The inequities highlighted in section 1.3.5 should be prioritised by urban transport policies. Although there is evidence of disincentives to the use of the car (Gallego, Montero, & Salas, 2013) and an increased interest to increase cycling and walking, these efforts have not been sufficiently integrated with each other and neither do they consider explicit criteria of inclusion and equity. The context of a relatively low rate of motorization and a substantial share of public transport and non-motorized modes in daily mobility of Latin American cities is an opportunity for development of public policies to strengthen public transport and non-motorised travel as viable and attractive alternatives. However, to achieve such an objective within a framework of inclusive development requires political will and consideration of the conditions and needs of different urban social groups.
In response to social and transport disadvantages, and the insufficiency of public investments in certain urban areas, people in Latin America resort to informal alternatives to address their needs to access transport, employment and housing. According to Porter (2011), there is a strong relation between formality and informality determined by constant ‘transactions’ in terms of spatial, economic and social relationships that mark the notion of informality as a system that is not external to formal systems, but that is instead a consequence of formal structures, and that is usually strongly related to accepted formal set of rules and settings. Rapid growth of cities and lack or inadequate regulations and enforcement of land-use plans have led to development of unsuitable land for housing by informal developers in most large cities in Latin America (Gilbert, 2009). Informal housing of people in conditions of poverty is generally related to lack of access to suitable land, severe conditions of lack of infrastructure
and services, illegality and generalized precariousness in construction materials and techniques. With the eventual recognition of these settlements as a non-temporary phenomenon, housing policy has shifted from repressive strategies that sought relocation as a primary objective, to processes of improvement of local environments through self-help and eventually upgrading interventions aiming to the provision of services and security of tenure (UN-HABITAT, 2003). The constant evolution of housing policies related to either formal or informal developments of low-cost housing for the urban poor has often been a central issue in the agendas of local governments worldwide, international development agencies and donors. Estimates by UN-HABITAT (2003) show that the number of people living in informal housing by 2001 was about 924 million people, which represented more than 30% of global urban population. This number was projected to increase to 2 billion people in 30 years (UN-Habitat, 2003). Moreover, the United Nations recognizes that informal settlements in the Global South, “have been the only large-scale solution to providing housing for low-income people”, as they respond to needs of affordability and accessibility, within a context of limited available options, competitive land markets and scarce supply of cheap land (UN-Habitat, 2003, p. 30).
Limited supply of local employment in informal and low-income settlements and urban economies centred on the services sector (CAF, 2011) also leads low-income and other socially disadvantaged populations to work in the informal economy. According to Turner (2009), the informal economy can generally be defined as the part of the economy where activities take place beyond official recognition and record. Common, small-scale, informal economic activities may include small-scale enterprises and trade, street vending, garbage recycling ventures, subcontracting, and homework. In Latin American cities, the nature of the informal economy is highly fragmented by location of work, as it can take place in the home, a small enterprise or on the street. In addition, it can be argued that all people in the informal economy share a lack of formal labour rights and social protection. In Latin America, according to Williams and Lansky (2013), non-
agricultural employment in the informal economy accounts for 51% of total employment in 2012. Such informal economy was distributed in 38.6% in wage employment, 10.9% in household wage employment and 41.4% in self-employment. These figures impose a challenge for urban travel as informal employment tends to involve variable locations and constantly changing travel patterns that may increase travel costs and so reduces disposable income for addressing education, health and other essential needs for human development.
Principles of economic rationality underpinning transport and infrastructure provision lead to precarious coverage of roads, utilities and basic social services in ‘less-profitable’ areas of the city (Brand, 2013). As shown earlier, these conditions feed upon a continuous cycle of spatial segregation and poverty that reshape city boundaries through informal settlements in the peripheries (Gilbert, 2009; Cervero, 2013b). As a consequence, forms of mobility of peripheral populations differ greatly from those living in more attractive and better-served areas of the city, as a result of imposed gaps of connectivity (Gakenheimer, 1999; Oviedo & Dávila, 2013).
Lack of adequate connectivity imposes high financial loads on poor households, especially in areas where integrated transport systems are not available, increasing transfer costs to reach the core city (Cervero 1998, 2000). In most cases the demand in peripheral areas is not fully covered by the formal system, opening gaps for the operation of small-scale informal transport operators and leading to a complex interplay of formal and informal transport alternatives in the definition of travel choices (Cervero & Golub, 2007). Transport informality is interpreted in terms of the conjunction of services that operate outside formal regulations for collective transport supply, which works on a small-scale, and respond to specific transport needs. These informal alternatives are mainly characterized by the use of low-capacity vehicles and flexible tariff schemes that usually complement regular public transport, entering neighbourhoods that are poorly served by
formal operators and addressing undersupplied demand segments, particularly in lower-income groups. However, informal mechanisms have a limited effect in giving poor families access to the opportunities in large cities and generally entail higher externalities than formal supply (Avellaneda, 2008; Cebollada and Avellaneda, 2008; Cervero, 2013a). The conditions outlined throughout this section (1.3) frame the processes of urban and transport planning and governance, provision of urban transport infrastructure and services, social and transport disadvantage and transport-related social exclusion in the Bogotá-Soacha conurbation and specifically in Cazucá. The following section builds on the concepts and contextual argumentation introduced in this chapter to present the main research questions and hypothesis of this research.
1.2 Research questions and hypothesis
In this thesis, I argue that the relations between transport and social exclusion are framed by the structure of the transport and infrastructure networks, urban planning and governance, and strategies for addressing needs by peripheral populations experiencing transport and social disadvantage. By addressing the different dimensions of social exclusion, I analyse how inequities at different scales influence availability of resources for travel and other conditions for participation in society. In this context, the main questions addressed by the research are:
(i) How is splintering urbanism related to transport localised in relation to peripheral populations in the Bogotá-Soacha conurbation between 2000 and 2013? and
(ii) How is transport-related social exclusion experienced and addressed by residents of Cazucá in 2013?
The research questions are positioned in current academic debates regarding urban development, planning and delivery of urban transport networks, fragmentation, and social exclusion. They contribute to current knowledge in relation to how the differentiated provision of urban infrastructure and networks for transport services is mediated by structural factors such as urban structures, geographies, governance, and planning. And how the deliberate bypassing of socially disadvantaged areas can lead to transport disadvantage and exclusion. The research questions are a reflection of the objective of testing particular frameworks from both urban and transport studies in the context of informal settlements in a complex city-region in the Global South.
These research questions are expected to lead to original findings as they set the basis for analyses not frequently found in the literature. On the one hand, there is little application of splintering urbanism to transport networks and services (Ohnmacht, Maksim, & Bergman, 2009), with infrequent use of the theory in cities of the Global South in general (see section 2.5). This thesis proposes and tests a framework connecting the main drivers of splintering urbanism and transport-related social exclusion in a context with characteristics such as those of the Bogotá-Soacha conurbation. This allows the thesis to incorporate issues such as informal transport provision in the process of reconfiguration of networks of connectivity in spatially and socially segregated areas. The research is expected to lead to a replicable framework, methodology and insights for other cases of peripheral informal settlements, and relevant insights for policy and planning in such contexts. On the other hand, by exploring the applicability of social exclusion in the case of Cazucá, the research not only questions the validity of Western literature in the Global South, but it also reimagines its meaning building on qualitative analysis not frequently used in transport planning and studies in the developing world. By adopting a narrative of dimensions as reflected by the sub-research questions below, the thesis adopts a specific interpretation of social exclusion and tests the ‘universality’ of its principles
suggested by the literature (see section 2.4). As it will be explained further below, the research also seeks to make an original contribution via the application of a qualitative approach to the analysis of social exclusion related to transport and splintering urbanism, informing a critique on more frequent quantitative approaches to the study of travel behaviour and contributing to debates regarding the role of qualitative information in urban transport planning.
These questions are operationalised in sub-questions that address different aspects of the research. These span from the understanding of the structure of the case study to the governance system that underpins transport planning and development and the different strategies of residents of Cazucá for addressing social exclusion.
SQ1: What is the structure of networks of transport and opportunities in the Bogotá-Soacha region?
SQ2: What are the determinants of governance of urban and transport planning and development in Bogotá and Soacha?
SQ3: How are the main drivers and processes of
splintering urbanism manifested in transport networks in Cazucá between 2000 and 2013?
SQ4: What are the links between splintering urbanism and dimensions social exclusion in Cazucá in 2013? SQ4: What are the strategies developed by residents of Cazucá to address multiple dimensions of social
exclusion in 2013?
The thesis builds on the hypothesis that the interrelation between transport and urban planning and social exclusion of the poor in urban peripheries is shaped by (i) the spatial and physical structure of the Bogotá-Soacha
conurbation, (ii) the governance and formal and informal practices of transport and urban planning, which reconfigure the availability and nature of transport networks, and (iii) systematic inequities at different scales (metropolitan, municipal and local) that underpin household and individual strategies for addressing the multiple dimensions of social exclusion.