Lucia Alonso Aranda. From Arrival City to Permanence: Services and Education in Tijuana. by AA Projective Cities

FROM ARRIVAL CITY TO PERMANENCE: public services and educational facilities in Tijuana

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Dissertation Submission MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design (Projective Cities) STUDENT NAME: Lucia Alonso Aranda TITLE: From Arrival City to Permanence: public services and educational facilities inTijuana COURSE TUTORS: Dr. Sam Jacoby/ Dr. Platon Issaias SUBMISSION DATE: 25.05.2018

“I certify that this piece of work is entirely my/our own and that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of others is duly acknowledged.” Signature of Student:

Lucia Alonso Aranda Taught MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design Projective Cities Programme Architectural Association School of Architecture May 2018

25.05.2018

Abstract

Cities around the world are undergoing radical transformations. Their social, cultural, urban and economic landscapes are being re-shaped by migration, along with other phenomena such as technology, environmental change, escalation of corporate ownership, housing affordability, and inequality. Architects need to rethink, redesign, and rebuild cities in order to embrace and address these modern challenges, since the prevailing housing model has failed to tackle these necessities. When doing so they should be guided by the following question: who are cities for, and how can people with different backgrounds, interests, and economic capacities interact, and create positive networks? This dissertation focuses on the challenges that cities face when dealing with migration. Using Tijuana as its case study, the dissertation attempts to provide mixed-used spaces that allow the incoming population of Tijuana to be integrated and empowered. The dissertation proposes architecture as a means to promote integration, positioning education as one of the most effective instruments for achieving this objective. In an attempt to respond to Tijuanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s increasing incoming population, this project specifically focuses on the rise of alternative bodies providing public service and education provision. It proposes the Urban Integration Network, a third party provider of basic services, housing, and education funded through a public-private partnership. Research for this project includes analysis of Tijuanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing social housing and informal settlements and proposes three housing typologies. In addition, it proposes three mixed-used buildings that promote interaction, accessibility, and flexibility to the incoming population. The dissertation concludes that a combination of services, leisure, and education can provide better accessibility as well as use these spaces more hours and uses. The purpose of this project is to question how architects can engage with different users and family configurations and their necessities during different phases of settlement to allow a more effective transition into the city.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The birth of a transient city

Settlement patterns and the prevailing housing market of Tijuana

102 153

Educational infrastructure for integration Conclusion

159

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Undertaking Projective Cities has been a truly encouraging experience and it would not have been possible without the support and guidance that I received from many people. I would like to first thank my tutors Sam Jacoby and Platon Issaias for their guidance, discussions, and constant feedback. I would also like to thank Maria Giudici and Mark Campbell for their helpful tutorials. I want to express my full gratitude of all the people, as well as my two travel companions, that dedicated their time in Tijuana to share their knowledge and passion. I am very grateful of my Projective Cities clan, for the endless discussions, coffees, and help. I would like to thank my family for their care, generosity, and unconditional support. This experience would not have been possible without them. And finally, I would like to thank Ricardo for his endless love and encouragement.

This thesis submitted for the degree of MPhil in Architecture and Urbanism was possible with the support of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts of Mexico, through the FONCA-CONACYT International Scholarship Program, 2016-2018 Esta tesis para obtener el grado de MPhil en Arquitectura y Urbanismo se realizĂł con el apoyo del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, a travĂŠs del Programa de Becas para Estudios en el extranjero Fonca-Conacyt, 2016-2018.

Previous pages: Google Earth view of Tijuana, Google Earth view of San Ysidro Border Crossing, Social Housing in Mexico by Jorge Taboada, Tecate highway via TripAdvisor web

Martin Roemers, Jakarta, Indonesia

Introduction

Trans is the key word here: transfrontalier, transit, transportation, transactions, transmission, transgression, transformation…are the eternal obsessions of the city’s survival. Hou Hanru

1 Globally, there were an estimated 258 million international migrants in 2017, UN International Migration Report, 2017 2 Migrants inside of their country of origin. 3 UN Report: Cross-national comparisons of internal migration: An update on global patterns and trends, 2013

Between 1990 and 2017, the number of international migrants rose by over 105 million worldwide, or by 69 per cent1. This increase mainly occurred from 2005 to 2017, when some 5.6 million migrants were added annually, compared to a previous average of 2.5 million between 1990 to 2005. In addition to international migrants, there are approximately 763 million internal migrants2. Together, international and internal migrants account for a billion people – every seventh person in the world3. With three million people moving to urban centres every week, how can cities plan for these migrants? Mass migration has been underway for centuries: since the expansion of empires, the journeys of discovery and colonialist expansion, the mass migrations to the Americas, and the search of new opportunities. The increased speed and capacity of modern means of communication, transportation and technology has intensified the mobility of people, commodities, capital, information and culture around the world. Migration is re-shaping the social, cultural, urban and economic landscapes of the world’s countries and cities. In fact, migration allows us to question how different social networks, family structures, and cultural backgrounds produce different urban conditions. Based on the needs of particular users living in ever evolving societies, architects have to respond to the temporalities of different users and engage with alternate development models. Migration movements – including social, cultural, and economic activities generated in the process in the context of globalisation and the construction of territories – have a huge impact on the evolution of cities. The movement and settlement of different populations has brought about a reorganisation

INTRODUCTION

The Guardian February 2017

Fronteras, March 2013

in the cities, through the combinations of multiple territories inhabited by diverse communities. Likewise, with the increasing dominance of globalisation reshapes cities to accommodate the needs of free market economy. Even though worldwide more people live in urban areas than in rural areas, the density of cities is in decline4. This can be attributed to many factors such as overpopulation, the use of cars, the desire of people to have more space, low incomes forcing people to move further from the urban centre, and decentralizing employment to reduce costs. Urban expansion is therefore the main process for this seemingly paradoxical trend of increasing urban population and decreasing urban densities. While urban expansion can be orderly and well-planned, it can also lead to the many challenges surrounding urban sprawl and settling informally. The causes of sprawl cannot be directly attributed to migration, but to a combination of local policies and economic forces, often, not directly controlled by the government5. Urban sprawl generates a disproportionate amount of costs for local residents and government, not to mention many social disadvantages and environmental problems. Migrants are particularly vulnerable to these factors. This dissertation analyses how cities can adapt to constant transformations and a change in users and their necessities. As architects, it is necessary to propose different ways in which education, housing, and services can operate together to promote integration, more efficiency, and adaptability.

4 The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion, Transport and Urban Development Department, The World Bank Shlomo Angel, 2010, p 60

5 Some of the common characteristics of sprawl are: low residential density, spatial segregation, development that is not necessarily connected to existing urban areas, commercial areas along major roadways, poor public transport, and fragmented government authority over land uses.

San Diego Red, February 2012

‘90% of deportees from the US stay in Tijuana’ Excelsior, December 2015

The notion of “transient” applies particularly well to a city where each year hundreds of thousands of people are added to the population, where more than half of the population are not natives to the city, and where more than 120,000 people cross a border everyday. These notions of passage and migration characterise Tijuana, a city that plays a fundamental role in the creation and 20

INTRODUCTION

Prototypes Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico Javier Guzman, 2017

6 Maquiladora, or maquila, is a manufacturing plant that imports and assembles dutyfree components for export. The arrangement allows plant owners to take advantage of low-cost labour and to pay duty only on the ‘value added’ of the finished product minus the total cost of the components that had been imported to make it.

movement of people through Mexico, North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Tijuana’s geographic position and proximity to California has transformed it into a connecting city for many national and international migrants travelling northbound to the US. The city has a high floating population. The abundant, and often informal, job market of the multinational manufacturing factories, or maquiladoras6, makes it a highly transited area, with its population doubling in size in the past 20 years. From the 1970s onward, Mexico’s migration history was characterized by migrants entering the US. Nowadays, it embodies several dimensions of the migration phenomenon: emigration, still primarily to the US; transit migration, mainly by internal and Central Americans migrants headed northward; and not insignificantly, temporary and permanent immigration. It is an arrival city, a passer-by city, and a city where people return to- some by choice, others by obligation.

7 Data from the Migration Institute, 2016.

However, in more recent years, Tijuana is transitioning from being a mainly a passer-by city to becoming home to many deportees and migrants, both national and international. Although not necessarily planned, it is estimated roughly one third of migrants end up staying in Tijuana7. This can be attributed to the current stance the US government has taken on immigration, as well as the abundant job market in the manufacturing sector in Tijuana. For many, Tijuana’s appeal resides in its temporality, while for others it offers the possibility to settle down regardless of their legal status. This allows us to pose the question: how can we respond to the transition of migrants becoming inhabitants of a city? Settling in Tijuana has many challenges. Even though Tijuana has a prosperous economy and one of the lowest unemployment rates in Mexico, private investors and developers have steered urban growth to favour tourism and the maquiladora industry. There are high levels of informality, abandonment, low density and shortage of public services and facilities. Its rugged topography and complex land ownership also pose a great challenge for urban planning. Tijuana grew rapidly, out of force and necessity, ultimately accommodating the needs of private development rather than its inhabitants. The government has not been able to deliver basic service provision to the existing population, let alone the incoming population. Their effort to provide public services and adequate housing has fallen short; affordable housing provided by the state is a repetitive one-size-fits-all semi detached housing in isolated locations. Public housing is deficient in quality and size, and lacks access to public transport, food, health, education and leisure. This has increased urban sprawl and social segregation.

INTRODUCTION

Edward Burtynsky, Manufacturing #17, Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, China, 2005

The unequal housing market, and the lack of different tenure models other than home ownership have led people to settle informally. Tijuana’s increasing complexities around urban planning have accentuated the privatisation of basic service provision. Urban planning becomes a challenge when a large percentage of the population does not pay taxes, partly due to corruption and informality, but mainly because of the fluctuating population’s uncertainty. The lack of government participation has opened a path for many unique non-governmental institutions to take matters of governance and service provision into their own hands. With Tijuana largely shaped by economic forces (both local and global), public-private partnerships are crucial to the city’s future development. But what are the urban consequences of public services provided by private capital? Housing cannot continue to be developed in an isolated context and should always be considered alongside services and infrastructure. Rather than viewing housing as a commodity, it must be seen for its potential to produce new uses of space, promote social interaction and new social arrangements, and ultimately enhance access to culture, services and leisure. Housing developments structure the daily lives of their inhabitants and the socio-spatial context in which they are part of, or isolated from.

8 The term ‘mixed use development’ refers to development projects that comprise a mixture of land uses, or more than just a single use. In terms of planning permissions, mixed use refers to land or buildings used for different uses which fall into more than one use class.

9 Gilat, Michael, Coordinated Transportation and Land Use Planning in the Developing World: The Case of Mexico City, 2014

A migrant’s unique social network and family configuration provide insights into the importance of spaces that allow for mobility and interaction. It is crucial to understand and foster the strength of existing social networks, as well as the need to form them. So how can an incoming population benefit from mixed-use spaces8, and particularly from cultural and educational spaces? Social networking is crucial for migrants arriving into a city, regardless of their length of stay. It can provide them advantageous information for job opportunities, where to stay, or information to make future decisions. Mixed-used spaces are diverse enough for both existing residents and newcomers to coexist in the same spaces. Having many programs with different schedules keeps the space vital and occupied during most hours of the day. More and denser housing complexes closer to urban centres and employment can significantly reduce transportation times, costs, and energy consumption and can increase job opportunities9. Through central locations migrants can also have access to other valuable places such as institutions, food supply, and other cultural activities. Mix-used centres can cater simultaneously to a migrant’s immediate necessities such as shelter and health, but also to the needs of longer term residents, such as culture, education and leisure. Using Tijuana as a case study, this dissertation proposes the Urban Integration Network as a resource to address some of the issues faced by the incoming migrant population. It is a non-profit organization that designs and develops 25

INTRODUCTION

educational and culture-related facilities, basic services, housing and leisure in centrally located areas for the transient and incoming population of Tijuana. By providing different spaces and tenure models, the platform responds to the variety of its users. It is funded by a combination of tax breaks primarily from the manufacturing sector and other private investors, and in kind donations and aid from government institutions. These mixed-used centres operate at a network scale throughout the city. The network intends to: strengthen existing social networks, bridge new relations with existing communities, facilitate the transition into the city, provide flexible and accessible choices, and minimize some of the disadvantages that migrants face. At an urban scale, it responds to the low-density urban sprawl and failing housing market of Tijuana by highlighting the importance of services tied to housing. While a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right in the city evolve so do their needs, their permanence, their networks, and ultimately so should their spaces.

Neighborhood Friends, Tijuana, Livia Corona, 2000

The proposal is structured in four parts. The first chapter provides a general overview of the territory of Tijuana and its social, political, and economic landscapes. The Urban Integration Network is introduced in this chapter as a proposal to engage with the local economic and political actors of the city. The second chapter explains how migrants have settled in Tijuana, and the challenges they face with the existing housing market. It proposes mixed-use spaces that allow migrants to have more mobility, interaction and flexibility within a city. Through specific case studies, chapter three discusses how basic services, education, and leisure can operate within the same space and how they can relate to housing. It addresses the importance of density and alternative forms of occupation and tenancy and proposes designs that demonstrate this. The last chapter describes how the Urban Integration Network can be managed and operate at a larger network scale. Concluding remarks question how architecture may enable migrants to exercise their rights to have a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being by fostering integration through the reinforcement of existing networks and the creation of new ones.

Maquiladoras at the Mexico-US Border, Google Earth, 2017

01 The Birth of a Transient City

All the official maps go blank at the border. The U.S. maps are white below the line, while the Mexican maps are white above. (…...) To see the border from the air is a visual shock. The fence runs ruler-straight and heedless across valleys and mesas: open fields on one side, crowded settlements pressed right against the fence on the other. The Tijuana River dies in a muddy pool just by the big border crossing, which with all its slots and lanes for cars, looks for all the world like a giant starting barrier at the dog track. Kevin Lynch, Temporary Paradise (1974)

1 Tijuana being the central municipality both in population and economic importance with 88.9% of the population.

2 Zenteno Quintero, From the ranch of the Tia Juana to Tijuana: a brief history of development and population on the northern border of Mexico, 1995

The metropolitan area of Tijuana encompasses the municipalities of Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito and Tecate.1 Since Tijuana began with some sort of planning process, plans have deliberately oriented north towards the US, reflecting highly on Tijuana’s population and urban form. Urban growth in Tijuana is the result of exponential demographic growth and informal land use, due to high rates of migration. Between 1930 and 1990, Tijuana’s population grew by a factor of 66 (from 11,000 to 750,000 inhabitants), in contrast to the national population, which only quintupled during that time.2 There was no formal mechanism or plan to incorporate arriving migrants, leading to unorganized informal settlements. Currently, the population continues to grow and migration remains an everyday occurrence. Tijuana’s fragmented urban tissue and lack of urban structure can be attributed to disputes over land ownership, as well as scarce services and public facilities. This has led to a large amount of informal settlements and lack of infrastructure. In Tijuana, like in many other cities, informal urban manifestations are the product of an ineffective system defined by top-down approaches of privatization. Land ownership, tourism, and industries have forcefully shaped Tijuana’s urban realm and entry to a global economy. As a consequence, the urban and demographic growth of Tijuana is highly dependent on the private sector. Both private and public urban plans have been guided to suit certain actors within the city.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

SAN FRANCISCO

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

UNITED STATES

Territory of Alta California

1821 Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and California became a province of Mexico.

Territory of Nuevo Mexico

This is one of the first regional maps of America in which California appears as an island. The Spanish claimed the California coast since 1542. However, it was only during 1769 that they were able to settle in the San Diego Bay by establishing the Presidio, the base of operations for the Spanish colonization of California.

SAN DIEGO EL PASO

CHIHUAHUA

Territory of Baja California

LAREDO

MEXICO

SAN FRANCISCO

Audience de Guadalajara, Nouveau Mexique, Californie, Nicholas Sanson, 1657 (Source: Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps)

UNITED STATES

Territory of Alta California

1836 Texas becomes its own Republic until 1846. This was one of the reasons for the Mexican American War.

Territory of Nuevo Mexico

The borderland SAN DIEGO

Republic of Texas

EL PASO

Territory of Baja California

CHIHUAHUA LAREDO

MEXICO

3 Russell, Philip L. The history of Mexico: from pre-conquest to present. New York: Routledge, 2010

UNITED STATES

SAN FRANCISCO

SAN DIEGO EL PASO

In 1953, the Gadsden Purchase was made (in red).

CHIHUAHUA LAREDO

MEXICO

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War with a new boundary line established. Under the terms of the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States Upper California and New Mexico, which included present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

MATAMOROS

4 Storey, D., Territories: The Claiming of Space, 2012

A territory can share and be defined by certain characteristics, whether physical, social, economic, or political. A territory can be a place that is not referred to as a specific piece of land, but rather a concept or area of knowledge. Territoriality can be the spatial expression of power and control over a certain geographic area. When speaking of territoriality, it is necessarily to speak of borders. Although borders are distinctly political constructs, they demonstrate clear social and cultural implications, especially for their inhabitants. Borders are not just lines in the sand dividing territories, but social and physical constructs. With 350 million legal crossings per year, the US-Mexico border is the most frequently crossed border in the world.3 From a macro scale, territory is the geographical space expressed through political power and the divisions of nation-states. At this scale, divisions are not only political but also economic and cultural. Like many other countries that underwent colonization, Mexico has been subject to a Spanish territorial legacy. After its independence, Mexico became part of the geographical sphere of influence of the US. David Storey argues that although the US did not formalized its territorial control over certain countries, it enforced a contemporary version of colonialism by submitting people and territories to a subordinate position.4 This is particularly the case in the northern states of Mexico, where regional economic alliances become another form of territorialisation. At a micro scale, a territory goes beyond the realms of the state. In an interindividual reality, territories are defined by social identities, gender, ethnicity, 31

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

Mexicali and Calexico

Tijuana and San Diego

Laredo and Nuevo Laredo

Tijuana’s existence is a direct consequence of the boundary line established somewhat arbitrarily. While in the east the border was delimited by the Rio Grande, in the west it was not possible to do the same, and a staight line was drawn.

and class. It is at a micro scale where urban areas often have manifest spatial divisions. The micro scale of a territory can have an effect on the macro scale, and vice versa.

5 Design-Build Structure, Solicitation Number: 2017-JCRT-0001, Solicitation found in: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opport unity&mode=form&tab=core&id=b8 e1b2a6876519ca0aedd748e1e491 cf&_cview=0

6 More than two million people live in the trinational urbanized region surrounding the city of Basel.

01 02 03 04 05

7 Especially notable have been cross-border programs of environmental cooperation and economic development along the Swiss-German-French, SwissItalian, French-Belgian, DutchGerman-Belgian, Spanish-French, and other European borders. Lawrence Herzog, Cross-Border Planning and Cooperation, p.148

US President Donald Trump tweet, 2015 San Ysidro Border Crossing (Phil Konstantin, 2011) Where the border meets the sea (Javier Guzman, 2017) Migrant caravan protesting at the border wall (The Guardian, April 2018) Border fence decorated, 2017

Borders are not simply a two dimensional line on a map. Borders are multilayered, fluid, and socially complex. For some, crossing the border represents a simple task, while for others it continues to act as a barrier. The San Diego and Tijuana territory is somewhat paradoxical. While boundaries are becoming more permeable and ephemeral through processes of globalization, they are also creating social and spatial exclusion for many. With Donald Trump elected president of the US, there is a threat to divide these neighbouring countries with a solid wall. Beginning in 2017, Customs and Border Protection and the Homeland Security Department agency posted a call for proposals. Sceptical about Trump’s proposal, they requested proposals for both solid and seethrough versions of a wall.5 Many call San Diego and Tijuana a transborder metropolitan region. Transborder metropolitan regions consist typically of two or more settlement centres around an international boundary. Over time these settlements can fuse to form a functional region, such as the Swiss-German-French border region near Basel, Switzerland.6 Certain attributes facilitate transborder cooperation: geographic proximity and historically integrated border regions, a common fate in economy and defense that tends to tie nations together, and relatively similar economic levels across nation-state boundaries.7 The territorial politics of the 19th and early 20th centuries dictated that nations had to guard their borders. This “shelter” approach encouraged a common settlement pattern in which the largest urban concentrations tended to be situated away from the physical boundaries of a nation-state. According to Lawrence Herzog, before 1950, boundary regions were seen as buffer zones that 33

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

California New Mexico

Arizona SAN DIEGO TIJUANA

CALEXICO

4,000,000 2,000,000

YUMA

MEXICALI S.L. RIO COLORADO

Baja California Norte

NOGALES

DOUGLAS

NOGALES

AGUA PRIETA

Sonora

EL PASO

0,0 1,00 00

Texas

0,0 50 00

CD JUAREZ DEL RIO

PRESIDIO OJINAGA

Chihuahua

EAGLE PASS

ACUÃ&#x2018;A PIEDRAS NEGRAS

LAREDO

NUEVO LAREDO

Map of border cities Colonial town Post border treaty

Coahuila

MCALLEN BROWNSVILLE

REYNOSA MATAMOROS

Nuevo Leon Tamaulipas

Due to American investment

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

8 Ibid., p. 148-149

9 The population of this expanse of land is estimated to be approximately 14 million in 2010. This population is expected to double by the year 2025. (Migration Policy Institute)

10 Kearney, Milo, and Anthony K. Knopp. Border Cuates: A History of the U.S.-Mexican Twin Cities. Austin, Tex: Eakin Press, 1995. p 221

11 Bloomberg, San Diego and Tijuana Bond Over $230 Billion Economy, 2015, Web.

12 Borderline Personality, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 2010

San Diego-Tijuana border Gordon Hyde (http://www.ngb.army.mil) Tijuana and San Diego have grown in proximity, but could not be more different from one another. From above, the cities manifest themselves as a unified urban sprawl, oblivious to border legislations and restrictions. Up close, however, we encounter a different urban reality. While the cities share strong economic ties and many natural features, their interactions are not integrated at an urban scale. San Diego grew facing the sea while Tijuana grew along the border facing San Diego.

13 Alegriía, Olazaábal T, and Barba G. Ordóñonez. Legalizando La Ciudad: Asentamientos Informales Y Procesos De Regularizacióon En Tijuana, 2005

helped protect the country from invasion by land.8 Under these circumstances, there were few large cities near national boundaries. Only in the second half of the 20th century has the border territory become prime real estate for towns and cities. Global markets and free trade are the new norm, and property at the borders attracts investors and governments alike. In the future, it might become more advantageous for large cities to be located along international borders. Perhaps the clearest example of transfrontier urban space can be found along the Mexico-US Border. More than fourteen million people live in the transfrontier metropolitan regions along the three-thousand-kilometre border between Matamoros-Brownsville and Tijuana-San Diego.9 Along the border, there are 26 twin cities. Most of the twin cities grew in parallel, except in the far ends of the border. San Diego was a colonial city, whereas Tijuana emerged after the establishment of the present day border. Twin cities have had to work with each other on environmental issues concerning water and air pollution, as well as on the logistics to control border crossings. With exception of the San Diego-Tijuana twin city, all of the Mexican twin cities are larger than their US counterparts. The same is true for the urban density of the cities. This is largely due to migration. As more migrants than the US could accept arrived in Mexican border towns, the population in Mexican cities rapidly outgrew the one of its American twin cities.10 But is it possible to say that San Diego and Tijuana are twin cities? Although Tijuana is located only 30 kilometres from San Diego, the cities are extremely different from each other. While San Diego boasts to be “America’s finest city”, Tijuana is viewed as transient, underdeveloped, and dangerous. The difference between these two cities becomes evident through their economy. The TijuanaSan Diego connection is valued at $230 billion dollars.11 However, the capital outflow going from Tijuana to San Diego in the Otay Mesa border crossing is double than the one coming to Tijuana. This lack of balance becomes even more evident when considering that the total GDP of Baja California represents merely a 1% of California’s GDP. Likewise, the minimum wage in San Diego is eight times higher than the one of Tijuana.12 The greater the economic disparities, the greater the level of interactions measured by crossborder commuting. Yet, half of Tijuana’s inhabitants do not have the legal right to cross the border into San Diego. If the cities are not politically, economically, or socially integrated, how can we speak of a transborder identity? At the border, the differences between the two sides occur in the capacity to accumulate capital and in the social distribution of income. These differences are evidenced in the disparity in prices and wages. They create a complementarity between the two sides of the border, which combined with geographic proximity, result in intense cross-border flows of capital, goods, and people. When cross-border differences between the two countries deepen, cross-border flows increase and border cities grow. According to Tito Alegria, the increase or decrease of flows between the two countries depends on their differences and on how opposing they can be. When Mexico faces economic problems, and employment and salaries decrease, there is a significant migration flow towards cities with employment, such as the ones located on the other side of the border.13

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

‘Plan of the part 1 north, Tijuana Ranch’ (Copy of 1890 original from Tijuana’s historical archive)

Before the present day border was established, Tijuana was formed by scattered settlements, and a small cattle ranch in the outskirts of San Diego called Rancho Tíia Juana. The land was granted by the governor of The Californias to Santiago Arguello in 1829. Members of the Arguello family decided to set aside a portion of the Tia Juana ranch closest to the border, in order to subdivide and sell the land in 1889

Shaping Tijuana: land ownership, tourism, and maquilas As an urban phenomenon in the Mexican context, it is common for a large number of cities, like Tijuana, to grow rapidly. Yet, according to several historians, Tijuana was different from other Latin American cities because of how it was founded. When Tijuana was established, the Mexican government gave land titles to some families in the northern territories of Mexico in order to populate the region and secure the territory from future invasions. These plots were called eijdos.14 With the passage of time, these families began to divide the territory without formal or legal agreements. Although some of these lands were eventually expropriated, present day properties can still be linked to those titles. Contrary to other towns in Baja California, Tijuana’s main reason for growth was its proximity to the border.15 Apart from its precedent as a migrant city, Tijuana is a city with a history of land invasions, land redistribution, and multiple and inconsistent land titles. Since its origins, Tijuana’s urban growth has been dictated by private investment. This has been a constant since its first plan in 1889. The Orozco Plan had the objective of putting an end to land disputes. In order to achieve this objective, the plan proposed a reticular grid with intersecting diagonals. This seemed to provide a framework for Tijuana to grow in a fairly organized way. However, lack of criteria when selecting the buyers to whom the plots of land were being sold to, and the purposes for which such buyers were acquiring the land, became problematic. In the following years, the grid would become propitious for the touristic landscape of downtown Tijuana. During Tijuana’s tourism boom in the 1920s, the diagonal boulevards were transgressed and built 38

14 Ejido: the Mexican ejido was established under the land reform of 1915. It granted agrarian communities the right to farmland in perpetuity. Members of the community had the right to cultivate land but not to sell it. Urban development has increasingly led to cities spreading on to ejido land and many ejidatarios have illegally sold out. This has created a major problem for the authorities. 15 South of Tijuana, Ensenada was the capital of Baja California, and grew into an important port for San Diego and established, similarly to Tijuana, a maritime customs house. American investors formed the International Company of Mexico, bought land, and developed a plan for Ensenada.

Plan of Zaragoza, 1921 (Tijuana’s historical archive)

Plan of Zaragoza (prior to being named Tijuana) or also called Plan Orozco because of the engineer that elaborated it. It proposed a reticular grid with diagonal boulevards that were soon after transgressed and sold of for commercial property. Left are two present day examples of the existing traces left from these diagonal boulevards.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

1890-1925

The first significant manifestation of settlement in the Tijuana Valley was the establishment of a Mexican customs house in 1874 in response to the discontent of local inhabitants, who requested control of the unregulated traffic of American goods and occasional military troops. The customs house controlled the foreign transit and allowed for goods to be taxed. Across the border, next to the customs house, American investors created a plan for a residential area called Tia Juana Heights. During the beginning of the nineteenth century, Tijuana would be radically transformed by tourism. Gambling was banned in California, and Tijuana became the ideal place for American promoters of the entertainment industry. The downtown area began to be occupied with cantinas, gambling houses, brothels, and liquor shops.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

1925-1935

Tourism intensified after the 1920s’ prohibition in the US. The largest businesses were owned and operated by Americans, who took their profits back to the US. After the prohibition ended in US and unemployment rates rose, the Mexican government made the local border a free trade zone in 1933 in order to reactivate the city’s economy. In the 40s, Tijuana’s vice-oriented industry extended to a strong commercial sector.

1935-1950

During the Second World War in 1942, the US and Mexican governments implemented the bracero programme due to a shortage of agriculture workers during the height of demand for labour in the war economy. This created a large wave of Mexican migrants coming to the northern states, looking for seasonal jobs in the US. Many migrants, however, never crossed the border and instead settled in Tijuana. Many who crossed to the US left their families on the Mexican side of the border and, since the jobs were seasonal, the Mexican border cities increased their population drastically.

1950-1970

From 1940 to 1950, Tijuana’s population tripled from 16,400 to 59,954 people. In 1952, The North Territory of Baja California becomes the 29th state of Mexico, Baja California. The Programa Nacional Fronterizo (National Border Program), or PRONAF, was established in 1961 to reactivate Mexico’s northern border region. The demographic growth of the first half of the twentieth century brought social problems such as inadequate housing and high unemployment. PRONAF was intended to overcome such problems.

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CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

1970-1985

Tijuana River channelization project begins in 1972, one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Mexico. Squatter settlements were forced to relocate. In 1978, the border fence was erected. Many multinational manufacturing plants came to Tijuana. Sanyo, a Japanese company, and one of the major maquiladora in Tijuana, arrived in 1983.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

1985-1995

In the late 1980â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the Mexican government further loosened foreign investment through modifications of its foreign investment policies. Likewise, the NAFTA negotiations began in 1992 and took effect in 1994. In 1994 the US-Mexico Bilateral Tax Treaty took effect. Continuing in 1994, Mexico joined the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), in an effort to become a global partner in trade and commerce. This brought another large wave of migration to northern states.

1995-2010

2010-2014

in 1996, the llegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act authorizes construction of a 23 km, triple-layered fence near San Diego.

According to the 2015 census, the Tijuana metropolitan area was the fifth-largest in Mexico, with a population of 1,840,710.

The Tijuana Cartel or Arellano-FĂŠlix Organization is a Mexican drug cartel that was based in Tijuana and was fragmented in 2006 with the arrest of its main members. Tijuana would see more peaceful and secure years ahead.

10km

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

1890-1925 1925-1935 1935-1950 1950-1970 1970-1985 1985-1995 1995-2000 2000-2010 2010-2014

5km

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

Parque Industrial Pacifico, South of Tijuana, Google Earth, 2018

Excerpt from Maquilapolis, Documentary by Vicky Funari, 2006

on in order to gain more land for bars, gambling houses, and shops. Since there were no formal property records, one plot could have multiple legal titles from its origin. During the Second World War in 1942, the US and Mexican governments implemented the bracero programme due to a shortage of agriculture workers during the height of demand for labour in the war economy. This created a large wave of Mexican migrants going to the northern Mexican states, looking for seasonal jobs in the US. Many migrants, however, never crossed the border and instead settled in Tijuana. Many who crossed to the US left their families on the Mexican side and since the jobs were seasonal they came back, increasing the population of the Mexican cities drastically. From 1940 to 1950, Tijuana’s population tripled from 16,400 to 59,954 people. During this time, Baja California underwent many social and cultural changes, going from scarcely populated towns mostly shaped by US capital and interests, to a densely populated urban centre of a Mexican majority. The second half of the 20th century was marked by a strong demographic and economic expansion in the state. Baja California ceased to be a territory and became a state of the Mexican Republic. As a State, it began to have more, and closer ties with Mexico than with the US. With the bracero program coming to an end in 1964, many seasonal workers stayed in Tijuana. Cities in the north had higher standards of living and better minimum wages than the ones existing in the rest of Mexico. This made of Tijuana an attractive end point for migrants and brought about an explosive urban growth and high demand 46

16 Mexicali’s urban expansion was highly more efficiently planned and managed due to partly the flat topography of the valley.

17 Antonio Bermudez, appointed PRONAF director in 1961 by president Adolfo Lopez Mateos, was also founding director of PEMEX, the nationalized oil industry. Along with family they established Grupo Bermudez that would establish Mexico’s first industrial park in Ciudad Juarez. 18 This is presumably due to their patience and skill to assemble small goods, although critics argue that young women are less likely to strike and will work for lower wages and longer hours. Iconic Mexico: An Encyclopedia from Acapulco to Zócalo, 2015

for housing. Unforeseen neighbourhoods began to proliferate during this period, causing many problems for the government, whose capacity to provide infrastructure and services to these new settlements was, and still is, quickly surpassed by the urban growth.16 With the end of the bracero program, the decrease in American investment and tourism, and a large unemployed migrant population, the Mexican government needed to address the economic and cultural isolation. The PRONAF (National Frontier Program) was established during the 60s with the goal of promoting economic, urban, functional and cultural development in Mexico’s border cities. PRONAF would pave the way for the transnational maquiladora corporations in the following years. In 1965, the Border Industrialization Program (BIP) was implemented. The BIP is the most important program to understand present day development in Tijuana, as it offered transnational corporations the ability to import tax-free raw material and equipment into Mexico, where they would then be assembled and exported back into the US. Although PRONAF and BIP were government projects, they were heavily steered by private investors.17 While the state’s purpose in the implementation of the BIP was to provide employment for braceros that returned to Mexico, factory owners preferred to hire young women.18 By 1992, Tijuana was the forerunner in the maquiladora industry in the northern states with 515 of the 775 maquiladoras. The land designated for industrial use was in proximity to the border to benefit foreign private companies. With the rapid rise in population and urban growth, maquiladoras 47

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

The Tijuana River, 2017

were soon embedded into the urban tissue. Workers would settle informally around the maquiladoras out of convenience in spite of the contaminated soil and inexistent services. However, settling near a maquiladora implied that there was some sort of paved road (necessary to facilitate access to the factories and surrounding areas), water infrastructure (mainly used to supply the factories), and a minimum level of security (although private). Little by little, private investment started to take over the basic functions of the State. Urban planning and the private sector Tijuana’s urban growth grew along the international border and the Tijuana River. The river was channelled in 1972 by the federal government with the intention of preventing future flooding and establishing a new urban centre for the city, which included the Tijuana River canal up to the San Ysidro border crossing.19 Today, Zona Rio is the financial and tourist area of Tijuana, with retail, middle upper class residential buildings, exclusive hotels and office buildings. While it is the flattest area of the city, it has become a physical and social border. This existing infrastructure is one of the few open spaces within the city, although useless as a public space. Museums and cultural centres, as well as services such as hospitals, have been placed along this axis. Present day efforts to control growth in Mexico have been through The Urban Containment Boundaries (Perimetros de Contención Urbana- PCU) established in 2013 by the CONAVI (National Housing Commission). They determine how federal funding for housing should be distributed, depending on how consolidated an area is in relation to infrastructure, services, and transport. The perimeters are determined by geospatial information provided by the National Institute for Statistics, Geography, and Information (INEGI) and are divided as follows: the central area U1 is defined by the proximity to employment; the first boundary or U2 are areas in the process of consolidation and have a 75% or greater coverage of sewage and water services; and the second boundary or U3 is the contiguous urban area that acts as a buffer 48

5km

19 With the transformation of the river also came the eviction of approximately 500 families living in Cartolandia, an irregular settlement made of cardboard shacks.

PCU (Perimeters of Urban Contention)

Z1: Consolidated urban areas with access to work, infrastructure and basic services Z2: areas with access to basic services and infrastructure and 75% with complete sewage Z3: perimetral “buffer” zone

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CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

Top: Google Earth Image of Valle de las Palmas, 2018 Left: houses of Valle de las Palmas, Getty Images, 2016

zone for U2. Although most of the U3 perimeter does not have minimum infrastructure such as sewage, electricity, and paved road, housing developments within any of these areas are eligible for purchase with mortgage credits. Regardless of the lack of infrastructure, developers often choose to build in the buffer zone, pushing sprawl further out, as a consequence of the attached credits. When establishing growth boundaries, there can also be implications on housing affordability, raising the prices in central locations, and consequently driving the sprawl elsewhere. The subsidies linked to the PCU locations are given to private developers, not directly to the users. Evidence suggests that binding subsidies to PCU locations are insufficient to guide new development towards more accessible intra-urban locations.20 Criteria for subsidies should not only be linked to existing facilities and infrastructure, but also to future planning. This has not been possible due to the separation between local government and more centralized federal agencies controlling those location tied subsidies. In Mexico, the two government sponsored mortgage agencies INFONAVIT (Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores) and FOVISSSTE (Fondo de la Vivienda del Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los trabajadores del estado) have contributed in promoting sprawl up to a certain extent. They have built a large amount of low-income housing units in under-serviced and remote locations. As of 2000, the aim of the housing policy was the quantity of mortgages, overshadowing the quality and 50

21 Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2015

20 Revitalizing Places: Improving Housing and Neighborhoods from Block to Metropolis. Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2016 22 GEO is among the largest construction companies in Mexico focused on low-income housing and community development. PREI is the real estate investment management business of Prudential Financial, Inc. 23 The DUIS are based on an offer model of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;land servedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; megalots (land with urban layout and basic services, such as sewage, water, and lighting) that can later be resold to developers to build housing. DUIS seek to increase density, reduce energy consumption, transportation costs, and operation of public services built.

location of units. An OECD study done from 2006 to 2013, found that more than 70% of the registered housing was built in the periphery of the cities. Of those registered, approximately 90% consist of individual homes. As the sprawl grows, so does the pressure and cost to service these remote developments. In Mexico, housing developers suggest that their profit rates range between 20-25%, higher than other social housing developers worldwide.21 The large, and often unregulated profits by developers have led to very large quantities of housing. The cost effectiveness behind the mass production of housing is supported by the acquisition of cheap remote land, use of materials in large quantities, and the facility in which permits are obtained. This is best illustrated by the failure of the Valle de las Palmas development, a satellite city 50 km outside of the city centre of Tijuana that turned into a ghost town. The development was proposed by the Mexican Federal Government, the State Government, and private housing developers such as Urbi, Geo, and PREI (Prudential Financial, Inc).22 In an attempt to populate the area, the Autonomous University was transferred there in 2009. The intention was to build 100,000 units from 2009 to 2014 and by 2030 have enough homes to integrate one million inhabitants. It was certified as the first Integral Sustainable Urban Development (DUIS) in Mexico, a certification program for developers to qualify for government financing, infrastructure, and services.23 While a large portion of housing has already been built and sold in Valle de las Palmas, the infrastructure has still not been completed. Residents have to commute more than one hour to reach the city, and their water gets delivered through pipes due to incomplete sewage. 51

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

Taking advantage of Tijuanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strong private sector, particularly that of the maquiladoras, this dissertation proposes a development model which combines public service provision and housing. The proposed Urban Integration Network is a public-private partnership that provides public services, education and housing to an incoming population. It can allow maquiladoras to have certain tax benefits or deductions when contributing to the proposed Urban Integration Network, a public-private partnership that provides public services, education and housing to an incoming population. The proposal intends to be thought at a network scale throughout the city. Its intention is to provide more local and efficient facilities to different neighbourhoods of Tijuana. The following chapters provide the reasoning behind the programme chosen for these sites. Rather than depending on the government to provide infrastructure and services in remote locations, the proposal suggests that the Urban Integration Network sites are located in central and consolidated areas that have additional services, retail, and public transport. Taking into account the PCU parameters, sites should be within the two most consolidated areas, U1 and U2. Additionally, sites must be no more than a 10-minute walk from existing public transport, and in vacant or underutilized plots.

CHAPTER ONE: THE BIRTH OF A TRANSIENT CITY

Vacant sites in relation to PCU perimeters and public transportation

Settlement patterns and the prevailing housing market in Tijuana

For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is a city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name (...) Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Migration is about numerous decisions people have to take: moving from one place to another, following new economic opportunities, developing translocal social networks, encountering various difficulties and risks in the city, and relocating and adapting into new places. Such transient and unstable conditions are most often not what migrants seek. The question is then, how can migrants transition more efficiently into a city and mitigate the impacts of risk on them? Migration researchers have typically defined migrant networks as interpersonal ties linking family, friends, and community members in their places of origin and destination. But other kinds of social ties can exist for migrants, especially in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world where access to smartphones and social platforms is readily available. The social networks of migrants operate at a translocal scale. Translocality connects and influences different localities and people at the same time. Conditions or events in one place have an immediate impact on other connected places. The social spaces of migrants are not necessarily confined within their neighbourhoods, the same way that mutual help in local communities is not necessarily tied to a particular neighbourhood. What spaces allow migrants to feel empowered, strengthen their existing social networks and create new ones?

left: Livia Corona, Two Million Homes for Mexico, 2000

Migrantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; livelihoods can be characterized by high mobility, vulnerability, and risk. While mobility is essential in the livelihood of the migrant population, high mobility also brings higher risks. Strengthening their social networks can mitigate some of these risks. Initially, migrants are less constrained by the 55

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

Los Angeles Times December 2016

housing market, and their priorities are fostering social networks and securing employment. An immigrants’ lack of citizenship may limit their access to destination-country institutions and organizations. While especially the case in relation to political institutions, this also applies in regard to opportunities for education, housing, and services. This limitation varies greatly depending on how immigrants are received, including their ability to naturalize and the ability of society to adapt to these newcomers and incorporate them into the society. A migrant’s ability to successfully move to a particular destination, including finding a job and housing, can be directly impacted by, or even dependent upon, the migrant’s social network. Networks may facilitate the effectiveness of job search by providing advantageous information on job opportunities.1 Such is the case of migrants arriving to Tijuana and working in the unskilled labour workforce for minimum wage and excessive hours. Apart from being new to a city, migrants are at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to accessing affordable housing. Housing is almost exclusively restricted to informal rentals in city centres, factory dormitory housings or non-governmental organizations providing temporary aid solutions. However, in developing countries where informal settlements prevail, migrants are often able to build housing themselves. Settlement patterns are a crucial determinant of the future socioeconomic role of migrants. Where and how migrants live is likely to affect their general level of wellbeing and satisfaction as well as their ability to adapt to new environments. The social networks supporting migration flows can also lead to spatial concentration of migrants, often in the form of communities from a certain place of origin, with similar family configurations, or simply through their employment network. How can housing typologies cater to the different inhabitants, family configurations, and their necessities in different stages? 56

Tijuana’s settlement patterns In recent years, Tijuana has witnessed more international migrants and an increase in deportees. As of March 2016, thousands of migrants from Haiti began to arrive to Tijuana. Most of these Haitians come left Brazil, where they originally found refuge after the 2010 earthquake, with the objective of reaching the US to claim asylum. Likewise, between 2010 and 2013, roughly more than one million people were deported from the US to Mexico, 320,000 or more of which went through Tijuana. That roughly accounts for 200 to 300 deportees arriving per day. Of those, 90% are men. The city faces the challenge of addressing migration, a national phenomena, with limited state and municipal resources, altruism and the society’s good will. Treating incoming population as a migratory crisis is not only underestimating the constant influx of people but it is providing only temporary solutions, both at a territorial and local scale.

1 Rural Migrants in Urban China: Enclaves and Transient Urbanism, Fulong Wu, 2013, p.72

2 Tijuana has roughly 38 shelters for migrants and deportees.

For John F.C. Turner there are three clear stages in the life cycle of an urban migrant that involve specific housing conditions, economic status, and location within the city. Turner labelled new migrants to urban areas as bridgeheaders. They are mostly young, single males who seek better job opportunities in the city and are therefore most concerned with easy access to informal work available in the city centre. Proximity to employment and a desire for minimal transport time and cost take precedence over other factors such as quality or ownership of housing. Migrants arriving to Latin American cities tend to initially seek deteriorated rental units or rooms. In Tijuana, migrants originally stay in shelters, cheap hotels, churches, or people’s homes.2 Many arrive to the Zona Centro, or Downtown Tijuana. It is the neighbourhood immediately 57

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

DEPORTED

MIGRANT

RESIDENTS

1,179,877 people were deported from the US to Mexico from 2010 to 2013

Estimated floating population of 200,000 (300 arriving per day)

90,000-130,000 daily northbound crossings

320,778 of them through Tijuana

(*Estimated 22,000 southbound daily crossings)

stay

40% of all Mexicans deportees are sent via Tijuana (200-300 per day) Istanbul

UNITED STATES

CHINA

Tijuana

CUBA MEXICO

HAITI

1 stay

Tapachula

INDIA

Darien Gap

In Baja California in 2010: 18,432 international migrants 64% cross to the US of which 34% of them return to live in Baja California

38% plan returning to the US 154,000 Mexican migrants in Baja California

Congo

Ecuador

2 BRAZIL

96% men average age 40 24% have finished highschool

(Source: Mexican National Institute of Migration and COLEF)

65% men

In 2000, half of TIjuana’s population was not born in Baja California

Half of TIjuana has documents to cross the border

35% women

75% 15-39 yrs

50,000 Americans

50% over 50 yrs

Foreign residents: 30,000 international students are registered in the public school system in Tijuana

(Source: US Bureau of Transportation)

15,000 Chinese 4,500 Haitians Africans Central Americans JOURNEY TO TIJUANA 1 2 3 4 5

(Source: IMPLAN, INEGI, EMIF Norte)

Asians can fly via Istanbul or Africa into Ecuador/ Chinese fly directly into Tijuana Africans fly into Brazil and Ecuador Haitians arrive to Darien Gap via boat and go to Brazil (Once they are in Ecuador or Brazil they travel to Tapachula and fly to Tijuana) Cubans arrive to Yucatan via boat Mexicans and Central Americans travel northbound by bus, walking, and through ‘La Bestia’ train

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

John FC Turner’s graphic for a Latin American migrant settling in a city, 1972

southwest of the San Ysidro border crossing and is below Zona Norte, the red light district. Many deportees end up homeless, and some have lived in El Bordo, the area of the Tijuana River next to the border crossing. However, for internal migrants, the option of staying with family or friends who are longerterm urban residents in the city also exists. Although, this could imply a lesser advantage to employment access due to location, it allows for a strong social support group. While rental housing proves to be efficient and necessary in the first phase of an establishing migrant, it later proves to be limiting due to the availability and supply of the rental housing market. After this initial stage, migrants cross to the US, leave Tijuana voluntarily or by force to their place of origin, or extend their stay in the city. For those who stay, new social and economic constraints begin to shape their housing necessities. When better employment is obtained, savings are accumulated, and/ or their family is expanded, leading bridgeheaders to shift priorities towards stability and better living environments. They begin to occupy better or just more spacious dwellings, within rented rooms, single-family dwellings or selfbuilt homes, typically by moving into the periphery where land is available for self-help housing.3 In the absence of institutional support, especially from the federal government, migrants begin to settle informally. Through the years, their homes can be transformed as they accumulate enough savings to replace low-quality building materials with better ones. The transition from more central areas to the periphery can imply longer and more expensive commutes and being further from basic health, education and food services. However, peripheral squatter settlements can eventually become zones of more solid and serviced low-income houses. 60

With migrants of different cultural backgrounds arriving, certain differences among the neighbourhoods can be observed. Tijuana, in contrast to other cities, does not feature any borough whose residents are predominantly from one single country. International migrants in Tijuana contribute to a small proportion of the city population. This is probably why migrants have neither invaded the city’s public spaces nor regrouped into ethnic communities. Integration of migrants has also been facilitated by the existing racial and ethnic diversity of the Tijuana population. Below are some specific immigrant groups and how they settled in Tijuana.

3 The Housing, Geography, and Mobility of Latin American Urban, Poor: The Prevailing Model and the Case of Quito, Ecuador, Thomas Klak and Michael Holtzclaw, 1993

4 Colonias Antiguas de Tijuana, Bibiana Guerrero, web: http:// iih.tij.uabc.mx/iihDigital/Calafia/ Contenido/Vol-I/Numero1-8/ Coloniasantiguas.htm

5 Mixtecos, are indigenous people from the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla. 6 Cardenas Flores, Zoila. “Proceso De Asentamiento y Practicas De Construccion De Los Indigenas Immigrantes En Tijuana, B.C.” Colegio de la Frontera, 2006, p.13, 44-65

Historically, the first migrant neighbourhoods appeared in the 1920s when Mexicans from the northern states of Sinaloa and Sonora migrated to Baja California due to the Mexican Revolution. Additionally, migrant populations grew when the 1929 economic crisis forced many Mexicans working in California to return. These groups formed the Colonia Libertad, Morelos and Castillo. In the Colonia Libertad, inhabitants opened up their own brick factory to supply their own neighbourhood, as well as the growing commercial and touristic sector.4 Afterwards, with the bracero programme, a large population of migrants from both northern and central states of Mexico would establish in these boroughs. The bracero programme also brought a large population of indigenous groups, many of whom where Mixtecos.5 A survey in the indigenous migrant borough of Pedregal Santa Julia found that there were an average of 7.1 inhabitants per home, compared to the state average of the 4.4.6 About half of the homes of 61

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

02 05

01 10 04

Within the Zona Norte some shelters, such as Movimiento Juventud 2000 (left) can accommodate up to 150 people in floor mats and tents in an empty lot with a simple metallic roof structure. Nearby, is the well known Desayunador Salesiano Padre Chava (below), a canteen founded by Salesian priests that can feed up to 2,000 migrants and deportees per day and acted as a shelter when more than 5,000 Haitians arrived to Tijuana in 2016. On the other side of the Tijuana River along the border are other shelters founded by religious institutions such as Instituto Madre Asunta, exclusively for women and children, and Casa del Migrante (below-right), with the majority serving deportees.

12 06

08 07

MIGRANT SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN TIJUANA

DOWNTOWN 01 Zona Centro 02 Zona Norte

Valle Verde, or Nueva Tijuana as known by the community, was established in the 1980s in a flat area in East Tijuana, becoming the second most important concentration of indigenous population from the state of Guerrero. Other boroughs inhabited by indigenous immigrants are: Colonia Obrera, Pedregal of Santa Julia, Loma Bonita Norte, Valle Verde and Sanchez Taboada. The majority speak their native tongue and continue to practice their traditions, but indigenous groups are highly discriminated against.

FIRST MIGRANT NEIGHBORHOODS 03 Colonia Libertad 04 Colonia Morelos 05 Colonia Castillo 5km INDIGENOUS NEIGHBORHOODS 06 Colonia Pedregal Santa Julia 07 Colonia Obrera 08 Loma Bonita Norte 09 Colonia Sanchez Taboada 10 Valle Verde

INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS 11 Delegacion La Mesa (Chinese migrants) 12 Canon del Alacran (Haitian migrants)

5km

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

Newspaper advertisement for chinese restaurants in Tijuana from 1971 (Historical Archive of Tijuana)

the indigenous immigrants lived with their extended family. Very similar to other migrants settlements, 92% of dwellings were self-built, primarily one room shacks made out of brick or concrete blocks, with an outdoor kitchen and separate bathroom. Nowadays, migrants from China are the second largest group of foreigners in Tijuana after the Americans. Chinese migrants originally moved to Tijuana from Mexicali, as early as 1930s, and eventually settled in the commercial borough of La Mesa, now known as the barrio chino. They settled in a highly commercial area where they could have their restaurants and shops. After 2009 when Aeromexico opened a direct commercial flight from Shanghai, the number of migrants tripled to 15,000.

Little Haiti in Alacran Canyon (LA Times, Ted Soqui, 2017)

Previous migrants arrived to a different Tijuana where there was an abundance of land, regardless of the complexity of land titles. This allowed for some boroughs to have better-organized urban growth with reticular grids that would later facilitate basic services and infrastructure in the years to come. These neighbourhoods have now been absorbed by the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth and although they had irregular origins, they are now formally serviced, paved, and surveyed. However, Tijuanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inhabitants, as well as immigrants, face the distinctive problems around settling informally within the urban sprawl. Currently, with informal settlements prevailing, it is less usual that these settlements are eventually serviced or regularized. Inhabitants now have to live in further and

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

Livia Corona, Two Joint Houses as Model Home. Ensenada, Mexico. 2000

more precarious areas, far from schools, public transport, food supply, etc. This can be seen with “Little Haiti” or “Haitijuana,” the community of Haitians that are settling in Cañon del Alacran, a plot between two hills and the sewage in Western Tijuana. Small wooden shacks have begun to appear near the evangelical church that initially gave them shelter. Today, even if those migrants were in a position to formally acquire a home, it would be close to impossible as the housing market cannot even fulfil the needs of the current inhabitants.

Failures of the housing system

7 These policies where largely adopted by the World Bank in 1972 and the Inter-American Development Bank.

8 Kavita, Datta, Housing and finance in developing countries, 2001, p.333-357

The first generation of public housing begun after World War II, with public housing developments appearing in the outskirts of the city. The policies, however, proved inadequate for a variety of reasons: the government was an inefficient builder, resources were not readily available, there was much corruption, projects where developed in cheap and remote plots, homes were unaffordable despite subsidies and, ultimately, the government found it easier to clear informal settlements instead of providing housing. Remarkably, this is still the case. After this generation, public housing was led by the increasing enthusiasm for self-help construction, largely due to Turner’s research on informal settlements in Latin America.7 Because the majority of households in developing countries were already building housing solutions themselves, self-help housing programs could contribute and encourage governments to deliver sites-and-services. Some critics have seen this as the first withdrawal of the government from its responsibility to provide housing. The policy was abandoned in the mid-1980s, as it proved that costs were not reduced since a large share of self-help construction is not necessarily done by the users themselves, but rather by paid help and informal workers.8 By the beginning of the 1990s, housing policies evolved from public social housing to privatized low-income homeownership. The shift to the private sector building social housing was attractive for governments, as it limited their participation and reduced risks, as long as they provided minimum regulations to facilitate production. Housing built by developers was subsidized by the state and sold rather than rented out, with high unaffordable mortgages. Allowing developers to take decision based on market needs, disregarding the users’ needs, led to poor quality homes in remote and socially isolated areas. Consequently, inhabitants seeking to be near services and job opportunities preferred to settle informally around more central areas in self-built homes. Such is the case of the neighborhoods surrounding the maquiladoras in Tijuana or those on top of the hillsides.

9 In Mexico, only 10 per cent of the rental units pay taxes due to the lack of regulation. Rental Housing: Lessons from International Experience and Policies for Emerging Markets, Ira Peppercorn, 2013, p.103

With public housing becoming privatized, home ownership has been favoured over rental accommodation, arguing that governments are inefficient landlords. Governments benefit much more from collecting taxes through homeownership than through rentals.9 Politicians argue: “Owners are more 67

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

mature and contribute more to both economy and society.”10 This is partly true as construction is generally beneficial for the economy. Also, in most countries, recent migrants and foreigners, young families, often without children, elder adults, and individuals are the ones that tend to rent. Of these groups, tenants can be divided into two: tenants who pay leasehold or a fixed rate for the land, and sharers in which the payments can be irregular. Within the second group, it is common that family or extended family live within the same unit. Tenants by constraint, such as migrants, are greater than tenants by choice, such as students or professionals.11 Tenant families tend to be smaller than those of owners and in poorer cities evidence shows that most tenants are younger than owners.12 The link between rental housing and the economic development of a country is less than clear. Often rental housing is mistakenly associated with lower economic development. However, homeownership is lower in many developed countries than in most of the developing world. Therefore, levels of homeownership tend to be culturally and historically determined, rather than economically. Rental patterns across countries depend on several factors, including the level of urbanization, the level of economic development, and the government’s ideology. In more developed countries, there is actually an inverse relationship between levels of homeownership and GDP per capita.13 In Mexico, on the other hand, the distribution of owners versus tenants does not change much across demographics. Those at the lower end of the income range have a 70.8% home ownership rate, while those with the highest incomes have an 81.8% rate. However, the difference lies in the type of dwellings; those with lower incomes are likely to live in self-built homes in substandard conditions. In Mexico, at least 40% of homes have been constructed by homeowners themselves without public or private help.14 According to the 2003 UN Habitat Human Settlements Programme, where land and property is expensive, ownership levels generally fall.15 In Latin America, years of land invasion and irregular land division have raised rates of homeownership. Even irregular land has become increasingly commercialized. In Mexico, home ownership is due to the inherited “American dream” and the lack of alternative tenure models. Yet a large part of the population has no access to credit. Approximately 44.3% of households in Mexico have employment in the informal non-salaried sector, that does not grant access to any type of social security or credit.16 In addition to employment, income levels are also a key determinant for access to mortgages. Almost half of the population earns less than 6 times the minimum wage , and only 20% of them have an income derived from the formal sector. Because of their low income, they can only access a mortgage loan such as the CONAVI’s (National Housing Commission) Esta es tu casa programme, which can give subsidies to salaried workers who have an income as low as 1.5 the minimum wage.17 Internal migrants are at a disadvantage due to their low income and informal employment. International migrants have an added obstacle as they often lack documents needed to apply for a mortgage. The rental market across Mexico is growing, but through luxury and high-end rental units. INFONAVIT (The Federal Institute for worker’s housing) launched a pilot rental programme called Arrendavit that allows credit holders to rent abandoned homes renovated by the institute.18

CHAPTER TWO: SETTLEMENT PATTERNS OF TIJUANA

10 Ibid., p.3

11 Ibid., p.13 12 Ibid., p. 26

Irregular plots in Tijuana, 2002 (Information from Tito Alegria, COLEF)

13 Germany, Sweden and Switzerland all had 40% or less of homeownership in 1990. The highest levels of owner occupation are actually to be found in developing countries, such as Niger with an estimated 93 per cent home ownership, 91 per cent in Singapore, and 78 per cent in Mexico. Rental Housing: An Essential Option for the Urban Poor in Developing Countries. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT, 2003, p. 17

14 Ibid., p.14 15 Rental Housing: An Essential Option for the Urban Poor in Developing Countries. Nairobi: UNHABITAT, 2003. Print.

16 Peppercorn, Ira, Rental Housing, 2013, p.104

17 43% of the population earns less than 6 times the minimum wage. Minimum wage in Mexico in 2012 was $1,870 pesos per month, equivalent to £85 GBP. Peppercorn, Ira, Rental Housing, 2013, p.21

5km

18 This program has been highly criticized as it is making profits from rental units that could have been previously bought and then abandoned.

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Unfinished development in East Tijuana, Travis Greske, Los Angeles Times, 2016 left: Livia Corona, Overnight City III. Durango, Mexico. 2009

The deficient privatised housing market and inadequate regulation and oversight from the government have contributed to increasing informality and high home abandonment rates. Informal settlements, as ambiguous as the term might be, are characterized by social, economic and physical vulnerabilities and disadvantages. They have limited or insufficient access to resources that can be classified into “hard” resources, such as income, adequate shelter, and food, and “soft” resources, such as education, insurance, political representation, security, and healthcare.19 Inhabitants of informal settlements are more susceptible to natural disasters, health problems, and violence. Likewise, surrounding homeowners with land titles are affected due to a deflation in their property value, misdistribution of taxes, and an increase in service costs.

can acquire some sort of formality by gradually obtaining services and may eventually obtain a legal title. Although informality is often associated with insecurity, disorder, illegality, and inefficiency, the informal construction sector is largely efficient and organized. Likewise, different cultures or sectors have different perceptions and levels of tolerance of informality. In Tijuana for example, it is common to hire employees without a formal contracts. 19 Lizarralde, Gonzalo, The Invisible Houses, 2015, p.3

However, even with these problems, people may choose to live in informal settlements. Among the reasons for wanting to live in informal settlements, one of the most significant are the strong social networks created through family, friends and neighbours who can reduce some of the abovementioned vulnerabilities. Although people living in informal settlements most likely have their living conditions improved, the belief that inhabitants dislike living there has led to wrong housing solutions and policies. The term “informal” is used extensively to describe an attribute or a way of doing things or a way of functioning in a particular context. According to a UN Habitat report, approximately 85% of all new employment opportunities occur in the informal economy. The boundaries between “formal” and “informal” are often blurred, not only in settlements, but also in economies, industries, and urban morphology.20 For example, formally planned plots can be occupied by informally built structures and, over time, informally built settlements

21 Irregularity in housing for author Tito Alegria is the partial property rights of a possessor on a land that although not legally recognized within the records of the property, the possessor benefits from its use or rent. Alegria, Tito, Legalizando la ciudad, 2007, p.22 22 The average salary within the inhabitants in irregular plots is 3.9 monthly minimum wages, compared to the 4.3 of Tijuana. However, within other irregular plots there are those that earn up to 5 monthly minimum wages.

20 This can be seen with the census authorities having trouble classifying, or simply denying, informal housing. For example, official data provided by countries suggest that that 1.7 per cent of urban households in South Africa live in informal settlements, 0.5 per cent in Brazil, and only 0.2 per cent in Mexico. But it is not necessary to know these countries to know this is an understatement.

In 2005, it is estimated that a 42.8% of the surface area of Tijuana, and more than half of residential property was irregular.21 The density of the urban area of Tijuana is 51.7 inhabitants per hectare, but in the informal settlements this increases to 64 inhabitants per hectare. In Tijuana, informal settlements are not necessarily synonymous with poverty, contrary to other informal settlements in Latin America.22 Urbanist Tito Alegria explores the hypothesis that informality could be attributed to the great migration, a hypothesis widely used in other Latin American cities. The difference between migrants and locals regarding their way of settling, whether regular or irregular, occurred in the process of acquiring the property and how they arrived to it. In 2000, the people who were born in the area had on average only 9% more salary than the migrants. Although this difference is not much, in the end the legal capacity for acquisition is what made the difference with migrants. Migrants were more likely to end up living in a non central neighbourhood at least 25 years old mostly because of the migrant networks established. Through these findings, Alegria concluded that migration in Tijuana does not explain the existence of informal settlements as a general urban phenomenon. However, he did find that more recently, migrants are settling in the east and south of the city, which is where the city’s urban sprawl and informal settlements are growing. He attributes this to the rapid growth of the city rather than to the facts of migration. 71

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23 Revitalizing Places: Improving Housing and Neighborhoods from Block to Metropolis, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2016

Online housing advertisements for re-selling public housing (Inmuebles 24.com)

In Tijuana, housing abandonment and informal settlements, suggest that homeownership models are not adequate for its transient population. In 2010 there were approximately 120,000 unoccupied units in the metropolitan area, of which more than 10% where financed by INFONAVIT.23 This accounts for roughly 20% of vacancy of homes, above the national average of 14.2%. Abandonment lowers the value of surrounding homes and produces insecure neighbourhoods, as these can become hideouts for criminals. Abandonment can be attributed to faulty or substandard materials, as well as the unsuccessful standard typology of the detached or semi-detached single-family home. In building developments in the periphery, excessive and costly commutes have made it difficult for homeowners to continue mortgage payments. While some homes are abandoned, others are sold cheaply, and some even sublet to migrants. There are two housing typologies in Tijuana that can be contrasted. The first is the standard social housing typology found not only in Tijuana, but also in most of Mexico, while the second, although resourceful, is the consequence of informal settlements. The social housing typology is a detached or semi detached single-family home. It is arranged through mirrored, identical and repetitive developments. The lack of coordination between developers and the state leads to infrastructure being built once the development is completed. In this manner, development works around private developers to plan and integrate public road infrastructure, sewage, and lighting. Developers, wanting to maximize profits on expensive land, provide services according to sellable land area instead of based on the number of housing units. Consequently, the 73

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same services are provided for a development of a thousand units than for one of six hundred, if the sellable surface is equivalent. The proximity between semi-detached houses, repetitive designs, and residual recreational areas create many social conflicts. Recently, with the government seeking more density within these developments, the result has been substituting the semi-detached house with vertical units (4-6 floors). Since 2012, of the 22,908 units built, 42% of them have a vertical typology. Generally, the majority of these units were within the U3 and U2 perimeters. But it is still questionable whether these new vertical housing developments in the outer areas of the perimeters were planned with any strategy as to how verticality and density should be integrated.

24 Linda Vista or Cholas View Neighbourhoods.

25 Cruz, Teddy. “A City Made of Waste.” The Nation, 2015.

Natura development, East Tijuana 47m2 (approx $16,000 gbp) Plans and image provided by Ruba developer

The second typology abundant in Tijuana is that of recycled material. Not only is it common for small-scattered debris to be recycled for walls, fences, and roofs, but entire recycled houses are transported southbound from San Diego. During World War II, temporary suburbs appeared in San Diego to provide urgent housing for workers post-war.24 Eventually, those homes were removed to acquire useful land for development. These post-war tract homes are loaded onto trailers, pass customs, and adapted to accommodate Tijuana’s surroundings. Entire houses are mounted on one story steel frames, allowing for the ground floor to be used more flexibly as a garage or eventually become a workshop, a stand, or another bedroom when the family grows. For architect Teddy Cruz, this is how the ¬¬border cities enact a strange mirroring effect. “While the seemingly permanent housing stock in San Diego becomes disposable overnight, the ephemeral dwellings in Tijuana yearn to become permanent.”25 The temporality of materials allows inhabitants to claim underutilized territory little by little and form a landscape of transition. With the need for housing, new models of constructing and living that continue to question the idea of permanence within a city have arisen. 75

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Anthony Marchetti, Transported Home 1km, 2010

Anthony Marchetti documents results of the cross-border transmigration of building materials and even small suburban homes from San Diego to Tijuana. “The developers just wanted those older houses off the property and were willing sometimes to just give them away, or to sell them for a very nominal fee if they had to,” says Marchetti. “You could probably buy a house and get it down to a spot in Mexico, if you had the plot of land, for under $10,000.”

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Houses in central Tijuana made from recycled material

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Alternative housing typologies In Mexico, it is common for people to share their homes with other adult members of their families. The advantages of this arrangement are fairly straightforward, not only do they save costs but they also build a strong family support system. Evidence shows that long-term sharing can create an intergenerational family survival strategy where adult children live with their parents and later on their children support the parents.26 According to the UN Habitat report, in cities with a long history of migration, sharing is likely to be more common that in those cities where migration is a recent phenomena. Although in Mexico, homeowners tend to share only with family members, in Tijuana this could change with the variety of social networks. People could share a living space not with persons with whom they share a family bond, but rather with those facing a similar situation, those sharing a same ideal, in pursuit of the same objectives, final destination places or forced to move for comparable circumstances. However, when homes are not designed to accommodate sharers, they tend to be overcrowded, lack privacy, and have insufficient services. Other than homeownership, different modes of tenure may include rental of homes, attached units, or individual rooms. Rental housing allows for different family structures, lengths of stay, and income to have accessible housing. It offers many benefits such as redeveloping a cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban core, providing shelter to transitional workers and to those with certain disadvantages (low income earners, migrants, elderly, young adults, disabled), and giving flexibility to inhabitants. While homeownership has many benefits such as social and financial security, it can limit the job opportunities available for people by discouraging them to move closer to change jobs. Rental markets are vital for cities with constant mobility such as Tijuana. With a greater variety of units, both spatially and economically, rental housing provides greater labour mobility since individuals are able to move more easily for work.27 Promoting alternate modes of tenure as well as different housing typologies is an important strategy for densifying at different scales, from a household, neighbourhood, and city level. Housing typologies can spatially respond to a migrantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evolving social and economic lifestyle. This dissertation proposes three different units that address different tenure models and ways of growing (or dividing). These three units can be categorized as: progressive, shared, and divided. Progressive housing can be viewed as a self-help housing, in which residents build, expand, or renovate their homes, by themselves or with financial and/ or technical assistance. It is characterized by incremental development according to need and available financial resources. In progressive housing schemes, government institutions may provide more land, new infrastructure, construction materials, permits, technical assistance, and financing such as credits or subsidies. Progressive housing is common in Mexico, accounting for more than 40% of homes.28 However, in Latin America, most residents add rooms even though units were not designed specifically for expansion. While government or non-profit institutions can provide follow up financial and technical support, it is often not the case. This could be a significant 80

1 SHARED

26 In Mexico City, every sharer is a family member, with 63 per cent being their adult children. Chant, Sylvia, Women and Survival in Mexican Cities, 1996, p106.

2 SUBDIVIDE

27 Baird-Zars, Bernadette, Using Evidence-Based Global Housing Indicators for Policy Evaluation of Rental Housing and Vacant Properties, 2006, p.14-15

3 PROGRESSIVE

28 Andrade, Jorge, Shaping Mexico City: Evolutionary Housing for Low-income Urban Families, 2017

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impediment for the subsequent growth of the unit. The initial layout of the unit determines the effectiveness, promotion, and safety of adding spaces. Promoting adaptations requires an effective initial design, changes in regulation, and both technical and economic assistance, to allow expansion in a safe manner and give homeowners more autonomy over their homes.

1 SHARED

Another option for growth is accessory apartments, an additional dwelling within the same property. It has recently gotten more attention from different governments to promote density and rental housing within central locations. Although similar to progressive housing, they typically have separate kitchens, sleeping, and bathroom facilities and can be both attached or detached from the primary residential unit. They can range from apartments over the garage, a small house in the backyard or remaining property, or a basement apartment. According to UN Habitat, accessory apartments in Latin America are primarily to accommodate family or extended family, e.g. children, elderly adults, in-laws. However, another benefit could be having some income via rent. As opposed to progressive housing that responds to a growing family, accessory apartments can also respond to a shrinking family by renting out the main unit and moving in to the smaller one. Some cities, such as the city of Santa Cruz in California launched an Accessory Dwelling Unit Development Programme (ADU) to incentivize people through loans and subsidies to build accessory apartments. They provide regulations and technical assistance, as well as a manual describing the regulations and design requirements. Taking into account that many migrants initially arrive with family or members of their kin, accessory dwellings can provide the adequate spaces for users to provide space within their own home. In addition to facilitating modifications in the proposed dwellings, another viable option for an incoming population is to have shared facilities. Likewise, these shared facilities can allow modifications over time such as going from shared facilities to individual ones. Shared facilities can include: kitchen, showers, laundry rooms, guest bedrooms, and even larger living and dining rooms. They enable users of rental housing to lower their initial costs as well as maintenance costs. In Mexico, it is not uncommon to have comedores comunitarios, subsidized shared dining halls that provide meals in low-income neighbourhoods. These spaces inevitably force people to interact and negotiate even if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for short periods of the day, while secondary living spaces such as shared living rooms, workspaces, or gardens allow for voluntary interaction. For short-term users, shared facilities imply they can significantly lower their living costs without having to sacrifice quality of space, in comparison to the typical rental rooms. It offers the opportunity to live among more people of their kin, or create new support groups with other dwellers with certain privacy. As the transit population intends on staying longer or indefinitely, shared facilities still provide many benefits such as strengthening community relationships and a reduction in maintenance costs. Household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and looking over children can even be shared. Through negotiation, these shared spaces can eventually be subdivided to cater to individual homes.

2 SUBDIVIDE

3 PROGRESSIVE

10m

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16 people per floor up to 20 people 8 rooms/ 4 bath 1 shared kitchen and living room 2 guest rooms/ study rooms to be shared or rented

FLOORPLAN

265 m2 floor (75 m2 shared space)

TYPE 1: SHARED

The three housing typologies proposed in this dissertation each present the abovementioned elements, not necessarily limited to one but exemplifying how they can be combined. Type 1, or the hared facilities unit, has an initial unit of 4 equally sized rooms, 2 bathrooms, and a shared kitchen and living room. This unit can be used for 4 different individuals to a large single-family unit. The rooms are made from concrete, and although structurally rigid, allow flexibility and are generous enough to be either a living room or a dormitory for two people. The shared space between the rooms has a kitchen, a dining and living room. It can be open or closed off depending on the preference and use (open air kitchen, terrace, garden). Future modifications can include subdividing the living room into two smaller guest bedrooms and dividing the kitchen into two smaller kitchens. This unit can be stacked vertically building with shared staircases on both sides of the rooms to have separate entrances. The larger building can include two additional rooms on either side of the staircases. Likewise, guest bedrooms, small living spaces, or workshops can appear between these rooms. This typology is suitable for affordable rental units because the cost of the shared space can be divided between the different tenants. Also, if the extra guest rooms are used, then the rent can be modified.

SECTION

10m

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outdoor terrace

Rooms Bath Shared

living room

outdoor terrace

kitchen

guest room/ study room

10m

Circulation

EXtended unit

10m

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13 people per floor

8-10 rooms/ 4 bath/ 2 half baths 2 kitchens/ 2 kitchenette living area/dining area 290 m2 floor Can be divided into four households

FLOORPLAN

TYPE 2: SUBDIVIDE

The subdivided unit is designed as a rental unit in a vertical building typology. The initial layout provides a structural faรงade and a structural serviced core. The floor can fit up to 10 bedrooms (or approximately 13 people), 4 kitchens, four full bathrooms, and two half bathrooms. It can be divided up to 4 different flats without sacrificing space or natural lighting. Within each flat, wood structures are place as guides for bedrooms to be divided to each users needs. This unit can be extruded vertically up to five floors, the maximum height without requiring an elevator. The circulation gallery is extended to create a generous outdoor terrace.

SECTION

10m

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Rooms Bath/ kitchen Shared 1

8 bed 4 bath

Circulation

floors can be replicated from 2-5 floors (maximum height without having elevator)

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22 people per type up to 40 people (with 2nd and 3rd floor expansions) Each 50 m2 unit has 1 kitchens/ 1 bath/ 1 room as minimum 500 m2 per level/ 1000m2 total

TYPE 3: PROGRESSIVE GROUND FLOOR

Progressive housing initially offers a typology of 50m2 with 2 habitable units: one containing a serviced core (kitchen, bathroom, and stairs) and a second room on the first floor to be used as a bedroom and living space. The original home can expand through 25m2 units, both on ground floor as well as the first floor. The smallest unit can house one to three people while the larger can house up to eight people (perhaps two different families within one house). Taking the typology of the adapted mobile home in Tijuana, Type 1 provides a concrete raised platform with a structure of concrete columns and beams placed along a 5 by 5 meter grid. On the ground floor, the empty units can be used as porches or eventually retail rental units, or workshops. Within the first floor, an additional 25m2 can be added on the already provided concrete slab. With the structure already provided, only walls are needed in order to have more space. By placing these units alongside one another, a larger community can be created through a larger slab with courtyards. While houses can grow depending on the needs, they can also allow for additional units on ground floor to be independent from the second floor. The raised platform provides terraces as well as a perimeter corridor for placing plants or stairs to access rooftops.

FIRST FLOOR

SECTION

10m

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Rooms Bath Shared

Circulation

10m

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Service unit 1 unit = 25 m2

Ground floor

First floor

POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS OF UNITS

10m

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GROWTH SCHEME

GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

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AXONOMETRIC

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1 Choosing integration: a theoretical and empirical study of the immigrant integration in Sweden, Alberto Diaz, 1993

2 Fraser, Nancy, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, 1990, p.56-80

3 Authors Jamie Johnston and Ragnar Audunson explore the potential that conversation based programs in public libraries (such as language cafes or conversation groups) can facilitate political integration of immigrants. In their findings they corroborate that half the participants indicated that they have few or no opportunities to speak with Norwegians outside the language café. This applies similarly with the volunteers that said that they had little or no contact with immigrants before attending the language café. They concluded that the cafes are bringing people together who might not have had contact otherwise.

Educational infrastructure for integration

Integration is a process that results in people being able to fully participate in the social, cultural, economic, and political life of a society, without being forced to change aspects of their culture, traditions, and values.1 From a political standpoint, integration ultimately offers the possibility for people arriving at a receiving society to acquire citizenship alongside a significant role in the internal decision-making process of the place of destination. An initial step for increasing a migrant’s political integration is providing information about citizenship, the political system, and norms, among other topics. Habermas proposed that communication is the basis of the public sphere, with media being the means to facilitate dialogue and debate. Nancy Fraser acknowledges that Habermas’ concept of the public sphere is indispensable, especially in the context of multicultural societies. However, she asserts that for a multicultural society to be more equalitarian there must be ‘a plurality of public arenas in which groups with diverse values and rhetorics participate’.2 Therefore, spaces that facilitate conversation are highly important for an incoming population, as they allow for parallel discursive arenas to overlap. Conversation-based programmes3 create forums in which migrants can engage in informal conversations with the community and foster social relations. In this sense, educational facilities become particularly important as an entry point for migrants into a receiving society because they allow migrants to continue their studies, learn the language and traditions of a place, and as explored below, ultimately allow them to interact with other people. At an urban scale, cultural and educational facilities can offer many benefits to a city. The phrase ‘culture-led urban regeneration’ has grown into a core strategy for urban development. According to authors Ronan and Mile, culture

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4 Paddison, Ronan and Miles, Steven, Culture Led Regeneration, 2007, p.833-839

â&#x20AC;&#x153;can be viewed not just as a challenge to the ability of cities to combine social justice with economic growth, but also the source-ground around which the amelioration of such problems can be sought.â&#x20AC;?4 The idea that culture can be a driver for urban economic growth has become a main part of the contemporary urban planning by which cities seek to enhance their competitiveness by attracting more tourists, capital, or development. However, the rhetorical promotion of culture merely as an economic solution is very limited and underestimates the true value of culture for a particular community. Ultimately, it is at a local neighborhood scale that educational spaces can provide a specific response to local characteristics. At a neighborhood scale, educational facilities can act as a meeting place between newcomers and existing communities and bridge the cultural, economic and social gaps, while generating positive networks. Educational spaces offer users not only the possibility of consulting sources of information and research topics of their interest, they also open up the possibility for users to acknowledge the existence and interests of other individuals and engage in a discussion with people with similar interests. It is at this scale in which an individual can be empowered and integrated.

Case Studies The following five case studies are effective typologies of educational and cultural facilities: the Garaget in Malmo, Sweden, Park Libraries in Medellin, Colombia, the CEU and Sesc networks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Idea Stores in London. Each case study intends to highlight one of the following aspects: the mix of services with culture, educational facilities as community centres, and the public library as a meeting place. These themes are not exclusive to a particular case study but overlap and further exemplify how educational facilities can allow for empowerment and integration. 105

CHAPTER THREE: EDUCATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR INTEGRATION

Case Studies

The Library-Parks of Medellin are new public library typologies surrounded by open-air public parks and strategically placed in proximity to the public transport system within the city’s most marginalized communities. They were built as part of major transport and educational infrastructure project in response to Medellin’s growing slums and high level of corruption and crime in the 90s brought by drug trade. Between 2005 and 2011, with the collaboration of the local government, private companies, civil networks, and professionals, Medellin built 10 library parks. (Image: Archdaily)

The Serviço Social do Comeércio (Sesc) are cultural and service facilities created by a private organization and financed by a compulsory tax paid by commerce, tourism, and service companies for the welfare of the third sector workforce and the general public. They have created over 500 units across Brazil’s 27 states in the past 70 years and have 4.6 million enrolled beneficiaries annually, becoming a main source of cultural activities in Brazil. Sesc operates in the education, health, leisure, culture, and medical care areas.

The Idea Stores are public libraries and cultural facilities in the Tower Hamlets borough in East London. The borough is the most diverse with a large community of Bangladeshi inhabitants, but also one of the most deprived with high rates of poverty and unemployment. The objective of the Idea Stores was to provide an accessible public library that would address the social and economic challenges of the area. As well as the traditional public library service, they offer adult learning courses, career support and training, meeting areas, cafes and creative and leisure activities.

(Image: Sesc Pompeia, Monolito 33, 2016)

(Image: David Adjaye: Constructed Narratives, 2019)

The Garaget in Maälmo is a local library inaugurated in 2008, adapted in a 500m2 highceiling former train depot. Other than its library services, it has a creative workshop, a library, a café, a stage, and a dialogue lab. As a ‘city district library’ it is located at the intersection of three districts between the inner city and the suburbs in a multicultural neighbourhood with high contrasts. Its spaces are as open and flexible as possible but also intentionally cosy and inviting, with plants and furniture resembling a living room to encourage participation, creativity and dialogue.

The Unified Educational Centres (CEU) are an extensive network of public educational facilities created in the periphery of Sao Paulo in deprived neighbourhoods. From 2003 to 2009, the Ministry of Education of Brazil has built 45 centres made up of schools, libraries, auditoriums, sports facilities, technology centres, and workshops. The CEUs operate as schools during the day and as community centres in the afternoon and during the weekend by providing adult learning, sports activities, and community activities. (Image: CEU Sao Paulo www.institutopinheiro.org.br)

(Image: ruk.ca)

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Under one roof

To integrate everything, to have theatres, pool, library, restaurant, workshops and museums all together, is so very clever. It makes culture part of everyday life, not something apart.5

Author Vasconcelos-Oliveira defines Sesc as a ‘non-hierarchical conception of culture’6 in which all activities ranging from arts to sports are considered cultural. In this regard, users that prefer a particular activity are not required to necessarily choose one over the other. Likewise, cultural and educational programs can have a wider scope by interacting with leisure activities. Rather than having a stronger presence, either spatially or programmatic, services are given similar importance to the other components. The success of both the Sescs and the Idea Stores is explained by the fact that they house services, retail, culture, and education in one place in order to make it more accessible and appealing. It makes it easier for users to approach education, culture, and leisure through the daily use of certain services and facilities, as well as retail stores. While retail businesses are well aware of integration efforts their spaces can produce, public services are now starting to note this approach. The Idea Stores are similar to retail spaces by being aesthetically attractive, accessible, evolving in style, and ultimately being centrally located. The connection of a local public library to the concept of retail is not just used through marketing but also through spatial design. The Chrisp Street Idea Store in London was built on top of an existing shopping centre and the Whitechapel branch is well connected to the commercial activities on the sidewalk outside. Designed by David Adjaye, they promote local culture and active citizenship. The Idea Stores were an outcome of the largest scale public library consultation exercise in the UK, in which 1 out of 10 households in the borough responded to the campaign, expressing the need to invest in new books, IT equipment and longer opening hours. Also, the campaign found that the existing libraries were in the wrong places, such as council estates. 61% of the surveyed said they would use the library more if they could access it when they do their shopping.7 While the connection between education and consumption is interesting, it also raises questions regarding certain layout configurations to benefit private capital over the user.

5 Nan van Houte, Director of the Netherlands Theater Institute referring to the Sesc model. 6 Cultures and Globalization: Cities, Cultural Policy and Governance, Chapter: Sao Paulo: Rich culture poor access, Vasconcelos-Oliveira, p284-285

Idea Store, David Adjaye, Whitechapel, London (Image: David Adjaye: Constructed Narratives, 2019) Sesc Pompeia, Lina Bo Bardi, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Image: Monolito 33, 2016)

7 Wills, Heather, An Innovative Approach to Reaching the NonLearning Public: the New Idea Stores in London, 2003, p.107-120

The Sesc’s high user rate can be primarily attributed to the broad and diverse range of activities. Its cultural spaces include theatre, visual arts, literature, cinema, circus, dance, music, and media. The sports activities include spaces such as indoor and outdoor sports fields, swimming pools, and gyms. There are medical and dental offices, nutrition programmes, and subsidized restaurants and shops. The educational services include libraries and mobile libraries, schools ranging from elementary to high school, vocational training, laboratories and technology centres. The Sesc’s exhibitions are free and open to all public, and there are many other areas accessible without a membership at a relatively low cost such as hotels or theatre. They have managed to successfully integrate a large sector of the population, primarily a low income one, and one ranging in age. By becoming a community centre, Sesc offers many benefits for families: children can move about in the safely contained environment, different activities are available for each family member, and no money is necessarily 108

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Centro Educacional Unificado, Guarulhos, Sao Paulo

Spain Library, Giancarlo Mazzanti, Medellin, Colombia

(Image: Monolito 3, 2011)

(Image: Archdaily web)

The public library as a meeting place

required for users once inside. In the Sesc, participation in leisure activities is not necessarily linked to consumption. This is also similar in the other case studies that have become active community centres. Like Sesc, the CEUs have been successful in becoming prosperous neighbourhood hubs, not just due to their varied programme but also thanks to their management within the community. During the day, the CEUs are used as elementary and secondary schools and during the afternoon they become community centres that provide adult learning, sports activities, and community activities. This has allowed for the centres to be used during more hours of the day by multigenerational users. Each CEU is open everyday, including weekends when it becomes a place for families to gather. The community manages, maintains and staffs the CEUs, in addition to having a say in the cultural and educational content. CEUs have been very well received within their community and have even proven to lower violence.8 Although it can also be argued that the success of the CEUs lies simply in providing basic services and infrastructures in neighbourhoods for communities that have been historically denied these. The University of Sao Paulo concluded after evaluating the CEUs that they contributed to innovative practices for the democratization of the use of public spaces and the allocation of public resources.9 The CEU, in contrast with the Idea Stores and the Sesc, demonstrate that the active involvement of the community is fundamental in giving life to these spaces.

110

10 Ragnar Audunson, Public libraries, social capital, and low intensive meeting places, 2014 11 Ragnar Audunson, Supporting Immigrants’ Political Integration Through Discussion and Debate in Public Libraries, 2005, p.435-436

8 The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, 2017, p.419

9 SAGE Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy, 2010, p.114

12 High-intensive meeting places are those where users meet with people with whom they already share values and interests such as religious spaces, the workplace, or specific activity groups. 13 Cultural icons or landmarks refer to the case where a cultural institution becomes an icon. Buildings are considered to be unique, famous, have a symbolic/ aesthetic quality, and can be part of urban branding. Placemaking and urban identity is a conscious use of culture and cultural institutions as magnets to attract people to new urban developments. Icon libraries can also to some extent be seen as placemakers but not all placemakers have iconic qualities.

The local public library is an important meeting place and can assume the role of a public square for people to meet, engage in conversations not only with familiar acquaintances but strangers. However, a public library can offer more programmes in addition to their traditional library services to appeal to more users. According to research done by the Oslo University, “a high percentage in all communities, but particularly in the multicultural community, state that the library is a meeting place where they encounter, observe and learn about people different from themselves.”10 Norwegian library researcher Ragnar Audunson argues that public libraries are ‘low-intensive meeting places’, places where people with different interests and values can meet and interact.11 These places can be seen as an alternative to high-intensive meeting places, which instead create borderlines and differences.12 This demonstrates that libraries are grounds that allow users to move and interact in a safe, contained, and neutral space. In a library, newcomers can observe and engage in simple activities and gradually move over into more participatory activities within the community. Interactions that are expected to happen in public libraries are fundamentally different from those that happen in public spaces in informal contexts. This leads us to question architecture’s instrumentality and its importance in the formation of the collective. Public libraries can take the role of landmarks, placemakers, and catalysts.13 The public library becomes a catalyst when it intends to address social and economic 111

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The interior home-like spaces in Garaget, Malmo (Image: Garaget website)

Yoga class, left, and reading area, right, in Idea Store (Image: David Adjaye: Constructed Narratives, 2019)

challenges by engaging with a local community and initiating innovation, creativity and co-operation. Libraries taking part in culture-led regeneration reconceptualize their activities by questioning their traditional point of departure as libraries, and adding new functions, involving users and local citizens in new ways and initiating new partnerships. Libraries can have more contact with the city by offering inviting living rooms and lounge areas as well as other performative spaces. But the public library acts especially as a catalyst when the function of the public library becomes secondary and user-driven activities acquire an important role in the creativity and collaboration of the community. This is the case of the Garaget Public Library in Malmo, the Idea Stores in London, or the Medellin Park Libraries, in which their role as a public library is secondary to that of a meeting place. As seen with the other case studies, the role of the public library is not exclusive in generating integration at a local scale. The Garaget’s library’s collection is relatively small with the intention of resembling a private book collection rather than a larger systematic library, building on demands and needs of the users. Influenced by London’s Idea Stores, its most important programme is the café that offers Swedish and English classes regularly in a relaxed atmosphere. The dialogue lab is a knowledge centre for learning different techniques and skills as well as providing counselling. It has been particularly effective with immigrants, both in learning Swedish as well in meeting locals and other immigrants. Similarly, the Medellin Park Library intended not only to offer the functions of a library, 112

14 “Finding Inspiration in Medellin’s Library Parks.” Next City: Inspiring Better Cities. City Parks Alliance, 7 Apr. 2015. Web. <https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/ finding-inspiration-in-medellinslibrary-parks>.

but also to serve as a public square where people could gather. The library parks have successfully been catalysts for the community, not only through their monumentality but also because of the public space that has been created. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people visit per day, whether it is the library service or the public space surrounding it.14 These facilities intend to enhance social interactions through the arrangement of spaces (park and library). The park as a place for gathering and participating in recreational activities can also attract more non-learners into the traditional spaces of a public library. Since each library park has very different spatial structures, they cannot be regarded as constructing the same patterns of use. The spatial configuration of both the Garaget and the Park library typology can almost be seen as secondary to its role as a meeting place. The success of the Idea Stores has also relied on adapting its traditional role of a public library in order to attract more users. The original library buildings were not suitable for what the new spaces needed. First, the library buildings were former schools, not designed to attract non-learners into them. Second, the director of the Idea Store argued that the building should have more windows to enable users to see inside before deciding to enter. Other than its traditional services as a library, the spaces provide the flexibility needed for families to socialize or have community gatherings. Yoga, dance, and music classes are also available in the studio spaces. 113

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Prototypes for CEU facilities, 700 and 3,000 square meters (Images: CEU website) Below:

Centro Educacional Unificado, Guarulhos, Sao Paulo (Image: Monolito 3, 2011)

Network of educational facilities A constant between all case studies is that they operate within a larger educational infrastructural network. The Sescs, Idea Stores, and Medellin Park libraries are all funded through public-private partnerships. In the case of Sesc, funding is through the commercial sector but managed through a private third party with certain state participation. The Idea Stores and Medellin Park libraries are managed and operated exclusively by the state. Each branch has its own language and autonomy, largely due to the way the branch, the district and their audiences have structured their relations and specific necessities. While decentralization may generate more costs and difficulties, it enables more efficient interaction with local communities. While the educational facilities share similar components throughout the different buildings (library, classrooms, cafĂŠ, etc), they also respond to more site-specific characteristics. Such is the case of the Sesc network. While the Sesc Pompeia has an extended layout within an old warehouse distributing the programme horizontally, the Sesc 24 de Maio in downtown Sao Paulo has similar functions throughout a 10 storey vertical typology. Although their programmes are very similar, their aesthetic language and layout composition is very different. Similarly, the CEUs have three typologies of 700, 3,000, and 7,000 square meters. The smaller typology can be accommodated through five storeys within a smaller plot. Although more compact it can still house the same programmes as the larger typologies such as: a covered plaza, skate lane, fitness equipment, social assistance service, classrooms, office rooms, technology centres, meeting rooms, library, auditorium with 48 seats, and a terrace. Apart from these areas, the other two larger typologies also have a covered sports fields, playgrounds, skating rinks, and multipurpose rooms. The Idea Stores operate at a network scale but their language is very similar. However, the intention of the Idea Stores was to replicate them with the same language, the same way a retail shop would do. While their layout responds to site-specific characteristics, their outer language remains the same. Their ability to operate at a network scale demonstrates the importance of the programmatic components rather than their capacity to resolve site-specific design problems. Likewise, these case studies exemplify the importance of having flexible spaces that are not limited to one programme in specific. 114

S 700

M 3,000

L 7,000

The CEU the centers have similar programmes in different sizes depending on the site.

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Sesc 24 Maio 28,000 15 floors

Sesc Pompeia

˜≠

25,000 1-5 floors

B B

The Sescs are similar in size and programme regardless of the context. While Sesc 24 de Maio (above) has a small footprint, it compensates with 15 floors, while Sesc Pompeia (left) is distributed mainly horizontally.

(Image: above, Archdaily Brazil, 2018, left, Monolito 33, 2015)

B B

M B B

B B

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Existing communities SERVICES LEISURE EDUCATION PUBLIC SPACE HOUSING New communities

Sports and Leisure

Main elements of the Urban Integration Network This dissertation proposes different ways in which educational facilities, services, and housing can coexist within a mixed used building. The Urban Integration Network intends to provide housing with recreational and cultural activities, educational programmes, and health and sports facilities. These mixed-used centres respond to the immediate necessities of migrants such as shelter, food, and orientation, but also to their evolving needs, as they transition into inhabitants of a city. These spaces intend to create meeting places where members of the existing community are invited to interact with the new ones. It questions traditional educational spaces and proposes a typology in which education can coexist with leisure, culture, and services. How can educational facilities allow for existing communities and incoming inhabitants to interact? The Urban Integration Network proposes four different components that can be arranged depending on the location, size, and demographics. While the components do not respond to a specific site, they will later be proposed to respond to specific site decisions and context. The four main programmes are: 1. Culture and education: which provides a more flexible environment for learning focused on the specific needs of an incoming migrant population. It is composed of classrooms, a public library, computer labs, an auditorium, workshops, and study rooms. While these spaces are the elements of a standard school, the intention is to design and accommodate them to fit different users during different hours of the day. Adults can use the classrooms or computer labs during the afternoon or for community and cultural activities during the weekends. The auditorium or classrooms can be used for periodical events, for legal clinics, health campaigns, or specific skill training. Likewise, each site can have more specific educational facilities depending on whether they target primary, secondary, vocational or technical learning.

HALF BASKETBALL FIELD

Education

VOLLEYBALL COURT

Services

LIBRARY AND READING ROOMS

CAFETERIA AND KITCHEN

CLINIC/ INFIRMARY

LAUNDRY

GYM AUDITORIUM

STUDY ROOMS

OFFICES AND MEETING ROOM GAME ROOM

MUSIC ROOM

CLASSROOMS

LOCKER ROOM

GARDEN

5 X 5 FOOTBALL FIELD

COMPUTERS

WORKSHOPS

BATHROOMS

2. Services: the basic services included in the centres are a cafeteria and kitchen, infirmary/clinic, laundry, bathrooms and showers, and administrative offices. Some centres can have specialized services for career, health, or legal advice. 3. Sports and leisure: these spaces can include sports fields, outdoor garden, music/dance classrooms, gym equipment, or playground. 4. Housing: the dwellings respond spatially to inhabitants with different necessities, lengths of stay, family configurations, and tenure options. 118

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PLATFORMS

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COURTYARDS

CORRIDORS

SIDE BY SIDE

ON TOP

WITHIN

Three design proposals will explore various programme configurations and spatial layouts in response to specific users, family structures, and requirements. The components mentioned can share many spaces and facilities in common in order to have more users during more hours of the day. They can be arranged through corridors, courtyards, and/or platforms. These three spatial characteristics allow spaces to overlap based on the usersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; needs, in a place where many different activities can coexist. They can also create open and flexible circulation between the different programmes. The housing component, in close proximity to the educational facilities, requires more privacy. The designs propose different ways that education, leisure, and services can interact with housing. Within mixed-used buildings, housing units can be placed as on the side, on top, or within the educational facilities. This can create diverse density configurations and can have different impacts on the urbanity of Tijuana.

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Spaces of interaction, mobility, and flexibility: Design proposals Although density is a widely used measurement, it does not necessarily reveal the spatial or social quality of a neighbourhood or city. Densification has the potential for urban transformation rather than just providing more housing. It can be achieved through projects in more centralized locations, vertical typologies, compact units, better and more access to services and education, and ultimately local participation. Density should be measured as social exchanges per area, not as people per unit of area.15 Through this optic, densification can actually reduce costs, both for government and users of the city, improve mobility, increase diversity in the housing market, promote mixed use, encourage social interactions, promote energy efficiency and have positive environmental impacts. However, there are certain limitations to densification in Tijuana: high cost of land, lack of densification policies, resistance from developers to build vertically, and consumer preferences.16 In Mexico, there is no strong tradition of living in high-density neighbourhoods or vertical apartment buildings. Mexico’s seismicity contributes to people’s preference to live in lower density units. Truth is, most municipalities are not well equipped to handle densification, either because of the legislations required, the costs of adequate infrastructure, or the ability to coordinate with developers. However, with better planning and coordination, urban densification can lower costs related to infrastructure and public services.17 Given the inefficient public transportation and under-used plots, Tijuana would highly benefit from urban densification, mixed-use and infill development in central areas.18 A mixeduse development combines two or more of the following uses within a dense area through a physical and functional integration: residential, commercial, institutional, and cultural use. Mixed-use development can take the form of a single building, a city block, or entire neighbourhoods. Diversification of uses ensures that lands provide more variety for users and are used more efficiently. Traditionally, ‘horizontal’ mixed-use neighbourhoods consume much more land, while higher density can be achieved by compacting or vertically stacking different programmes. In Tijuana, services, retail and infrastructure are positioned closer to the Tijuana River and the border crossing. Therefore, neighbourhoods become exclusively residential, limiting interactions with other areas and people within the city. Likewise, exclusive zoning has raised the cost of land in central locations. Consequently, large cultural facilities are only feasible in centrally located areas where it is guaranteed they will be used. 122

19 Giles-Corti, Billie, City planning and population health: a global challenge, 2016, p.187

15 Robbins, Edward, and Rodolphe El-Khoury, Shaping the City: Studies in History, Theory and Urban Design, 2013, p.268

16 The Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico Project, 2016, p.44

20 Healthy Livable Cities Group, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

By being compact rather than horizontal, mixed used spaces can provide more open green areas. Mixed-use also ensures that open public spaces can have constant use, encourage physical activity, create a sense of safety and promote social interactions.19 Attractive neighbourhoods with access to open and public green spaces create the conditions for enhancing both physical and mental health. Living in close proximity to green open space is particularly important to more vulnerable groups such as children, teenagers, and elderly who have less urban mobility and are confined to a certain local area. According to the Healthy Liveable Cities Group, children living in close proximity to parks or sport facilities are more likely to engage in some sort of physical activity after school.20 Ultimately, by providing affordable housing along with educational facilities, services, and areas of leisure, people can have an incentive to establish formally rather than informally. Pilot sites

17 Harvard’s Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico Project, 2015, p.10-34 18 Infill development is the process of developing vacant or under-used parcels within existing urban areas that are already largely developed.

Large-scale housing projects with good infrastructure and services are less common in urbanized central areas because of the limited availability and affordability of land. Behind this reasoning, it is more logic to have a network of more projects at a smaller and denser scale, in better-located areas. This reduces cost by having existing infrastructure and better connections to services and amenities. Likewise, central locations can better provide for job opportunities, strengthen social networks with existing residents, and reduce commuting time and costs. As mentioned previously, the sites selected for this proposal have three conditions: they must be within the consolidated perimeters (U1 and U2), they must be no more than a 10 minute walk from public transport, and they must be currently vacant or underutilized plots. Taking into account the space required by the different components, as well as the housing units, three different sized plots were tested to explore different configurations and layouts. Additionally, the different plots allowed the relation between housing, services, and the educational facilities to be explored. These plots are in different areas of the city and have distinctive topography. The three sites are: Centro Libertad, Centro Obrera and Centro Loma Bonita, with 1,500, 5,000 and 9,000 square meters respectively. 123

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Abraham Gonzalez, Colonia Libertad Downtown Tijuana

Calle Marmol, Colonia Obrera South Tijuana

Calle Segunda, Colonia Loma Bonita East Tijuana

CENTRO LIBERTAD

CENTRO OBRERA

CENTRO LOMA BONITA

1,500 m2

5,000 m2

9,000 m2

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Centro Libertad

21 A pollero, or chicken herder, is slang for someone who smuggles people across the border into the US, usually through cars or vans. Coyotes are the smugglers that cross the hills of dessert.

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The first centre is located 2 km from the border in Colonia Libertad, one of the first migrant neighbourhoods. There are two distinct groups here, the residents who moved to Tijuana years ago and settled here, and the more transient migrants who are merely passing through on their way to the United States. Colonia Libertad is known as a place to make initial contact with a pollero or coyote21 to help cross the border. The first design is placed here because the neighbourhood has proven to foster resident and migrant interactions. Likewise, its proximity to the border makes it practical for users to contemplate future decisions, have access to immigration offices, move across the border, and meet other migrants or deportees. Connecting two streets, 12 meters in slope, this site represents the rugged topography of the city. Because of its location, Centro Libertad can respond to an initial incoming population (the one that Turner describes as bridge header) of very specific characteristics. It responds to individual middle-aged adults, the majority of whom are single men. The educational services respond to immediate necessities such as vocational training, language skills, technology centres with public access to computers and Internet, and legal and employment advice. In this location, the housing is in the shared facilities unit. The accommodation, placed above street level is intended to be more private, with better views and natural lighting. The public ground floor connects the streets at different heights through a series of platforms at different levels.

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SECTION

Education Services Sports/ Leisure Housing 0

128

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Centro Obrera

The second centre, Centro Obrera, is located in the borough of Lomas del Rubi, in the south of Tijuana. It is also a plot with a very steep slope. It is a neighbourhood in which houses often face landslides due to the lack of foundation. However, it is also a consolidated neighbourhood with an existing kindergarten in the same block. It is also a few meters from the main street that leads to the city centre. The housing, in small towers, sits on top of the educational facilities that form a base, or a podium. Similar to Centro Libertad, the front and the rear of the plot are two parallel streets. The upper street is 8 meters above the lower one. Through the lower street the educational facilities can be accessed. With more privacy, better lighting, and views, the residential buildings can be accessed through the upper street. The roof of the podium can be used as open space for the apartment residents. The educational facilities provide a solid base/foundation for the housing units on top. The lower street, and main faĂ§ade of the educational facilities, can have retail shops facing the street. With just two levels in height, the lower street is similar height to adjacent plots. However, in the back of the plot due to the height difference of streets, the housing units can have more stories without being invasive to the neighbourhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urbanity. The base is arranged through a series of connected open courtyards to maximize open spaces within the school. This also allows classrooms and other spaces to be ventilated and cooled passively as well as having natural light regardless of the steep slope that can cause spaces to be dark. 130

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GROUND FLOOR

132

FIRST FLOOR

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SECTION A

SECTION B SECOND FLOOR

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tra

Education Services Sports/ Leisure Housing

136

p up

str

tra

ree

r st

e low

Circulation

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Centro Loma Bonita

The third centre is located in East Tijuana in the borough of Loma Bonita. While it is the furthest of the three plots from the city centre, it is also the largest plot and the least sloped. Although predominately residential, the opposite plot has a small arena for charros, the traditional horsemen of Mexican culture. There are large supermarkets and retail shops less than one kilometre away. Because of the larger plot, the housing and the school could be placed side by side. The educational facilities as well as an open grass field are placed closer to the main street in order to give privacy to the housing units but to facilitate access to the rest of the neighbourhood. The housing unit chosen for this site was the progressive unit due to the availability of land. Additionally, because the neighbouring houses are no more than two stories in height, the progressive housing typology allows for a denser but more horizontal unit to match. The educational facilities connect the main street with the housing units through corridors.

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SECOND FLOOR

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FIRST FLOOR

GROUND FLOOR

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Education Services Sports/ Leisure Housing

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Circulation

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Conclusion

The way cities are designed and built is undergoing radical transformations. Inhabitants, communities, and collectives are coordinating efforts and innovating in order to shape their cities. Such is the case with Tijuana that heavily relies on the private sector and alternative institutions such as non-governmental organizations, charities, religious institutions, and even transnational bodies. Faced with issues such as the continued escalation of private ownership, environmental challenges, housing affordability, and social divisions, new tactics are being explored to respond to these issues. The future of Tijuana, as well as other cities, lies in new models of conceiving, commissioning, constructing and owning. Who are the cities for and how do we want them to grow? With Tijuana being shaped through private interests, we can begin to question how their participation can foster a more sustainable and equitable growth. As architects, we need to understand that the city cannot be developed through a series of individual objects such as buildings, but by the fundamental reorganization of socio-economic relations. Through architecture, we can begin to question alternative modes of institutions, services, and housing. This dissertation shows how a decentralized body of service provision could operate in a highly transited city that has initially relied on the private sector. Rather than taking centralized decisions, the Urban Integration Network rethinks service planning at a more local scale. While centralized decisions 152

153

regarding zoning, urban planning, and public service provision generally disregard the educational component, this dissertation proves that educational facilities can be a crucial asset in a community. As seen from Tijuana, housing cannot continue to be developed in an isolated manner. This dissertation demonstrates one of the many ways in which mixedused housing developments can occur. Additionally, this research concludes that mixed-used developments can offer many benefits to both existing neighbourhood and new inhabitants. It also provides many economic benefits, not just to its users, but also to the government and the private investor providing funds or facilities for the development of the project. In the few countries that remain greatly involved in providing social rental housing, the private sector plays a significant role in different ways such as: non-profit or limited profit organizations and cooperatives. Local governments can be involved in public-private partnerships and higher-level government can provide grants or subsidies. Although renting is not the only answer to the worldwide housing crisis, governments should not turn their backs to the reality of rental accommodation and provide adequate policies, credit programmes, and regulations. If we take the Urban Integration Network as a design brief rather than a concluding design, we can further question if it can be replicable, not only through different sites in Tijuana but in other cities facing similar challenges. The housing units respond less to a context, and could be replicated in different sites. However, the components of the educational facilities could have been 154

further developed in order to be replicated through a design manual. The pilot sites selected have very specific topographic features, therefore, certain design decisions were taken to regard these characteristics. Perhaps, these centres could be replicated more easily if sites had more key factors in common instead of just being located within the containment perimeters. It is worth noting that the housing unit, is more successful as a site less proposal, as it takes into consideration different tenure models rather than site specific characteristics. However, with the educational component it is much more difficult to think of a unit. Similar to some of the case studies mentioned, the dissertation intended to propose a combination of programs that should be thought and designed together rather than as separate entities. Tijuana, a free trade zone and a territory of multinational manufacturing plants, embodies the global forces of many contemporary cities. Although Tijuana has very specific characteristics such as its geographic location, complex land ownership and rugged topography, it also shares many traits of cities today. I consider that the Urban Integration Network can be transferable to other cities with a strong economic sector, in which third parties are very much involved in urban governance. Lastly, architecture can and should be the mechanism to create permanence, not only at the scale of the city but through spaces that allow people to feel identified and included.

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