere to the Domestic Space Through the articulation of various architectural elements and program activities, the design creates a blending and choreography of domestic life and public encounters.

Domestic Space: boutique rental apartment

Public Realm: the street facade

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Public Realm: the commercial courtyard

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Domestic Space: worker’s house

Domestic Space: chef’s residence

Public Realm: the quite residential courtyard

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Urban Facade | Reinterpreted Heritage Preservation It is not feasible to drastically increase the physical FAR in Oaxacaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic center, due to the preservation of historical buildings and their facade. However, acupuncture of housing additions can strategically infuse residential life into the city, preserving the life ambiance.

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Networked Urban Experience When the design principals are duplicated in other companies/buildings within Oaxacaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic center, a networked urban experience will be created as a new layer of geography that overlays on top of the old urban fabric. The new experiences will be made of: street spaces, facade veneers and courtyard interventions

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Urban Network Re-Tweaked: Housing Stock Provision each building block will provide about 10 housing units; together the city will be able to enhance the local residential presence.

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Urban Network Re-Tweaked: Courtyard Experiences the city has numerous idiosyncratic courtyards; the new design operation will enhance the connectivity between public and private life in the city.

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Urban Network Re-Tweaked: Street - Building Relationship the historical city streets are walled with facade veneers; the new design recreates the residential life of the city, connects it back to the city with second-ï¬&#x201A;oor terraces and courtyards.

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Photo by Margaret Scott

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

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DESIGNING HOUSING AS HABITUS

BY DIANE E. DAVIS, JOSE CASTILLO & YUXIANG LUO D. E. Davis; Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. J. Castillo; Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Y. Luo; Master in Architecture II, 2017, Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

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“Innovative housing design, when informed by an appreciation of habitus, has the potential to work with and towards regional and societal complexities rather than against or away from them.” “Why are the recent changes in national policy not yet well reﬂected in denser housing production at the local level? Why is housing production likely to exacerbate social problems or spatial exclusion than reverse it?”1 With these framing questions in mind, this Studio challenged students to understand how national policies unfold in complicated local territories; encouraged them to probe the intricacies of myriad ﬁnancial and institutional constraints on housing production; and asked them to envision alternative theories and practices for effective intervention. As discussed in the prior chapters on “Craft” and “Politics,” Oaxaca is saddled with extremely complex social, economic, political and spatial conditions, owing to its cultural history, geographic location, and active civil society. Both the state and its capital city host extraordinary ethnic diversity, demands for citizen autonomy, political fragmentation, built and unbuilt heritages, a wide array of economic activities, and resource scarcity. Each of these characteristics

holds the potential to hinder or distort the aims of national housing policies at local level. Within this complex of conditions, different individuals and groups navigate the urban system with distinct practices as well as a sense of the collective, which together establish the setting in which people’s everyday lives unfold. This process can be best understood with the concept of “habitus,” developed and elaborated by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Habitus is the way society becomes embodied in people’s dispositions, capabilities and propensities “to think, feel and act in determinant ways.”2 According to Bourdieu, habitus refers to the “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures.”3 In other words, habitus gives people a practical sense of how to act within a ﬁeld of connected social, economic, political and spatial mechanisms.4 Therefore, in order to understand how and why various social practices and conditions exist, as well how people negotiate

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these dynamics, one has to grasp the many modes of habitus that are embodied in a given place. Specifically speaking, habitus includes attitudes, habits, and ideologies. Yet it can also be a concept that helps one think about the meaning and character of housing, as well as the possibilities and limits for transforming them in certain location. The concept of habitus will not only help make more explicit the attitudes about housing and what its role should be; it will also illuminate a person’s choice of location and the way individuals interact with a residence and its surrounds.5 Urban designers and planners know that within the complex social fields of human life (work, leisure, residence, networks), “residential space is the key arena in which … [people] … define their social position.”6 When one introduces habitus into this conceptualization, it becomes clear that housing is more than a physical construct. Just as territories are made of intricate social, economic, political and spatial dynamics, housing becomes the site in which human actors embody and interact with their complex surroundings, both reflecting and producing a certain habitus. Once we approach housing in this way, it will be engaged differently as a design project. No longer just a physical good to be passively delivered, housing becomes an operative lens through which urban designers, housing consumers, and other stakeholders understand and

intervene in complex localities. After all, habitus is not only how people embody the social environment, it also reflects the ways in which society is itself shaped by people. According to Bourdieu, the reproduction of the social structure is a function of the habitus of individuals, because “habitus is creative, inventive.”7 Therefore, as with habitus, housing as an object of study holds the capacity to creatively tie together various social, economic, political and spatial structures. At the same time, housing can also leverage the recreation of territorial realities. Stated simply, innovative housing design, when informed by an appreciation of habitus, has the potential to work with and towards regional and societal complexities rather than against or away from them. The work of the students in this Studio involved creating new ideas and innovative models for housing intervention, all of which hold the potential to reflect and transform habitus in Oaxaca. In Chapter 4 – “The Production of Housing” – it is clear that each project took into account the multiplicity of forces and conditions bearing upon a chosen site, embodying a new form of habitus through the design of housing that was intended to produce an alternative social reality based on a closer reading of past and current social and spatial conditions. With the five design interventions privileging different locations of Oaxaca, housing habitus took a variety of forms: as place where people could practice

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their agricultural production (Project 1), as a challenge to municipal politics (Project 2), as a new way of restructuring water access (Project 3), as a site for entrepreneurial innovation (Project 4), and as a way of recasting employer-employee relations (Project 5). Each studio project tried to portray residents of Oaxaca not merely as “ﬁnancial clients” whose needs could be served through mortgage arrangements that make housing affordable, but as agents of habitus with as-yet unrealized housing desires that themselves hold the potential to transform individual and collective life in novel ways.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

(Endnotes)

Diane Davis and Jose Castillo, “Introduction to Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing,” in Housing and Habitus: Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico, ed. Diane Davis et al. (Cambridge: Harvard GSD / INFONAVIT, 2015).

L. Wacquant, “Habitus,” in International Encyclopedia of Economic Geography, ed. J. Becket and Z. Milan (London: Routledge, 2005).

Pierre Bourdieu, “Structures and the Habitus,” in Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977).

Bridget Franklin, Housing Transformations: Shaping the space of twenty-ﬁrst century living (New York: Routledge, 2006).

David F Clapham, William A V Clark and Kenneth Gibb, The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies (Los Angeles: Sage, 2012).

6 Accordingly, this Studio approached housing production in much more than conventional ways, ﬁltering questions about housing typologies through a critical appreciation and creative adaptation of the concept of habitus, conceived as a system through which human and complex territorial dynamics interact in ways that produce and reproduce social realities in a dialectic way. Through their projects, students have given INFONAVIT a new way of thinking about housing as intricately linked to habitus, and they have revealed a variety of alternative ways to apply mortgage funds to housing production so as to create social value, appeal to residents’ sense of unrealized possibilities, and at the same time, to reinforce the cultural history and sociological uniqueness of Oaxaca.

M. Savage, G. Bagnall and B. Longhurst, Globalization and Belonging (London: Sage, 2005).

Pierre Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reﬂexive Sociology, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992).

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CHAPTER 6

CONTRIBUTORS

STUDIO INSTRUCTORS

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DIANE E. DAVIS

Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Author of Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (1994) and Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (2004) as well as co-editor of Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (2003) and Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces (2011). Her current research interests include the politics of urban development policy, socio-spatial practice in conﬂict cities, the relations between urbanization and national development, and comparative international development. With a special interest in Latin American cities, she has explored topics ranging from historic preservation, social housing, transportation, and urban violence to urban social movements, identity politics and city governance. JOSE CASTILLO

GUEST AUTHORS

Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Jose Castillo is an architect living and working in Mexico City. He holds a degree in architecture from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City as well as an MArch and a DDes degree from Harvard University’s GSD. Alongside Saidee Springall he founded arquitectura 911sc, an independent practice based in Mexico City. Among their built projects are the expansion of the Spanish Cultural Center and the transformation of the Sala Siqueiros, both in Mexico City, and the CEDIM campus in Monterrey. They are currently designing The City of Film in Mexico City, as well as the competition-winning Guadalajara’s Performing Arts Center, currently under construction. Castillo is member of the advisory board of LSE Cities and Urban Age as well as of SciArc’s Future Initiatives program.

GUSTAVO MADRID VAZQUEZ

PhD in Urbanism, Director, espacio entre tiempo estudio. Gustavo Madrid Vazquez was born in 1975 in México, is an architect from the Autonomous Metropolitan University –México--, DEA and PhD in Urbanism, from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia –Spain-- with a Cum Laude mention, where he was part of the research team. Has got an acknowledgment in the Holcim Awards 2011, and the UPC Prix extraordinary for PhD thesis in 2014. Director in Casa de la Ciudad Oaxaca for more than four years, he now leads –espacio entre tiempo estudio-- with focusing on architecture, urbanism, and energy.

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SOFÌA I. VIGURI GÓMEZ

Urban Development Consultant at IADB. Sofía Viguri recently obtained her Masters in Urban Planning from Harvard University and became a consultant for the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative at the Inter-American Development Bank. In Mexico -her home country-, she worked for the Nobel Laureate Mario Molina, in a position where she carried out environmental policy studies for clients such as the Mayor’s Ofﬁce in Mexico City, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, and the National Housing Commission. Prior to that position, Sofía worked at CEDAN, a think tank housed in the University of Tecnológico de Monterrey where she also earned her Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations (2009). EDUARDO ROJAS

MARGARET SCOTT

Master in Urban Planning (MUP), ‘15, Research Associate, ReThinking Social Housing in Mexico, Teaching Assistant of the Studio. Margaret Scott is a Master in Urban Planning from the Graduate School of Design with concentrations in Housing and Neighborhood Development and International Planning. Margaret works as a Research Associate at the GSD on the Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico project and is passionate about the right to safe and digniﬁed housing.

STUDIO ASSISTANTS

Lecturer, the Historic Preservation Program, PennDesign, University of Pennsylvania. Eduardo Rojas is an urban development consultant and a lecturer on historic preservation at the School of Design of the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a former Principal Specialist in Urban Development at the Inter American Development Bank where he led the Bank’s involvement in urban heritage preservation. He is a Registered Architect from the Catholic University of Chile, and holds a M.Phil in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Edinburgh, UK, a MBA from Johns Hopkins University in the USA and a Doctor Degree in Urbanism from the Universidade Lusófona de Tecnologias e Humanidades in Lisbon, Portugal.

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NÉLIDA ESCOBEDO RUIZ

STUDENTS

Research Associate, ReThinking Social Housing in Mexico. Nélida Escobedo Ruiz currently works as a Research Associate for the project Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico, which explores the implications of new housing policies in the creation or more integrated urban development in Mexico. Her professional experience includes a diverse background in architectural design, project management, real estate development, and urban planning. She holds a Bachelors of Architecture from Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan.

CLAYTON ADKISSON

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. Clayton Adkisson is a ﬁrst year Urban Design student at the Harvard GSD. After working as on architect on small community-oriented projects in the American South, he returned to school to study how incremental design moves can inﬂuence larger scales. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, studying abroad in both Italy and Switzerland. KYLE BELCHER

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘15. West coast by nature and upbringing, Kyle Belcher is an architect and urban designer. He recently received a Masters of Architecture (MAUD) from the GSD and holds a B.Arch from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He misses Seattle coffee, California burritos and is slowly adjusting to New England weather patterns. JESICA BELLO

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. Jesica Bello is a Venezuelan-born designer currently pursuing a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning after which she joined the team at Ennead Architects and later, Thomas Juul-Hansen in New York City. She is excited about the versatility design can have across scales and interdisciplinary collaboration to propose solutions to the challenges faced by design and urbanism.

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CONTRIBUTORS

DUCAN CORRIGALL

Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II), ‘15. Duncan Corrigall is an Australian registered architect who completed his Master in Architecture II at the Harvard GSD in 2015. Both his academic and professional work has focused on cultural buildings and public spaces, interests he continues to pursue through the bid for Boston to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. ALLISON GREEN

Master in Urban Planning (MUP), ‘15. Allison Green is a recent graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Urban Planning Program. Her main interest is to engage questions of how housing and urban design can be implemented to increase social equity in places where different cultures, skill sets and values converge. AMANDA HUANG

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘15. Amanda Huang graduated from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with a degree in Urban Design with a focus on Real Estate Development. She received her B. Arch with a minor in Planning from Cornell University whereupon she worked at KPF in London as well as KILO Architects in both the Paris and Casablanca ofﬁces. Most recently she was based in Nairobi, Kenya where she worked at the United Nations Human Settlements Program/UN- Habitat researching urban growth and investment in African cities. She is currently a Planning and Design Manager for Corcoran Sunshine in New York City where she is overseeing and working on several developments. Her interests include politics, community engagement and design issues surrounding the complex development process. YUXIANG LUO

Master in Architecture II (M.Arch II), ‘17. Yuxiang Luo, a native of China, has interdisciplinary academic and professional experiences in urban redevelopment, real estate economics, housing and neighborhood development policy, and architecture. Recent employments include China Development Bank, the national investor and ﬁnancier for social housing and urban renewal across Chinese cities. His design and research interests reside in the relationship between econ-political impetuses and physical strategies.

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INFONAVIT / HARVARD GSD

NING PEI

Master in Urban Planning (MUP), ‘15. Ning Pei received her Master in Urban Planning degree in May 2015 from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where her studies have focus on infrastructure and transportation planning and international development. She completed her undergraduate degree in urban studies at Bryn Mawr College. Pei is currently working as an urban planner at the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore. Throughout her academic career, she has worked in both public and private sectors in the US, Singapore, and her native China in transportation, spatial analysis, sustainable development, and international development. WILLIAM ROSENTHAL

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. Trained as an Architect and with a background in Environmental Science, Rosenthal has been focusing on problems of urbanism through design-based projects and environmental education. Currently Rosenthal is studying Urban Design at Harvard University Graduate School of Design where he is focusing on urban policy relating to resilience and real-estate design and development. ALIZA SOVANI

Master in Landscape Architecture I AP (MLA I AP), ‘15. Aliza Sovani holds a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Carleton University School of Architecture & Urbanism and Istanbul Technical University. As a landscape urbanist and architectural designer, Sovani has obtained LEED and permaculture design certiﬁcations in addition to a certiﬁcate in cultural heritage research from the Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Historico for her research work at the intersection of natural and cultural heritage at the UNESCO World Heritage Site: The Alhambra, in Andalusia, Spain. MAN SU

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. Man Su is a ﬁrst year Urban Design student at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University’s AAP and has worked as an architecture designer in the U.S., China and Japan. With her extended work experiences in Asia, she is now exploring design possibilities in real estate and technology in her master’s program. She is also a world traveler and an expert on East Asian cultures.

HOUSING AND HABITUS

CONTRIBUTORS

TENG XING

Master of Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD), ‘16. Teng Xing is a ﬁrst year Urban Design student at Harvard GSD. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tsinghua University. He is interested in critical conservation and residential design as well as innovative representation of architectural design. He believes that creative design and provocative representation will stimulate the inspiration and lead to a better life. ALLYSSA WILLIAMS

Master in Landscape Architecture II (MLA II), ‘15. Williams received her ﬁrst degree in landscape architecture at Arizona State University. She hopes to work in the American southwest whose land contains some of the most beautiful and unique landscapes in the world. Williams graduated from the GSD this spring and looks forward to returning to the desert.

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DEPARTMENT OF URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN This book presents a range of essays, research projects and design proposals developed in the Option Studio Course “Craft, Politics, and the Production of Housing in Oaxaca, Mexico” during Spring 2015 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The studio and this book were made possible through the support of INFONAVIT, the National Workers’ Housing Authority in Mexico. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing.