Metropolitics

Useful Transgressions: Informality, Power, and Urban Life in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

Ryan Thomas Devlin — 2026-02-17T06:00:00Z

Urban informality has been theorized as a process operating at the edges and margins under capitalist urbanization. Yet Outlaw Capital argues that the gray spaces of informality are essential to the vitality of cities, leveraged for different ends by elites and the poor alike.
On the Paraguay side of the Paraná River in Ciudad del Este, smugglers load up small boats with things like electronics and cigarettes bound for the opposite shore and eventually for consumers in Brazil, bypassing

- Reviews / informality, Latin America, South America, Global South, Paraguay, Ciudad del Este, neoliberalism, capitalism, urbanism, urbanization, gray spaces, informal urbanism, urban governance

Integration or Chainsaw: Some Reflections on the Policies of Cruelty in Milei's Argentina Based on the ReNaBaP Case | Integración o motosierra: Reflexiones sobre las políticas de crueldad en la Argentina de Milei a partir del caso ReNaBaP

Facundo A. Corti — 2025-05-20T05:00:00Z

Policy efforts in Argentina to reduce housing inequality have been met with Milei's chainsaw. Facundo A. Corti shows how the state has made the fight for housing equality a one-sided struggle.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle ▼ Pulse aquí para leer en español ▼
The National Registry of Popular Neighborhoods (Registro Nacional de Barrios Populares, or ReNaBaP) was created in 2017 through Decree 358, which institutionalized a registry initiated the previous year by civil society

- From the Field / Argentina, Latin America, South America, Global South, housing, housing policy, informal housing, informal settlements, urban integration, Javier Milei, public policy, working-class neighborhoods

Argentina: The Rental Issue in the Milei Era | Argentina: la problemática del alquiler en la era Milei

Nicolás A. Trivi — 2025-04-29T05:00:00Z

In Argentina, the reforms promoted by the libertarian government represent an offensive of capital on labor. Nicolás Trivi shows that the rental market is one of its battlefields.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle ▼ Pulse aquí para leer en español ▼
On the night of December 20, 2023, President Javier Milei spoke on a nationally obligatory all-channel media event (the “cadena nacional”) to announce the proclamation of a Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU in Spanish). The

- From the Field / Argentina, Latin America, South America, Global South, real estate, tenants, rent, rental, rental housing, Javier Milei

Massive Evictions and Housing Crisis in Chile

Santiago Castillo Braithwaite — 2025-04-15T05:00:00Z

In the midst of a deep housing crisis, more than 100,000 families in Chile are currently living in informal settlements. Santiago Castillo examines the rise of land occupations following a 2019 social uprising and the recent state responses that, far from providing solutions, have only deepened the conflict.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle Starting in October 2019, amid the most intense protests since the end of Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile, a wave of urban land occupations

- From the Field / Latin America, South America, Global South, housing, housing crisis, evictions, land, Chile

The Uruguayan Housing Cooperatives: The Miracle of the “Commons” | Las cooperativas de vivienda uruguayas. El milagro de los “comunes”

Benjamín Nahoum — 2025-04-08T05:00:00Z

Benjamín Nahoum presents the case of the Uruguayan cooperative movement that started in the 1960s. Through the years, the movement has shifted—as have other South American housing movements—but the principles of mutual aid and self-management have remained clear, and it has become one of the primary housing tenures in Uruguay.
---- Series: Horizons in the Housing Struggle ▼ Pulse aquí para leer en español ▼
Fifteen years ago, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, which annually awards the

- From the Field / Uruguay, South America, Latin America, Global South, housing, affordable housing, cooperative housing, commons, alternative housing, cooperation

The Brazilian Experience of Financialization Through Urban Redevelopment: The Case of “Urban Operations”

Laisa Eleonora Marostica Stroher — 2020-12-01T06:00:00Z

Laisa Stroher examines the history of large-scale urban regeneration projects in Brazil and shows how a policy instrument initially designed to respond to a lack of public funding has morphed into a tool that has helped transform urban land into a financial asset, leading ultimately to the displacement of populations without delivering on the initial social promises.
---- Series: Cities in the Age of Financialization Large-scale urban development projects and their contradictions feature

- From the Field / financialization, urban regeneration, urban development, Urban Operations (Brazil), Brazil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, redevelopment, urban planning, real estate, Latin America, South America, displacement

When Memory is Confined: Politics of Commemoration on Avenida 26, Bogotá

Violante Torre — 2020-04-07T05:00:00Z

After more than five decades of conflict, the Colombian capital, Bogotá, is undergoing processes not just of regeneration, but also of commemoration. The decision to create spaces of memory along one particular road in the city, Avenida 26, has highlighted the stark differences between neighborhoods on either side of its congested lanes—and runs the risk of reinforcing existing segregation.
Bogotá, Colombia, is a socially divided city in a post-conflict country marked by clashing spatial and

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, South America, Bogotá, conflict, urban regeneration, urban renewal, memory, commemoration, institution, memory-making

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría — 2020-02-25T06:00:00Z

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how long-time peasants and former factory workers and upper-middle-class newcomers collaborate across class lines to manage fundamental resources, such as water, and pressure the state to provide necessary infrastructure and services.
“A new neighbor welcomes you; your neighbor, nature,” claims a billboard on the road between La Calera, a small town, and Bogotá, the Colombian

- From the Field / Colombia, Latin America, Global South, South America, rural, Bogotá, gentrification, rural gentrification, urbanization, suburbanization, rururbanization, water, urban public service, urban services, urban technical networks, utilities, infrastructure, social class, networks, water access