Gentrification and Displacement in Bogota

Authors: Michael Coulom, Jeremy Halpern, Mariela Herrick, Jessie Jaeger,

Natalie Koski-Karell, Donna Leong, José López, Shazia Manji, Vanessa
Ordoñez, Jessie Wang, and Dalia Rubiano Yedidia
Table of Contents

Introduction 5
Research Questions 5
Key Terms 6
Literature Review 7
Methods 11
Neighborhood Change in Bogota 13
Changes in Estrato Designations Across Bogota 13
Figure 1 Geographic Distribution of Estrato in Bogota, 2016 14
Figure 2: Estrato changes 15
Figure 3: Bogota Estrato Change of Residential Parcels (2004-2016) 16

The “Rent Gap” in Bogota: Mismatch Between Estrato and Land Value 17

Laying the Theoretical Groundwork 17

Figure 4: The Rent Gap 17
Relationship Between Bogotá Residential Estrato (2016) and Land Values (2017) 18
Figure 5: Distribution of 2017 Land Value (COP/sq ft) by 2016 Estrato 19
Figure 6: Distribution of Land Value Change (2011-2017, COP/sq ft) by Estrato
(2016) 20
Figure 7: Ratio between land value change (2011 - 2017) and estrato in 2016 21
Figure 8: Land Value (2017) and Change in Land Value (2011 - 2017) by Land Use
22
Changes in Demographic Characteristics Across Bogota, 1993 - 2005 22
Figure 9: Population comparison from 1993 to 2005 in Bogota 23
Figure 10: Density comparisons from 1993 to 2005 24
Figure 11: Between 1993 and 2005, Bogota got older. 25
Figure 12: Access to Services 25
Figure 13: Housing Type 26
Figures 14 & 15 : 1 in 5 Bogotanos Have Higher Education 26
Figure 15: Educational Attainment in Bogota, 1993 & 2005 27
Figure 16: Work status in the last week 27
Case Studies 28
Case Study 1: Juan XXIII and Los Olivos 29
Neighborhood Context 29

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 Figure 17. Residential Estrato Surrounding Juan XXIII (2016) 30
Displacement and Gentrification Vulnerabilities 30
Figure 18. Change in Residential Estrato Surrounding Juan XXIII (2011-2017) 31
Figure 19. Ratio of Land Value Change (2011-2017) and Estrato (2016) Surrounding
Juan XXIII 32
Figure 20. Land Value By Building Estrato (2017) 32
Figure 21. Land Value (2017) and Change in Land Value (2011 - 2017) By Land Use
in Juan XXIII 33
Figure 22. Access to Sewage and Drinking Water in 2005 34
Figure 23. Residential Development Surrounding Juan XXIII: New Construction
(2013-2018) 35
Figure 24. Residential Development Surrounding Juan XXIII: New Construction
(2012-2018) 35
Figure 25. Residential Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Facade Upgrade (2012-
2018) 36
Figure 26. Commercial Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Facade Upgrade (2012-
2018) 36
Figure 27. Commercial Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Construction of
Additional Floor and Outdoor Living Space (2012-2018) 36
Community Resistance to Threats of Displacement 37
Public and Private Development Mechanisms in Los Olivos Led to Displacement 37
Residential Mobilization in Juan XXIII is Effective at Resisting Displacement 38
Patrimonio Popular As An Anti-Displacement Tool 39
Conclusion 39
Case Study 2: La L/El Bronx 40
Neighborhood Context 40
Displacement and Gentrification Vulnerabilities 41
Government disinvestment and the creation of informality 41
Figure 34: Services in El Bronx compared to other case study areas, 2005 41
History of Urban Renewal 42
Figure 34: Population changes around El Bronx 43

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 43
Urban renewal as tabula rasa for La Economia Naranja 43

State-Dominated Narratives: What’s in a name? 44

Market Vulnerability Contributes to Displacement & Gentrification 44

Figure 39: Estrato surrounding El Bronx (2017) 45
Figure 40: Land Use Conversions in El Bronx/La L (2004 - 2016) 46
Figure 51: Distribution of Land Value Change (2011 - 2017) by Estrato (2016) in El
Bronx 48
Figure 52: Ratio of Land Value Change (2011-2017) and Estrato (2016) Surrounding
El Bronx 49
Conclusion 49
Case Study 3: Las Aguas/Triángulo Fenicia 51
Neighborhood Context 51
Gentrification and Displacement Vulnerabilities 52
History of 21st Century Urban Renewal 52
Communities At-Risk 52
Figure 28. Estrato Surrounding Las Aguas (2016) 53
Figure 29. Ratio of Land Value Change (2011 - 2017) and Estrato (2016)
Surrounding Las Aguas 54
Figure 30. Las Aguas Estrato 1 Neighborhood 54
Development Patterns Signaling Gentrification 55
Figure 32. Las Aguas Density by Number of Building Stories 56
Figure 33. Las Aguas High Density Development 56
Community Resistance to Threats of Displacement 57
Community Organizes Diverse Stakeholders 57
Building Community Planning Capacity Led to Residents Needs Being Heard 57
Community Benefits Agreements and Concrete Wins 58
Conclusion 59

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Key Findings 60
Recommendations 62
Conclusion 64
Limitations 65
Appendix A: Focus Group Protocol 66
References 70

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Introduction
In Bogota, displacement is driven by both public and private intervention and in certain cases it
is accompanied by gentrification. The two prevalent interventions are government-imposed
expropriation and tabula rasa strategies, and ground rent dispossession caused by private real
estate development (Janoschka and Sequera, 2016; Yunda and Sletto 2017). Insisting on a
discourse of equality, Bogota has been portrayed as a model of inclusionary urbanism.
However, Bogota’s planning efforts have been used to justify the exclusion of people perceived
as sources of disorder (Galvis 2017; Duque Franco 2011; Montero 2017a). Under the same
policies that are sold as progressive steps toward a more equal city, Bogota’s vulnerable
populations face marginalization while city officials and planners justify depriving many of the
city’s poorest citizens of their homes and communities to nurture urban life and redevelopment
efforts (Maldondo and Hurtado 1997; Castaneda Cordy and Garcia Banalas 2007; Vargas and
Urinboyev 2015; Ritterbusch 2011, 2016; Galvis 2014).

This study examines three case studies to answer this study’s research questions. Case studies
were chosen based on different key actors and mechanisms driving displacement and
resistance to gentrification, including state action and regulation, market forces, and organized
community response. Case study areas include:

1. Juan XXIII and Los Olivos are proximate neighborhoods in the Chapinero Alto locality.
Both neighborhoods face ongoing market pressures due to their desirable location. Juan
XXIII is well-known for its organized resistance against private developers, while the Los
Olivos community has largely been fractured.

2. Las Aguas is a neighborhood that contains Triangulo Fenicia, the target of a small
area plan and is home to the Universidad de los Andes (UniAndes). This area has a long
history of urban renewal plans in the 21st century. The most recent plan involved
activism from residents and university personnel, and is an example of successful public
participation and community driven formulation of anti-displacement strategies.

3. El Bronx, also known as La L to long-time residents, experienced state-led intervention

through the the complete demolition of the neighborhood. The local government shortly
designated the neighborhood as an “orange economy”, or special district to house future
creative industries.

Research Questions
What are the unique characteristics and patterns of displacement and gentrification in Bogota?

What factors accelerate or delay displacement and gentrification in Bogota?

How can the three case study neighborhoods inform current challenges and future strategies to
create more inclusive, community driven anti-displacement strategies and policies?

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Key Terms
Auto-construction- The process by which residents construct their own homes, structures, and
supporting infrastructure. Auto-construction often takes place without governmental oversight
and is the result of a lack of supply or deficiencies in the land market, or barriers to accessing
that market.

Displacement - The forced or indirect relocation of an individual, community, business, or

institution from one geographic location to another due to public policy or private investment.

Estrato- A redistributive and progressive utility and public service taxation system in Colombia.
Estrato designations range from 1 (the lowest) to 6 (the highest) and are assigned to assessed
residential building value. Residents of higher estrato buildings pay greater rates for public
services and utilities in order to cross subsidize the services for residents of lower estrato
buildings.

Fiduciary- Legal protections in response to the 1990s deep financial crisis and real estate
market crash that requires the use of mercantile third-party fiduciaries in any residential,
commercial, or mixed-use construction project over a certain size threshold. Property owners or
investors transfer their assets to the fiduciary, which then turns the funds over to the developer
upon reaching a certain degree of project completion. This is intended to securitize the assets of
the investor. Both public and private fiduciary providers exist to serve this market.

Gentrification- Gentrification in Bogota is commonly understood as the intentional devaluation

of land to create spatial inequality for future land value and profit extraction

Networks- Networks are agile, emerging, and flexible constellations of individuals, groups, and
organizations that work together around a united interest, cause, or values. Networks’ strengths
include their ability to adapt to timely events, organize quickly, change directions, and reassess
and redeploy more efficiently than other more structured bodies. They are highly decentralized
and participants are able to engage or leave dependent on their capacity, skillset, knowledge,
experience, or values.

La Economia Naranja (Orange Economy)- A place based, economic development strategy

developed and prescribed by current Colombian president Iván Duque Márquez that prioritizes
growth in the ‘creative’ industries of arts, culture, and technology.

Urban Renewal- The process of state reclamation or expropriation of private land for the
purposes of direct or indirect publicly aided redevelopment.

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Literature Review
In their 2016 book, Planetary Gentrification, Lees et. al aim to reposition interpretations of
gentrification and displacement from a dominant Western urbanist ideology to conceptions
inclusive of contributions from the Global South. Their thesis frames gentrification as an urban
process that transforms cities; they argue that gentrification in the Global South, unlike the
Global North, more commonly takes the shape of large-scale demolition, construction, and
displacement rather than the piecemeal upgrading of neighborhoods. Authors such as Everett
(2001), Montenegro-Miranda (2018), and Zibarth (2018) have confirmed the presence of this
pattern in the Bogotá, and theorize that gentrification in the Global South is a function of state
policies that spatially direct economic investment in redevelopment, and that, unlike
gentrification in the West, change in these cities can occur rapidly and dramatically, leaving
residents struggling to adjust.

The forces behind gentrification are often external processes including policy decisions and
investments, economic changes, demographic and migration shifts, and public and private
discriminatory actions. Janoshcka and Sequera – in their study of Latin American gentrification
– argue that urban policies are displacing low-income people, and assert cities are transformed
primarily through four types of displacement: (1) heritage accumulation, i.e. rescue of a "historic
center" as Mexico City’s Centro Historico; (2) militarization creating "states of exception," i.e.
prior to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro; (3) ground rent dispossession, which is most
similar to the US-context and understanding of gentrification; and (4) cultural dispossession, i.e.
appropriating a cultural practice attached to a neighborhood (Janoshcka and Sequera, 2016).

While parts of Janoschka and Sequera’s regional Latin American analyses are reflected in the
Bogotá case studies, a nuanced and complex process is taking place with multiple actors
impacting displacement. Bogotá has shared in many of the political, social, and economic
transformations experienced by its sister cities in Latin America over the course of 20th century
(Janoschka, 2014). The city’s boundaries have expanded exponentially as processes of urban
renewal, housing development, and advancements in transportation position residents further
and further afield (Guzman, 2017). Despite continued sprawl, Bogotá is still one of the densest
cities in Latin America and most of its land has been formally developed (Inostroza, 2017).

Economic and population growth have not been evenly distributed spatially, however. Guzman
and Bocarejo (2017) found that employment density primarily clusters in the central core and
declines with increasing distance from the core. Evident is a spatial mismatch between
employment and residential centers, with greater population density on the urban periphery. As
a result, residents of low-income neighborhoods spend more time travelling to work, and 80
percent of low-income Bogotános experience low employment accessibility. Increasing the
density of affordable housing near job centers is stymied by the insecurity of investment and
lack of state incentives for private developers to recoup the costs of low rents in high-value land
areas (Ruiz, 2018). Housing reforms in the 1990s were part of a sweeping economic
restructuring, apertura económica, that suspended the construction of social housing directly by

7
public entities and transferred the functions of planning, designing, and constructing social
housing to the private sector. At the same time, increasingly high costs of urban land pose
challenges to the financial feasibility of privately-developed social housing projects (Rueda
Garcia 2012).

Colombia’s history of conflict-driven displacement and forced migration, now augmented by the
arrival of thousands of migrants from Venezuela, puts additional pressure on the capital city.
Between 1985 and September 2017, nearly 7.6 million persons were internally displaced
throughout the country (UNHCR 2017), three quarters of whom now live in rental housing
(Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Distrital, 2004; UNHCR, 2015). As a result, they
are especially vulnerable to both displacement and gentrification from both public intervention
and fluctuations in the private market (Depetris-Chavin, Santos 2018). Displacement has
disproportionately affected Afro-Colombian, indigenous peoples, and women and children
(UNHRC 2017). In 2012, the federal government established a 100 percent subsidized housing
program for internally displaced persons and extremely poor persons in areas affected by
natural disasters. The program, 100,000 Viviendas Gratis, has been critiqued for failing to take
into account target occupants’ ability to afford taxes and utility payments, the shock of relocation
from rural towns to urban centers, and the lack of resources to support displaced families in
accessing employment in urban environments (Gilbert 2014).

It was not until the 1940s and 1950s that housing in Colombia came to be viewed as an element
of the city, rather than an individual affair (Cubillos González, 2006). Among the most significant
policies affecting housing and the built environment was the constitutional reform of 1991, which
devolved central planning functions to the municipal level. Along with greater local taxation
powers, this led to the emergence of holistic urban planning strategies in place of ad hoc
development. Decentralization also gave rise to public private partnerships and privatization,
emphasizing competition and financial independence in the public services sector (Tixier et. al,
2010). The Territorial Development Law of 1997 (Ley de Desarrollo Territorial, LDT) requires
each municipality to adopt a land use plan, the Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial (Lobo, 2015).
Better known as the POT, this document lays out a blueprint for development for the next
decade. Subsequent Bogotá POTs have been criticized for their inability to solve social issues
related to housing and displacement, and for participatory methods that fail to meaningfully
shape decision making (HSBNoticias, 2018). Bogotá’s recently approved El Plan Especial de
Manejo y Protección del Centro Histórico de Bogotá (PEMP) is considered an innovative and
comprehensive planning tool that aims to recover the historic center of Bogotá through a
participatory planning process. Focusing on the localities of Santa Fe, Candelaria, and Los
Martires, PEMP is meant to increase livability and economic competitiveness in Bogotá’s center,
while creating a sense of unity among Bogotános, said PEMP Director, David Delgado. Though
concerns circle around the recently approved PEMP; while participation in the plan has been
quite robust, the plan must also become something feasible to avoid being another plan without
beginning and end (C Ibanez, personal communication, March 26, 2019).

Importantly, the LDT created additional mechanisms for government to intervene in the land
market, including administrative expropriation (Tixier et. al, 2010). The law specifies that

8
municipal POTs delimit Urban Action Units (UAU) to identify one or more properties for
urbanization or collective planning. Under the law, the owners of 51% of the land area of the
Urban Action Unit must consent to development in exchange for financial compensation
equivalent to the appraised value of their lot, or for equity in the new development. Those who
do not agree are liable to have their property expropriated by the municipal administration (Lobo
2015). An evaluation of three Urban Action Units, carried out in Bogotá from 2006 to 2014,
found that the investment framework does little to improve conditions in the center city (Lobo
2015).

In practice the 51 percent ownership threshold has been difficult to achieve, as individual
developers often lack the investment to see projects through, and municipalities have been
reluctant to exercise their legal right to expropriate property (Lobo 2015). While 29 plans for
urban expansion along the periphery of the city have been approved since 2006, only two plans
for urban renewal or redevelopment have been approved as of 2014. Two such examples of
unrealized development are the Planes Parciales Proscencio and Estación Central. Lack of
transparency and exclusion of residents and the business-owning public in the planning process
for these urban renewal projects led to local rejection of the Proscencio plan, and a lack of
confidence among private developers in Estación Central (Lobo 2015).

Of concern is whether planes parciales, Urban Action Units, or other existing development
policy frameworks can meet the housing and employment needs of low-income and vulnerable
populations in Bogotá. Ruiz (2018) found that legal and financial structures in the city inhibit the
development of residential property, with the majority of rental properties in the development
pipeline intended for the student market, despite the fact that students represent only 1 percent
of the renter population. Low-income Bogotános and immigrants primarily live in informal
settlements proximate to formal neighborhoods (Vernez 1974; Inostroza 2017), where although
they are typically well-connected to public utilities (Gilbert 2011), they are also vulnerable to the
private development of luxury housing (Janoschka and Sequera 2016).

The urban renewal model of redevelopment may also present challenges to already vulnerable
or precarious populations. A 2018 citizen perception survey by the organization Bogotá Cómo
Vamos found that 34 percent of city residents feel unsafe in their neighborhood, with feelings of
insecurity increasing from 33-44 percent between 2017 and 2018 (Cómo Vamos 2018). Salazar
Arenas (2008) demonstrates the important role of the built environment in forming a “collective
knowledge” among members of a Bogotá family and thereby comfort in an otherwise chaotic
and individualized environment, as well as potential for improved financial security through the
sharing of resources among relatives in proximate geography. Proximity to family members is a
significant determinant of neighborhood choice in Bogotá, irrespective of class (Vernez, 1974;
Salazar Arenas, 2008).

Increased development also threatens the progressive estrato system, which subsidizes the
cost of public utilities for low-income households (Gilbert, 2011). Under this system, strata 1, 2,
and 3 receive a subsidy of 50 percent, 40 percent, and 15 percent, respectively, with strata 4
paying the true cost of services and strata 5 and 6 paying a 20 percent surcharge. The system

9
has incentivized some residents to artificially deflate their strata classification in order to avoid
higher costs of living; a 1994-2004 analysis by the World Bank found that the percentage of
lower strata households rose beyond what could be justified by a change in poverty rate,
suggesting that artificial rate-setting is already occurring (Komives et al., 2005). This is
particularly important as strata has become a significant determinant of where individuals
choose to, and are able to, live (Jessel 2017).

In practice, government planning and economic policies have been seen to displace or threaten
to displace long-time residents through strategies of militarization and ground rent
dispossession (Janoschka and Sequera, 2016; Yunda and Sletto, 2017). In the central
neighborhood of El Bronx, a government initiated military intervention displaced residents and
bulldozed buildings to clear the way for ground zero of the country’s creative economy (Sharkey
2016). Los Olivos is just one of a few auto-construction neighborhoods in the Chapinero Alto
district targeted for luxury housing development by private developers and trapped in a state of
limbo by federal redevelopment financing laws (Janoschka and Sequera, 2016). The privately
initiated Triangulo Fenicia plan proposes to redevelop a significant portion of the Las Aguas
neighborhood with higher estrato housing than current residents can afford (Pinilla et al. 2015,
Pinilla 2017). Planning efforts justify the sorting and removal of stubborn reminds of
socioeconomic inequality by replacing the homes and activity centers of the urban poor with
new or improved public space (Galvis 2017; Duque Franco 2011; Montero 2017a). Under the
same policies sold as progressive steps toward a more equal city, Bogotá’s poor face further
marginalization (Maldondo and Hurtado 1997; Castaneda Cordy and Garcia Banalas 2007;
Vargas and Urinboyev 2015; Ritterbusch 2011, 2016; Galvis 2014).

Inconsistent municipal and federal policies are exacerbating socio-spatial tensions within
Bogotá to the detriment of its most vulnerable residents. The lack of coherent growth strategies
jeopardize the state’s ability to meet housing construction goals, job density, and economic
growth. At the same time, the drive for urban renewal threatens to push already vulnerable
populations into ever more precarious states through the dispossession of low price, high-
valued land, community dispersal, and lack of access to capital.

10
Methods
Interviews with ten key informants living and working in Bogota, as well as five focus groups
with case study community members, extensively inform the qualitative findings of this study.
and five focus groups with individuals and communities in Bogota who had professional or
personal knowledge of displacement and gentrification in Bogota. Interview and focus group
participants were selected with help from researchers from the Universidad de Los Andes based
on their professional or personal knowledge and experience of displacement and gentrification
in Bogota. The research team evaluated qualitative shortcomings from the literature review and
consulted experts with the following expertise:

Sector Person and Affiliation

Lawyers Focused on Housing Attorney

Policy

Urban Planners & Government Director of PEMP, Ministerio de Cultura

Workers Formerly at the Ministerio de Cultura, worked on early
version of PEMP
Former Secretaria de Habitat

Community Activists Founder of Urbz, a Participatory Planning Organization

Scholars and Researchers on Professor at Universidad Piloto

Planning Attorney -Universidad de Los Andes
Urban law, property and land policies

Expert Consultants Consultant - in the social component of renovation projects

of historical centers
Architect - expert in land management and urban heritage

Small Business Owners Who Las Aguas Focus Group

Serve Long-Term Residents Voto Nacional Focus Group

Juan XXIII Community Juan XXIII Focus Group

Residents Los Olivos Focus Group

El Bronx Community Residents Artist, Banda RAP Bronx

Voto Nacional Focus Group

Las Aguas Community Las Aguas Focus Group

Residents

Other Director of Sexual Diversity, Office of Sexual Diversity of

Bogota
Resident Leader, Territorial Council of the locality of
Mártires

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The research team used an inductive coding process to synthesize the qualitative findings from
audio recordings and urban observation memoranda. Resultant themes support and inform
primary research questions and initial quantitative findings from secondary data sources.

Quantitative findings from four secondary data sources further ground field conclusions. Sección
censal-level data from the 1993 and 2005 Colombian Censuses provide valuable insights into
demographic change at neighborhood and city-wide geographies. Notably, this study excludes
secciones censales not designated as “urban” by Colombia’s National Administrative
Department of Statistics (DANE).1 2011 and 2017 Valores de Referencia data, administered by
the Secretaría Distrital de Planeación de Bogotá D.C, support land value findings. Data
collected from the 2004 and 2016 Clasificación de Predios por Estrato Socio Económico, also
administered by the Secretaría Distrital de Planeación de Bogotá D.C., is employed as an
imperfect proxy for income.

Regrettably, this study concluded before the release of the 2018 Colombian Census. As a
result, the most recent year for which census data is available is 2005. Quantitative
demographic findings are thus significantly older than those of qualitative findings and analysis
of land value data; as such, demographic findings from the census should be understood as
purely descriptive. The below chart illustrates the secciones censales from the 1993 and 2005
censuses used for each case study analysis.

Geographic Area 1993 Urban Secciones ID 2005 Urban Secciones ID

Juan XXIII 820501 820501

El Bronx 410302, 410401, 410402 410302, 410401, 410402

PP Fenicia 310303 310303

Las Aguas 310301, 310302, 310303 310301, 310302, 310303

Voto Nacional 410301, 410302 410301, 410302

La Estanzuela 410401, 410402, 410403, 410404 410401, 410402, 410403, 410404

Eduardo Santos 410501, 410502, 410503, 410504, 410501, 410502, 410503, 410504,
410505, 410506 410505, 410506

Santa Ines 310701 310701, 310702, 310703

San Victorino 610501 610501

San Bernardo 320101, 320102, 320103 320101, 320102, 320103

1
At time of writing no geographic crosswalk file between 1993 and 2006 DANE geographic units was
available. This shortcoming limits the change over time analyses that utilize census data. Research
methods compensate for this disadvantage by evaluating all urban secciones censales that lie within the
boundary shapefiles of the study’s three case study areas and neighborhoods of interest. As a result, the
geographic boundaries compared between 1993 and 2005 are not identical.

12
Land Value trends between 2011 and 2017 are assessed using data from Valores de
Referencia por Metro Cuadrado de Suelo, while land use and estrato changes are examined
through Clasificación de Predios por Estrato Socio Económico for the years 2004 to 2016.
Notably, there is also a discrepancy between the years for which data on land use, land value,
and estrato are available. Thus, conlusions cannot be drawn the same temporal timeline. Land
value, estrato, and land use changes are descriptive and associational.

Publically available Twitter data from 2014 and 2015 informs the El Bronx case study. Twitter
analysis evaluates the frequency of the terms La L and El Bronx within a 0.5-mile buffer of the
neighborhood.2

Neighborhood Change in Bogota

Eight million people call the Capitol District of Bogota home. The metropolitan district is home to
an additional three million.

Neighborhood change happens everywhere, and we’ve taken a relativist approach in order to
fully understand the changes that have occurred in our case study areas. Assessing
neighborhood changes in comparison to citywide trends, we were able to identify where
patterns of change are exceptional, above and beyond what has happened across the city.
These unique changes signal displacement, coupled with gentrification at times. This section
provides an overview of trends and patterns of neighborhood change in Bogota, drawing on
findings from analysis of cadastral, land value, and census data, as well as from our literature
review.

Changes in Estrato Designations Across Bogota

Colombia assigns utility and water rates based on an ordinal system of estrato, with properties
assessed on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest).3 Although designed to subsidize the cost of
services for low-income individuals and families, estrato is actually assigned to residential
buildings based on their assessed value. Factors influencing estrato assignment include the
quality of surrounding homes, whether surrounding streets are paved, the presence of certain
land uses, and facade materials.4

In the absence of census data on income, estrato is sometimes used as a proxy for household
income, albeit with limitations. Notably, the estrato system incentivizes residents of higher-
valued buildings to artificially deflate their classification in order to avoid paying higher service

2
All analyses are for public tweets that are visible to anyone; private tweets (i.e. tweets made by users
who have limited their tweet visibility to followers only) are not included in this analysis.
3
Bogotá utilizes a progressive estrato taxing structure, where fees collected from higher estrato buildings
cross-subsidize lower estratos buildings, resulting in widespread water and utility access. Estrato 1, 2,
and 3 receive subsidies at 50%, 40%, and 15%, respectively. Estrato 4 pays the true cost, estrato 5 pay a
10% surcharge, and estrato 6 pay a 20% surcharge (Komives et al. 2005).
4
Formulario de Estratificación, provided by Professor Diego Silva Ardila, former Subdirector at DANE.

13
fees. Some scholars speculate that decreases in estrato are symptomatic of a corrupt political
system, whereby residents vote for a political candidate in exchange for a promised decrease in
estrato.5 Supporting this claim are findings from a World Bank study of household surveys
showing that the percentage of lower estrato households increased disproportionately beyond
what could be explained by a change in poverty rate during the period 1994 to 2004, (Komives
et al 2005). Since estrato is a significant determinant of where individuals choose to and are
able to live, it is a suitable proxy for income (Jessel 2017). Across Bogotá, buildings with lower
estrato cluster in the south and periphery of the city, while buildings with higher estrato are
located in the central core and northern parts of Bogotá, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Geographic Distribution of Estrato in Bogota, 2016

Source: Cadastral Data 2016

5
Diego Silva Ardila, 2019

14
Figure 2: Estrato changes

Source: Cadastral Data 2004-2016

Evaluating changes in estrato is useful for the study of gentrification and displacement
because they document the presence of new construction and upgrades. Areas where
estrato increases beyond the citywide average signal gentrification or displacement (Figure 2).
The share of estrato changes across Bogotá are both sparse and modest. Generally, a
miniscule proportion of residential parcels change estrato: between 2004 and 2016 only 0.4% of
all residential parcels changed estrato, 90% of which increased or decreased by only one level.
Tellingly, properties in Bogotá are increasing at a proportion higher than they are decreasing,
signaling prevalent residential upgrading and new construction. Increases of two estrato
classifications or more thus signal significant upgrading or new construction, and thereby higher
service fees. Augmenting the distribution of estrato to the disadvantage of lower classifications
constitutes a real increase in the cost of living as well as a reduction in the amount of properties
available for low-income households.
Most estrato changes between 2004 and 2016 shifted by one classification level, but the
degree of change between each estrato varied (Figure 3).
● Lower estratos experienced changes disproportionate to higher estratos. Fewer
buildings of estrato 4, 5, and 6 experienced changes compared to buildings of estrato 1,
2, and 3. This may be indicative of more redevelopment activity among low-estrato
buildings, either through devaluation during the construction or renovation process to
reduce service fees, or because the upgrading of lower estrato properties could yield a
higher return on investment.

● Estrato 1 residences experienced the least varied and most modest change. An
overwhelming share (99%) of estrato 1 parcels increased by one classification.

● A greater share of estrato 2 and 3 residences decreased estrato, even though

more residences as a whole increased by one estrato. Slightly more than half of all
estrato 2 and 3 residences decreased by one estrato, even though Bogotá as a whole is

15
 experiencing rising land values. This finding may support anecdotal evidence of
politically motivated estrato decreases and the intentional devaluation of land.

● Estrato 4 residences experienced the largest share of categorical increase and the
smallest share of categorical decrease. Three quarters of estrato 4 residences in
2004 were re-classified as estrato 5 in 2016.

Figure 3: Bogota Estrato Change of Residential Parcels (2004-2016)

16
The “Rent Gap” in Bogota: Mismatch Between Estrato and Land
Value

Laying the Theoretical Groundwork

Neil Smith’s (1979) rent gap theory explains how gentrification occurs within a regional housing
market. The rent gap illustrates the difference between a parcel’s capitalized land rent, or land
value, and the potential rent from a “higher and best use.” The renovation of existing structures,
redevelopment, or upgrades and investments to the surrounding built environment are
examples of uses that command higher rents. The rent gap forms as the result of neighborhood
disinvestment relative to the dynamics of the broader regional housing market, planning
decisions, and economic activities. Disinvestment may be a result of “circuits of capital”,
whereby areas are abandoned as investors seek higher returns in other geographies, or
because of policy decisions that concentrate investment in certain neighborhoods while
simultaneously dispelling it from others, or a combination of both.6 Although disinvestment may
occur over decades, revalorization and the realization of potential land rent can occur rapidly.
Gentrification occurs when the rent gap is partially or wholly closed (Figure 4).7 These two
processes are intertwined and cannot be thought of separately. The creation, evolution,
realization, and closure of the rent gap is a process of capitalist expansion that exploits spatial
difference and renders gentrification an inherently relational phenomena.

Figure 4: The Rent Gap

Source: Neil Smith (1979) Toward a Theory of Gentrification a Back to the City Movement by
Capital, not People

6
Harvey, David. “The Urban Process under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis.” International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 2, no. 1–3, Mar. 1978, pp. 101–31. onlinelibrary.wiley.com,
doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.1978.tb00738.x.
7
Neil Smith (1979) Toward a Theory of Gentrification A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not
People, Journal of the American Planning Association, 45:4, 538-548, DOI: 10.1080/01944367908977002

17
Relationship Between Bogotá Residential Estrato (2016) and Land Values
(2017)
In Bogotá, the relationship between estrato designation and land value may represent a type of
rent gap. The greater the difference between estrato and land value, the larger the rent gap—
and potential redevelopment profit.
Data from 2016 and 2017 show that land value varies within estrato levels, particularly
estrato 3 (Figure 5).
● Estrato 1 buildings are consistent in land value throughout the city. The land value
of estrato 1 residences are relatively low and the distribution of land values is small.

● Estrato 2 and 3 buildings are experiencing rising land values, although some have
retained their estrato status (Figure 6). Estrato 2 buildings have the greatest
distribution and the highest land values. Notably, the highest-valued land of estrato 2
buildings is worth twice that of the highest-valued land of buildings within estrato 4. High-
valued properties within estrato 2 may be attributable to outliers that absorb locational
advantages; making that determination would require further qualitative research.8

8
For example, perhaps some estrato 3 buildings are very centrally located, near desirable amenities, or
near major transportation networks, but are still assessed at estrato 3 due to the nature and quality of the
building itself. However, the parcel of this estrato 3 building may reflect high land values due to its
locational advantage.

18
Figure 5: Distribution of 2017 Land Value (COP/sq ft) by 2016 Estrato

Source: Cadastral Data 2011-2017

X axis: Estrato in 2016

Y Axis: change in COP/sq ft

19
Figure 6: Distribution of Land Value Change (2011-2017, COP/sq ft) by Estrato (2016)

Figure 7 illustrates the development of the rent gap in Bogotá relative to land value and estrato
between 2011 and 2017. The map charts changes in land value relative to the average for each
estrato. The value of parcels in dark red increased by three standard deviations more than
parcels of the same estrato. The value of parcels in red increased by two standard deviations
more than parcels of the same estrato, and so forth. Dark red parcels have thus seen the
greatest relative increases in value over the study period and may thus be understood as more
vulnerable to displacement. Interestingly, orange, red, and dark red parcels concentrate along
the urban periphery, reflecting the trend of outward population growth and urban expansion.
There are few parcels in the center where land values are increasing but estrato has remained
low. Those that do exist are among the few remaining housing options for low-income
Bogotanos proximate jobs, economic activity, and other urban resources. Each of the three
case studies in this report includes parcels with land values that have increased two and three
standard deviations more than the citywide average.

20
Figure 7: Ratio between land value change (2011 - 2017) and estrato in 2016

Source: Cadastral Data 2011-2017. Adjusted for inflation

Parcels with few uses are valued at or above the typical Bogotá parcel (Figure 8). Publicly-
owned lots, public spaces, and “urbanized but not built” parcels reflect Bogotá’s average parcel
value, while parking lots are valued higher than the average urban parcel. The inflated value of
“unproductive” land uses reflects the shortage of greenfield development opportunities and the
built-out nature of the city’s real estate market.

21
Commercial uses, parking lots, and “private service” parcels are valued significantly higher than
residential properties in terms of COP / square foot, as well as appreciation over time.

Figure 8: Land Value (2017) and Change in Land Value (2011 - 2017) by Land Use

Source: Cadastral Data 2011-2017. Adjusted for inflation

Changes in Demographic Characteristics Across Bogota, 1993 -

2005
Census data in Colombia is highly political. The most recent publicly-available national census
dates to 2005, but never received federal approval. Data from the 2018 census is still
forthcoming, and thus could not inform this study. As such, the data represented below largely
reflects a period of time preceding many of the planning initiatives introduced and highlighted in
this report. Despite this, demographic trends over time help to elucidate turn-of-the-century
demographic and housing changes in Bogotá, as well as at the case study-level. Analysis of
census data from 1993 and 2005 shows a significant increase in population, an aging
population, and a modest increase in the percentage of the population with some level of
post-secondary education. The proportion of households living in apartments also
increased during this period.

22
Population Increases:
The population of Bogotá increased by 37% between 1993 and 2005, from 4.9 to 6.8 million
people. Of the localities in which Our case studies are located in the localities of Los Martires,
Santa Fe, La Candelaria, and Chapinero (Juan XXIII and Los Olivos). Figure 9 shows that
population growth has concentrated along the urban periphery. Figure 10 displays population
per square kilometer, and illustrates densification along the southwestern and northwestern
limits of the Bogotá. Growth and densification in the center of the city, where the majority of this
report’s research has focused, is modest.

Figure 9: Population comparison from 1993 to 2005 in Bogota

23
Figure 10: Density comparisons from 1993 to 2005

24
Figure 11: Between 1993 and 2005, Bogota got older.

Figure 12: Access to Services

Access to major services in the home increased across Bogotá between 1993 and 2005. The
majority of households (98-99%) have access to electricity, drinking water, and sewage.

25
Figure 13: Housing Type
The share of households that reported living in apartments increased from 35% in 1993 to 51%
in 2005. The proportion of households living in shared quarters increased by 4%. This
significant shift shows a trend towards multi-family dwellings and shared living spaces. Taken
together with findings from the literature review, this figure represents the migration of low-
income households to condominiums and multi-family housing.

Figures 14 & 15 : 1 in 5 Bogotanos Have Higher Education9

The share of the population with some level of post-secondary education increased by 5%
between 1993 and 2005. This change occurred despite, or because of, an aging population.

9
Universe for educational attainment is population over the age of 3. 1993 educational attainment
categories included the following: ninguno, preescolar, primaria, secundaria, professional, y posgrado.
2005 educational attainment categories were aggregated to match those from 1993. Secundaria, media
tecnica, media clasica, y normalista were combined into secundaria; profesional, tecnologia, tecnico
profesional were combined into profesional; maestria, especializ y doctorado were combined into
posgrado.

26
Figure 15: Educational Attainment in Bogota, 1993 & 2005

Figure 16: Work status in the last week

27
The literature shows that access to job opportunities and commute times to employment centers
are significant obstacles for low-income Bogotanos. For those vulnerable to growth along the
urban periphery, stable income is especially important in a time of rising land values and land
scarcity. Of additional concern, however, is that the working population decreased by eight
percent from 1993 to 2005. Although this may be attributable to the city’s aging population, it
does not account for overall population growth. Compounded, these findings indicate that the
employment rate is decreasing at the same time that the urban cost of living is increasing.

Case Studies
Extreme case studies are useful because they reflect accelerated cause and effect dynamics that might
otherwise require decades to observe” (Benvenisti 1982: 5)

The three case studies of Juan XXIII / Los Olivos, Las Aguas, and La L represent low- to
moderate-income neighborhoods in high-valued districts of Bogotá. Compounded with the city’s
land scarcity and few remaining greenfield development opportunities, their residents are
uniquely vulnerable to displacement and gentrification.

Case study neighborhoods were selected based on residents’ experiences relative to the style
of tabula rasa redevelopment characteristic to Bogotá, and more generally Latin America. Of
interest are the factors that have accelerated or delayed displacement in these neighborhoods.
The comparative study of Juan XXIII and Los Olivos demonstrates the significance of powerful
leadership and cohesive community organizing in the face of broad-stroke urban
redevelopment. The tragic story of El Bronx illustrates the invaluable nature of narrative
construction, and the deleterious effects of urban renewal on already precarious, marginalized,
and stigmatized communities. Finally, ongoing negotiations between community and institutional
stakeholders in Las Aguas attest to the importance of formal protections, community benefits
agreements, and broad public involvement in not only the prevention of displacement, but also
for project feasibility.

It is hoped that the lessons of this study can better inform understandings of gentrification and
displacement in the Global North as well as Bogotá. Although US and European scholarship
has already come to snub its nose at the concept of urban renewal, Bogotá is an important
reminder of the social impacts of plans and projects of significant size and scope.

28
Case Study 1: Juan XXIII and Los Olivos

Neighborhood Context

Juan XXIII is highlighted in blue and Los Olivos is highlighted in red.

Juan XXIII and Los Olivos are estrato 2 communities built on the edges of Bogota’s eastern
foothills in the locality of Chapinero Alto (Figure 17). Both neighborhoods emerged as small
informal settlements, but have grown significantly in population10 (Herrera and Fabian 2015).
Juan XXIII’s population has increased by 33 percent, or 1,200 residents, while Los Olivos’
population increased by over a hundred families by 2017 (Yunda & Sletto 2017). The state
subsequently granted legal recognition and extended public services to Juan XXIII in 1989 and
Los Olivos in the early 1990s (Plazas 2005; Yunda & Sletto 2017; Interview). Even though
market forces constitute the main pressure of displacement in eastern Chapinero, these two
communities experience completely different displacement outcomes (Everett 2001; Interview).

10
Juan XXIII was founded by 10 families displaced from the countryside by a dam project who then
constructed their own homes from stones hewn from the mountain (Interview)

29
Figure 17. Residential Estrato Surrounding Juan XXIII (2016)

Displacement and Gentrification Vulnerabilities

Displacement pressures have been increasing in Juan XXIII and Los Olivos for at least a
decade. A zoning change in the early 2000s opened the door to greenfield development, and
enabled private developers to transform many of the surrounding auto-construction
neighborhoods and greenfields into high-rise, luxury housing for the urban elite (Yunda & Sletto
2017). Subsequently, Juan XIII and Los Olivos are among the few estrato 2 neighborhoods in a
part of the city where residential parcels have increased by 2-4 estrato classifications, and
where the majority of residents live in housing classified as estrato 4, 5, and 6. As their
neighbors and the environment around them change, residents say the social tension is
obvious. “They [in the adjacent Rosales neighborhood] do not like our life, the music… but
unfortunately, we arrived before them” (Resident of Juan XXIII).

30
Figure 18. Change in Residential Estrato Surrounding Juan XXIII (2011-2017)

The tension that residents feel is also evident in the rent gap. Juan XXIII and Los Olivos
are concentrated units of land value / estrato mismatch, with the majority of neighborhood
parcels sitting at one, two, or three standard deviations above the city average (Figure 19).
Peripheral parcels on the roads that ring Juan XXIII demonstrate the largest rent gaps, which
may be explained by the city’s insatiable desire for more commercial property. Of greater
interest, however, is that the neighborhood has garnered high land values despite a three-floor
cap on building heights. Residential properties of estrato 4, 5, and 6 in the Juan XXIII and Los
Olivos areas, as well as area commercial property, are valued higher than the Bogotá average.

31
Figure 19. Ratio of Land Value Change (2011-2017) and Estrato (2016) Surrounding Juan XXIII

Figure 20. Land Value By Building Estrato (2017)

32
 Source: 2017 Valores de Referencia

Scant development opportunities and near-total build out have produced similar market effects
as seen at the citywide level. Like Bogotá as a whole, parking lots and commercial properties in
Juan XXIII are far more valuable than residential land uses. Dotacional Privado and Dotacional
Público, also non-residential land use typologies, are next to top the list of most valuable
properties for which prices continue to rise (Figure 21). In a neighborhood that is primarily
residential, unfettered increases in non-residential land and property values pose a serious
threat of displacement for the neighborhood’s long-time and low-income residents.

Figure 21. Land Value (2017) and Change in Land Value (2011 - 2017) By Land Use in Juan
XXIII

Source: 2011, 2017 Valores de Referencia

Those at risk of displacement have few affordable housing options elsewhere in

Chapinero. Because Juan XXIII and Los Olivos are estrato 2 communities among estrato 4, 5,
and 6 neighborhoods, displaced residents are more likely to be forced to relocate to low estrato
neighborhoods outside of the Chapinero locality. This indicates a “missing middle” in the area,
with few affordable housing options for low-income and modest-income families. History shows
that even a one-step increase to estrato 3 might prove too much of a burden for existing
residents; previous experiences after retitling similar formerly informal properties in Chapinero
Alto left residents unable to pay their utility bills, and forced them to sell their homes (Everett
2001).

33
City investment in Juan XXIII may have led to increased development pressures. The fact
that nearly 100 percent of households within Juan XXIII have access to basic public services
should come at no surprise, as city-led efforts in the 1990s to formalize informal auto-
construction communities included installing basic public service infrastructure. While these
efforts may have improved living conditions in previously isolated neighborhoods like Juan XXIII
and Los Olivos, they also intensified social and political development pressures in the area.
With the City eliminating the “high” initial costs of neighborhood formalization—estimated at
approximately $5.7 million pesos (~$2,500 USD) per household—the neighborhood became
attractive to private developers, and justified redevelopment to recoup public investment
(Rueda-Garcia 2003).

Figure 22. Access to Sewage and Drinking Water in 2005

The displacement pressures surrounding Juan XXIII show no signs of slowing down. An
informal analysis Google Street View images points to ongoing high-rise, high-estrato
development activity in Chapinero Alto and surrounding Juan XXIII and Los Olivos. These
images also reveal renovations of both residential and commercial property not reflected in
cadastral data.

34
Figure 23. Residential Development Surrounding Juan XXIII: New Construction (2013-2018)

Note: No Land Use Conversion, residential to residential. Source: Google Street View

Figure 24. Residential Development Surrounding Juan XXIII: New Construction (2012-2018)

Note: No Land Use Conversion, residential to

residential. Source: Google Street View

35
Figure 25. Residential Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Facade Upgrade (2012-2018)

Note: No Land Use Conversion, residential to

residential. Source: Google Street View

Figure 26. Commercial Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Facade Upgrade (2012-2018)

Source: Google Street View

Figure 27. Commercial Renovation Surrounding Juan XXIII: Construction of Additional Floor and
Outdoor Living Space (2012-2018)

Note: No Land Use Conversion, commercial to

commercial. Source: Google Street View

36
Community Resistance to Threats of Displacement

Public and Private Development Mechanisms in Los Olivos Led to Displacement

As rumors of redevelopment and buy-outs spread confusion through the streets of Los Olivos,
the neighborhood’s many “exceptionally determined and strong” leaders were unable to agree
on a course of action. “They all threw for different sides,” one remaining resident recalls. “None
spoke the same language.”

In the mid-2000s, major news outlets in Bogotá began reporting that private developers were
offering community leaders as many as 1 million pesos for each family they convinced to leave
(Vargas 2010). A resident of Juan XXIII recounted how developers worked to manipulate prices,
first negotiating a price with community representatives only to then make a lower offer to the
actual title-holder. “When the first [person in Los Olivos] left, he left with 700 [million pesos]. And
look at those who stayed: they told me [they’re offered] 40 and 30.”

City interventions under the leadership of then-mayor Gustavo Petro attempted to expropriate
residents’ homes in exchange for new and better quality housing on the same site (Valenzuela
and Téllez Oliveros 2014). This program, Metrovivienda, provided residents with compensation
much less than the earlier private developers, and drew a negative response from residents in
these contested area (Gómez 2015).

Many residents of Los Olivos have sold their homes under mounting public and private
development pressures in the last 10 years. The neighborhood has served as a sad example for
residents of Juan XXIII, who watched as a strategy of “divide and conquer” scattered the Los
Olivos community and destroyed its local economy. Now that the neighborhood’s small
businesses have closed, the residents who remain must travel down the hill to the city center, or
next door to Juan XXIII, for even the most basic of goods.

Those who remain in Los Olivos are effectively “locked-in” by a fiduciary agreement. Fiduciaries,
or fiducias, are third-party trusts responsible for the good-faith holding of individual or
community assets, typically those invested in property. As a product of the financial industry,
fiducias may be administered by either a public or private financial institution. Legally required
for projects over a certain value, the fiducia system was created to protect investors and restore
confidence in the real estate and construction industries following the 1990s market crash.
Residents of a redevelopment area do not typically have agency in the fiduciary selection
process or its negotiation terms, however. Furthermore, the financial institutions that provide
and administer fiduciary products may also be investing in speculative real estate initiatives
contradictory to their clients’ interests.

Residents of Los Olivos, like residents of districts declared planes parciales, had no choice in
the selection of the fiduciary responsible for administering their assets. At time of writing, the
fiducia holds the property titles of nearly all remaining residents of Los Olivos. Construction on
new homes cannot begin until all neighborhood property owners consent to the agreement and
transfer their titles to the fiducia, and the developer secures additional capital for the project.

37
Residents have grown increasingly frustrated as the years without construction—and property
titles—have dragged on. While participating in a focus group in the neighborhood, residents
shared that they are unable to take out loans for home improvement or to finance their
children’s education during the interim period because they do not have property titles.
Residents said that they have not received adequate information about the project’s estimated
start or completion dates. A flawed public process and poor information-sharing mechanisms
have eroded resident trust in public institutions, and left them feeling dejected and disrespected.
“We need the dates,” stated one resident. “Without the dates this is just a vision.”

“We are not property owners of anything. The fiduciary is the property owner. We do not
have anything. We have no date for when to move. We do not have an agreement to
hand over.” - Los Olivos Resident

Residents of Los Olivos are now stuck in limbo. They do not hold their property titles and have
limited access to capital. In the period of time during which they await the completion of their
new homes and the return of their property titles, residents struggle to maintain their houses and
combat perceived state disinvestment. Residents reported that trash is piling up at the
entrances of the neighborhood, and that security is declining in the absence of police presence.
At the same time, recently built multi-story apartment towers replacing other auto-construction
homes and greenfields overshadow the neighborhood. Resident requests not to photograph the
area, and high walls around remaining properties, are some of the self-imposed security
mechanisms that may well end up amplifying the community’s invisibility.

Residential Mobilization in Juan XXIII is Effective at Resisting Displacement

Unlike Los Olivos, the Juan XXIII community has remained largely untouched by new
development. The community credits deep social cohesion as a protective factor against the risk
of displacement. Residents spoke about the strength of their tejido social, or social fabric, such
that “when there is a death [in the community], the whole neighborhood goes to that family.”
Leaders and residents of Juan XXIII hope that through a unified strategy they can resist the
painful displacement experienced by Los Olivos.

“Once you lose all your resources, you lose the feeling of belonging.” - Juan XXIII
Resident

Concerted community outreach and resident capacity building maintain and facilitate the
neighborhood’s strong social cohesion. The community holds many activities in a collectively-
built event hall, and a local pastor opens up space in their church as a refuge for youth and
other vulnerable residents. An extreme example of community capacity-building includes
learning from the experience of outside intermediary offers to purchase property. On one
occasion, a community member recorded their interaction with the intermediary and shared it
with their neighbors to discuss what happened and strategize for the future.

38
Today’s leaders are acutely aware of the importance of generational exchange in social
cohesion and belonging: “Those who are left to protest are very few,” says one community
leader. “We always end up the same because there is no sense of belonging. Those who did
[protest]... most have already died or gone to other neighborhoods...The seniors that remain are
now very few.” Juan XXIII hopes to engage younger generations in the struggle to remain in
their neighborhood. The church has worked with 115 muralists and 182 volunteers to paint
murals on neighborhood buildings. A Facebook page, Juan XXIII Junta Acción Comunal, helps
publicize community events and share memories of founding elders and local histories. These
activities succeed in amplifying the neighborhood’s vision among not only existing residents, but
also externally across other parts of the city.

Strategic capacity-building and anti-displacement efforts have produced close relationships

between residents, local academics, and activists. One academic now brings university student
groups to low estrato neighborhoods like Juan XXIII in order to situate these communities in the
broader context of Bogotá. Another helped write a Wikipedia page about the neighborhood’s
history. Residents have taken education into their own hands, teaching local children how to
read and critique plans to identify housing typologies and public space. In contrast to Los
Olivos, Juan XXIII is actively working to increase its visibility in the city, and to break down
social barriers and obstacles to the transfer of institutional knowledge.

Patrimonio Popular As An Anti-Displacement Tool

Patrimonio popular is a cultural and community preservation policy that scholars and Juan XXIII
residents believe could be a valuable anti-displacement tool. Although it may not fit the mold of
traditional heritage districts, Juan XXIII is a prime example of Colombian cultural history that
would otherwise be forgotten. A Juan XXIII resident stated that they have been working on the
effort to establish the neighborhood as a district of patrimonio popular for approximately four
years, and that they hope the heritage distinction will stall displacement. Unlike historic heritage
preservation, this distinction would allow residents to make changes to their property and obtain
services at a fairer cost.

The latest iteration of the POT includes a proposal to approve patrimonio popular for a selected
number of neighborhoods, including Juan XXIII. The City has already granted the designation to
neighborhoods in the southern part of Bogotá. It is unclear whether the government would use
this designation to protect a neighborhood like Juan XXIII, where the potential profit margins are
very high.

Conclusion
Juan XXIII and Los Olivos provide two comparative approaches to the experience of
development pressure. Whereas both exemplify protracted threats of displacement and possibly
ongoing gentrification, they have approached the issue from vastly different directions. As a
result, Los Olivos is now a splintered community, with some residents displaced and others
locked in for an indeterminate amount of time. Juan XXIII has so far resisted displacement
through community mobilization, but is consciously aware of their aging leadership.

39
Neighborhood residents are arming themselves with knowledge and external partnerships to
resist public and private mechanisms threatening displacement, while also exploring the policy
tools that could provide protection. These tools have thus far helped Juan XXIII to stay in their
homes. The neighborhood is not an island, however, and at some point it will need to adapt to
the needs of internal growth, as well as those of other lower-income families seeking affordable
housing in the area.

Case Study 2: La L/El Bronx

Neighborhood Context
The El Bronx case study area is located in the historic center of Bogota, on the western edge of
the locality Los Martires, close in proximity to the localities of Santa Fe and Candelaria. El Bronx
is in close proximity to the municipio (city administrative buildings) and historical landmarks,
such as Plaza Bolivar. In 2005, El Bronx had a residential population of approximately 4,055
people. At this time, more than a third of households reported living in shared quarters and only
8% of the population had attained some level of post-secondary education, contrasting Bogota
as a whole. Residents in El Bronx also did not have the same level of access to services such
as gas and telephones compared to others living in Bogota. Overall, El Bronx has a relatively
young age distribution, low post-secondary educational attainment, and high rates of
households living in both multifamily dwellings and shared quarters. Demographic
characteristics of El Bronx may reflect both the consequences of the area’s previous
experiences of urban renewal and displacement, as well as additional vulnerability to further
displacement.

In 2005, 34% of El Bronx residents lived in shared quarters, much greater than the city average
of 4%. Many El Bronx residents who were living in shared quarters were in camarotes, informal
housing where boarders rented floor space in a communal room to sleep on and paid around
5.000 COP per night (Interview with community member 2019). Dozens of residents shared a
common room each night within camarotes and those residents are colloquially known as gente
en la calle. In contrast, there were also gente de la calle, residents in El Bronx who were unable
to afford rent in camarotes and instead lived on the streets in El Bronx.

40
On May 28, 2016, during the hours of dawn while most Bogotanos slept a 18-hour government
sponsored raid commenced and displaced 3,000 residents and razed 62 buildings.

Displacement and Gentrification Vulnerabilities

Government disinvestment and the creation of informality

Prior to the raids of 2016, El Bronx was a neighborhood that lacked government investment in
its infrastructure and its residents.

For example, only 50% of El Bronx’s residents have telephone access, compared to the
citywide average of 90% (Figure 28). Similarly, while 80% of households within Bogota are
equipped with natural gas connections, less than 30% of households within the El Bronx case
study area have access to natural gas.

Figure 28. Services in El Bronx compared to other case study areas, 2005

Focus group participants who were residents of El Bronx prior to the 2016 raid consistently
mentioned the idea that the city intentionally deteriorated the neighborhood and purposely
turned a blind eye towards keeping the area safe. People who lived in El Bronx faced social
precariousness and were often low-income. Because of the lack of formal economic
opportunities in the area, gente en la calle and gente de la calle were often involved in the
informal economy, namely sex work and selling illicit substances. In the eyes of the city
government, this was a blighted neighborhood. In the words of one member of El Bronx focus
group, “It is the intention of the government to maintain these spaces as unsafe spaces, ugly
spaces, where there is high drug consumption...so that people fear passing by here.” The
participant also stated that it is the city’s plan to keep the area in poverty in order to “devalue
land prices to later buy it all up [to] build ‘super buildings.’” Another participant pointed out that
the apartment the focus group was taking place in was worth 50,000 pesos, roughly 17 US
dollars, to the owners who had purchased it just two years prior, showing decreasing land
values, which an anomaly given the city’s overall increases in land value. Government

41
disinvestment, which leads to informality and precariousness, is therefore an active investment
in gentrification opportunities in the future.

Despite the public narrative about the neighborhood and intentional government disinvestment,
El Bronx was a safe space for drug users and transgender communities who had been
marginalized in other parts of the city. Indeed, the residents of El Bronx created social codes of
conduct to fill in the gaps in service left by the formal government; in the absence of police
presence, there were unspoken rules that residents followed. For example, participants from a
El Bronx focus group stated that no one was allowed to rob homes or consume certain drugs
that would make them aggressive, such as pegamento. While El Bronx and their residents had
found ways to adapt to state disinvestment, the urban renewal of the neighborhood shifted their
state of precariousness to immediate vulnerability because the residents were not able to resist
displacement in the face of military intervention.

“For many people, it was the only place where they would see us as normal, because in the rest
of Bogota they would call us thieves, vicious, or disposable.”

History of Urban Renewal

The 2016 El Bronx raids are part of a context of urban renewal in this area. In 1999 during his
first mayoral term, Enrique Penalosa authorized state military raids in El Cartucho, a
neighborhood next to El Bronx. El Cartucho was a residential neighborhood that similarly had
residents who were in precarious social situations; some were economically marginalized and
worked in the informal drug and sex economy. While the residents had created social ties and
order within El Cartucho, Penalosa actively promoted the image of El Cartucho as a site of
urban decay and crime. As the public perception of El Cartucho became stigmatized and
characterized as a hotbed of illicit activity, justification for public intervention grew. In 1999, El
Cartucho was razed through violent military intervention; a total of 28 buildings were destroyed
and 300 residents were displaced.

Urban renewal of El Cartucho opened up the neighborhood to be redeveloped as public space

for public use. Parque Tercer Milenio currently stands where El Cartucho formerly existed.
Focus group participants looked back at the Parque Tercer Milenio project unfavorably. One
participant shared, “There’s people buried under Tercer Milenio Park but the government didn’t
even care about saying a prayer for them.” Participants emphasized how the discourse has
changed over time from the days of El Cartucho to El Bronx raid, “It went from ‘We need more
public space’ [regarding El Cartucho becoming Parque Tercer Milenio] to ‘We need to make
room for the Orange Economy.”

Many of the residents who were forcibly evicted and displaced from their homes in El Cartucho
resettled in El Bronx. Changes between the 1993 and 2005 census capture changes the history
of displacement as a result of the raids on El Cartucho (Figure 29). Compared to Bogota’s 37%
population increase, The El Cartucho locality of Los Martires only experienced a 10% population
increase. However other neighborhoods in Los Martires that surround El Cartucho, such as
Voto Nacional and La Estanzuela – where El Bronx is – increased by 22% and 26%

42
respectively. The population shifts likely reflect the forcible displacement and continual
vulnerability of residents from El Cartucho to El Bronx.

Figure 29: Population changes around El Bronx

Urban renewal as tabula rasa for La Economia Naranja

History was repeated on May 28, 2016 as 2,000 national military soldiers forcibly evicted 3,000
people from El Bronx and bulldozed 62 estates (Sharkey 2016; The World Weekly, 2017). As a
result of this urban renewal effort, the future of El Bronx is actively being cultivated to reflect the
the mayoral administration’s interests in growing the creative economy, or La Economia
Naranja, in which the arts and entertainment represent economic engines for the area as
opposed to traditional industries, such as manufacturing (Florida 2010). While the perception of
El Bronx had been colored by the media as being a place of drug dealing and sex work, the
razing of this neighborhood provided a clean slate for the Mayoral administration to project a
new narrative onto the area.

Within a few months of the raid, residents began hanging banners overhead announcing the
future El Bronx Distrito Creativo, slated to open in 2021. El Bronx Distrito Creativo is a
placemaking effort directed by the City of Bogota to localize La Economia Naranja within El
Bronx; the Distrito Creativo is intended to focus on cultivating art, technology, research and
development sectors within El Bronx. While El Bronx is first demonstration site for La Economia
Naranja, Colombia’s President, Ivan Duque Márquez, has made it a national goal for industries
within La Economia Naranja to generate 10% of Colombia’s GDP in the future. Several
congressional bills that provide investment opportunities and tax deductions for businesses
within the creative industry are moving forward with the support of President Duque;
additionally, Bogota has developed a myriad of public-private partnerships to create
placemaking events within the newly razed El Bronx neighborhood to promote ideas of a
creative district, including concerts and art walks (Peña 2018; Sonnel, 2018).

The urban renewal razing of El Bronx in 2016 has paved the way for the current efforts to
rebrand the area as El Bronx Distrito Creativo. As the creative economy continues to be
developed within Bogota, El Bronx’s razing and current placemaking serve as clear examples of
these efforts. Other neighborhoods in the city could be at risk of urban renewal as the city’s
leaders contemplate implementing La Economia Naranja in other areas.

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State-Dominated Narratives: What’s in a name?
The case study of El Bronx in particular provides a clear example of how the state attempts to
control the narrative of a community in order to aid its efforts in urban renewal. Here it even
plays out in the name of the neighborhood itself. During the focus group, some of the youth said
“El Bronx” was originally called and is known by ex-residents as “La L.” According to the youth,
the motive behind renaming it “El Bronx” was to plant an image in people’s minds of a
neighborhood with an overwhelming amount of crime and drugs--similar to the image of the
Bronx, NY in the 1970s--and generate fear among Bogotanos. In the words of one participant,
there weren’t just drug users in El Bronx. “Inside there were families... 80, 90 year olds...also
children.” They identified their neighborhood as La L, and even had community traditions
including tamales on Saturday to bring people together. They shared that there was social
cohesion in the neighborhood, including codes of conduct that residents abided by.

Although the exact moment when the renaming took place remains unclear, the name “El
Bronx” only entered the conversation slightly prior to the 2016 raid. The fact that our team never
came across the name “La L” in the process of obtaining more information for this case study
could be evidence of how successfully pervasive this new name, promoted by the government,
became.
The extent of the success of the rebranding is also reflected in how individuals refer to the
neighborhood via social media platforms like Twitter. Of the 54,638 tweets sent by residents
within the El Bronx boundary in 2014 and 2015, 12 mentioned the term “El Bronx” and one
mentioned the term “La L.” Of the 238,109 tweets sent by non-residents outside the El Bronx
boundary during this same time period, 6 mentioned the term "El Bronx" and 5 mentioned the
term "La L." “El Bronx” is more commonly used by both non-residents and residents. While a
very small sample size, this analysis provides a glimpse in how citizens refer to the community
and further demonstrates the success of the rebranding.

Market Vulnerability Contributes to Displacement & Gentrification

The social vulnerability of residents who lived in El Bronx were matched by the economic
vulnerability of the neighborhood. In 2017, El Bronx was primarily a commercial neighborhood
with few formally designated residential uses, as shown in Figure 30. Camarotes, or informal
housing, are not captured in the data.

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Figure 30: Estrato surrounding El Bronx (2017)

The figure 31 shows us that as of 2017, El Bronx is a largely commercial neighborhood, with
estrato 2 and 3 residences to its south. Though very few land use conversions have occured
within the Bronx neighborhood, greater activity is occuring proximate to the neighborhood.
Between 2011 and 2017, the area immediately south of El Bronx experienced a large share of
residential to nonresidential conversions, mostly from former estrato 3 residences. These trends
may reflect the slated development plans for El Bronx Distrito Creativo.

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Figure 31: Land Use Conversions in El Bronx/La L (2004 - 2016)

Although the land values within El Bronx have increased at a rate similar to the city, proximate
neighborhoods have experienced varying and diverging land value changes, possibly signifying
intentional deterioration for revalorization. Furthermore, the majority of land value conversions
surrounding El Bronx between 2011 and 2017 have been from residential to commercial, which
may reflect both a decrease in residential capacity and the state’s intention to create a creative
commercial district in the area.

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Since Bogota as a whole has been experiencing increasing land values, even stagnant land
values constitute land devaluation. Various blocks of land that have remained stagnant or
decreased may signal intentional disinvestment for future development, particularly because this
incidence occurs within close spatial proximity to parcels that experienced extremely large land
value increases. Commercial uses, parking lots, and publicly owned land are the most valuable
in the surrounding El Bronx area and surpass Bogota’s average. Whereas Bogota’s typical
commercial use is valued at 96 COP/sqft, the average commercial use surrounding El Bronx is
160 COP/sq ft. Similar to Juan XXIII, parking lots are extremely highly valued in the region,
more than double the price per square foot than the citywide average.

47
Figure 32: Distribution of Land Value Change (2011 - 2017) by Estrato (2016) in El Bronx

Residents of estrato 3 buildings with the highest land value, or greatest increase in land value
across time, may be more vulnerable to development and gentrification pressures, as they live
in buildings with the greatest potential profit from development. Coupled with the high rates of
multi-family dwellings and low educational attainment in and around El Bronx, this may further
indicate vulnerability to displacement due to development pressures. Estrato 3 buildings that
experienced a decrease in land value may additionally corroborate resident perceptions of
intentional deterioration, though additional qualitative data collection is needed.

The figure 33 below shows the ratio of land value change between 2011 and 2017 and estrato
in 2016 in and around El Bronx. The higher the ratio, the more vulnerable the area may be to
development pressures and gentrification. Since most of El Bronx’s land use is commercial, it is
difficult to discern the rent gap between the estrato designation and land value within the
neighborhood. However, in the areas south of El Bronx, several parcels demonstrate a major
discrepancy between the building’s estrato designation and its underlying land value, signaling
that there is potential profit to be made from redevelopment of those parcels. Because of this,
the area immediately south of El Bronx may be at risk of gentrification.

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Figure 33: Ratio of Land Value Change (2011-2017) and Estrato (2016) Surrounding El Bronx

Conclusion
El Bronx is a resonant story in cities around the world: the government’s desire for development
and investment jeopardizes residents’ right to their neighborhood. This case study highlights
how urban renewal is the final stage in a long process to actively divest a neighborhood of its
ability to resist displacement. Residents of El Bronx faced numerous social vulnerabilities that
were exacerbated by the city government’s lack of services to the area. While informal
networks, economies, and codes of conduct provided order and structure to the neighborhood,
the mayoral administration repeatedly created a false narrative of crime and fear in order to
undermine the neighborhood’s reputation. The land use changes and rent gap between the land
value and estrato designation of the surrounding areas point to the economic and market
vulnerabilities of the neighborhood as well. This case exemplifies the role that land use change,
estrato change, and lack of access to services play in accelerating gentrification and
displacement. Moreover, it points to the role of negative spillover effects, as well as the effective
strategy of constructing a narrative as a mechanism to accelerate displacement that precedes
gentrification.

In El Bronx, neighborhood change is synonymous with exclusionary planning practices that

accelerate displacement to make the way for future desired gentrification. Through the raids of
2016, the city removed the “blighted” parts of the neighborhood and has been attempting to
scrub the area of its history, rebranding it as a place for El Bronx Distrito Creativo. As El Bronx
continues to be the test bed for the feasibility of La Economia Naranja, its history and treatment

49
by the city government is a harbinger of things to come for neighborhoods in Bogota and
Colombia that are considering implementing similar creative districts.

Clearly, this is a well-known tactic that has been used before in the area by the city government,
as El Cartucho residents underwent similar urban renewal displacement in the raids of 1999.
The history and future trajectory of El Bronx demonstrates the extreme role of city government
to undergo top-down placemaking that prioritizes services to a place rather than services to the
residents.

El Bronx is a resonant story in cities around the world: the government’s desire for development
and investment jeopardizes residents’ right to their neighborhood. This case study highlights
extreme displacement resulting from violence, lack of resources, and then government
intervention and removal. In El Bronx, neighborhood change is synonymous with exclusionary
planning practices that accelerate displacement to make the way for future desired
gentrification. Additionally, El Bronx case exemplifies the role that land use change, estrato
change, and lack of access to services play in accelerating displacement. Moreover, it points to
the role of negative spillover effects, as well as the effective strategy of constructing a narrative
as a mechanism to accelerate displacement that precedes gentrification.

Clearly, the ripple effects that occur when the government conducts an intervention on the place
without taking care of the people results in the majority of focus group participants no longer
being able to live in their homes. They have been displaced to surrounding areas. The youth
who were prior La L residents reported community practices and norms to keep each other safe
in the neighborhood and establish social cohesion. They identified their neighborhood as La L,
and even had community traditions including tamales on Saturday to bring people together. This
stood in contrast to the perception outside the neighborhood of lawlessness and chaos. El
Bronx is an extreme case of planning rhetoric being used to justify urban renewal that fabricates
a tabula rasa.

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Case Study 3: Las Aguas/Triángulo Fenicia

Neighborhood Context

The Las Aguas neighborhood is nestled against the Andes mountains and located in La
Candelaria and Santa Fe localities, immediately northeast of the downtown capitol. Las Aguas
contains the private Universidad de los Andes (UniAndes), Bolivar’s museum house, a hospital,
and an amusement park, in addition to residential buildings. According to 2005 census data, the
neighborhood’s demographics reflect a large student age population, with almost 25% between
20-29 years old and 72% of all residents live in apartments, while 14% live in shared quarters
like dormitories. The neighborhood also has the largest senior population out of all three case
study areas, and higher than average educational attainment (45% had some post-secondary
education, more than double the Bogota average of 21.5%).

Las Aguas has an extensive history of 21st century urban renewal projects. While prior plans
were less successful, the Plan Parcial Triángulo Fenicia (PP Fenicia) focuses on a sub-area of
the neighborhood containing Universidad de Los Andes. PP Fenicia is now common in public
and planning-industry discourse. In 2005, one third of Las Aguas’ population resided within the
PP Fenicia area. While the planning process began as a top-down initiative devoid of citizen
participation, it evolved into a robust, ongoing project that multiple key informants recognize as
exemplary in Bogotá. UniAndes affiliates and professional planners often refer to the area as
Fenicia, while community residents and other members of the public refer to the area as Las
Aguas. In this report, we primarily refer to the larger neighborhood of Las Aguas.

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Gentrification and Displacement Vulnerabilities

History of 21st Century Urban Renewal

Various complicated redevelopment plans dominate the recent history of Las Aguas. In 2004,
the mayor designated the neighborhood as an area for urban renewal, and the Urban Renewal
and Development Company (ERU) and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation
(AECI) signed an agreement to develop in Las Aguas. ERU is a company based in the
Colombian federal government under the Habitat and Housing Secretary, whose main objective
is to execute urban renewal. ERU subsequently acquired a construction license for the project,
purchased over three dozen properties, and began the process of demolishing buildings and
displacing residents. While some resident homeowners declined to sell their homes, several did
agree. The tenants of those who sold their property to ERU now refer to themselves as los
desplazados or “the displaced” (Carolina, 2015). AECI subsequently backed out of the
agreement in 2012 and returned $120,000 USD to ERU, despite the fact that land had already
been cleared and readied for construction (Alcaldia Mayor de Bogota, 2013).

As the Spanish development plan deteriorated, Bogotá’s municipal government proposed a new
plan for urban renewal in Las Aguas. Proposed in 2011, PP Fenicia is a collaboration
spearheaded by UniAndes that hopes to revitalize the area adjacent to the university campus
and to consolidate the commercial center and services (Pinilla et al. 2015, Pinilla 2017). The
plan was ratified in 2014 following extensive public involvement, and is still in progress today.

Despite broad stakeholder involvement, a novelty among planes parciales in Bogotá, PP

Fenicia is still moving relatively slowly. Pinilla (2017) notes that the planning process hopes to
address issues of equity that other urban renewable projects have historically caused.
Furthermore, the diversity of stakeholders included in the planning process have provided
valuable local support increasing the project’s overall feasibility. This model for urban renewal
has the potential to set the floor for future planes parciales not only in Bogotá, but in other
Colombian cities as well.

Communities At-Risk
A concentration of low estrato homes denotes susceptibility to displacement if an
affordable estrato designation and long-term tenureship is not secured. The average Las
Aguas resident lives in a home of estrato 1, 2 or 3. There is a concentration of estrato 1 and 2
homes along the northern periphery of the PP Fenicia site. While estrato designations have
remained stable in Las Aguas for the last decade, rising land values put pressure on new
development and infrastructure improvements, suggesting this may change.11 Figure 35 shows
that the greatest land value increases are occurring within the lowest estrato neighborhood.
Moreover, land value increases in this estrato 1 and 2 community are accelerating at a faster
pace than Bogotá as a whole. This growth in the rent gap signals the threat of displacement. A
large difference between current estrato and growing land values signals amenable market

11
No Las Aguas residential parcels changed estrato status between 2004-2016 based on Cadastral data
analysis

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conditions for redevelopment, putting existing residents in a precarious state if their tenure and
right to remain is not secured.

Figure 34. Estrato Surrounding Las Aguas (2016)

Source: Land Use and Estrato Data 2004-2016

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Figure 35. Ratio of Land Value Change (2011 - 2017) and Estrato (2016) Surrounding Las
Aguas

Source: Cadastral Data 2011-2017. Adjusted for inflation

Figure 36. Las Aguas Estrato 1 Neighborhood

Source: Google Street View 2012

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Development Patterns Signaling Gentrification
Las Aguas’ commercial uses and undeveloped land are the most highly valued,
becoming more expensive than residential uses. Las Aguas’ greenfield, Urbanizable No
Urbanizado, and brownfield, Urbanizado No Edificado, parcels are valued greater than the
typical Bogotá parcel within the same land use category. These parcels have no formal active
use, but are liable for future redevelopment. Highly valued undeveloped land may be indicative
of a surrounding hot real estate market. High value, underutilized parcels may also reflect
speculative expectation of anticipated development in the area surrounding UniAndes. Although
residential land value is not rapidly increasing compared to other uses, the estrato 1 and 2
community along the northern periphery still faces the possibility of displacement if interested
parties seek to convert existing homes and residential uses to highly valuable commercial uses.
Due to their low estrato status, potential profits from redevelopment are large, even if the Las
Aguas market cannot command above-average market rents due to below-average residential
land values. For example, predio con mejora ajena, properties upgraded by leases, usually for
commercial use, are valued below the neighborhood average, though its pace of land value
increase has slightly surpassed all other uses in the neighborhood.

Las Aguas residents are increasingly living in apartment buildings, signaling

densification in the neighborhood. However, this trend was less pronounced in Las
Aguas compared to Bogotá as a whole. The area west of the Fenicia PP is already fairly
dense; the neighborhood houses many high-rise structures. The estrato 1 and 2 communities
north of PP Fenicia, also known as La Paz, house primarily low density, residential homes. As
the neighborhood increases in density, La Paz is increasingly at risk of redevelopment,
especially considering the shift in living preferences and development patterns. Between 1993
and 2005, the share of households living in apartments increased from two thirds to three
quarters, while the percentage of households living in houses decreased, from 27 percent to 13

55
percent. While this shift in housing preferences was less drastic than across Bogotá – where the
proportion of households living in houses decreased by 19 percentage points and the proportion
of households living in apartments increased by 16 percentage points – Las Aguas still sees a
higher share of households living in apartment buildings (72%) compared to Bogotá as a whole
(50%).

Figure 37. Las Aguas Density by Number of Building Stories

Source: Land Use and Estrato Data 2004-2016.

Figure 38. Las Aguas High Density Development

Source: Google Street View 2016

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Community Resistance to Threats of Displacement

Community Organizes Diverse Stakeholders

The PP Fenicia process initially lacked meaningful community engagement. The municipal
government and UniAndes hired an outside developer, as is typical of urban renewal plans in
Bogotá. “All [PPs]s had a very similar logic to that of a developer who says, ‘Here is a real
estate opportunity, I will advance a process [separate from the community].’ The process then
begins to have an important degree of resistance of citizen opposition to urban renewal,” said
one local expert. While PP Fenicia was ratified in 2014, long-term residents were concerned by
strains associated with temporary relocation, the potential for permanent displacement, and
increased costs of living following the reclassification of building estrato (El Tiempo, 2014). The
recent history of unsuccessful urban renewal plans inspired community action.

Resisting the original PP, Las Aguas residents organized their community to create No Se
Tomen Las Aguas, the first community anti-displacement group. Together, they built power
through a horizontal participatory process, engaging homeowners, seniors, neighborhood
residents and business-owners, UniAndes faculty and students, and eventually negotiated with
several entities and City dependencies in charge of the project’s approval process (Pinilla,
2017). In 2010, stakeholders participated in community roundtables originally facilitated by
Uniandes faculty and other professionals who disagreed with how the university was handling
the process. This format aimed to engage residents, business owners, and other stakeholders
in articulating their needs relevant to the PP. Academics who participated in those early fora
shared that at the beginning of the process, there was a lot of “distrust, tension, and lack of
information.” Residents expressed that they needed qualified technical support to overcome
these challenges and power imbalances, and contracted an advisor to facilitate discussion and
interpret the technical information presented at roundtable meetings.

Additionally, community organizers, many of whom were women and business-owners, took
action by speaking directly to their customer base via letter writing campaigns and by leveraging
the power of social media. The Comité No Se Tomen Las Aguas Facebook provides a platform
for direct communication between professors, university staff, and residents. Building an
organized and diverse base of supporters translated to a stronger unified community compared
to when the urban renewal projects first started in the 2000s, as well as significant political and
planning victories throughout the process.

Building Community Planning Capacity Led to Residents Needs Being Heard

The organizing process that strengthened social cohesion and community capacity is rooted in
relationships that transcend class, educational attainment, geography, and lived experience. No
Se Tomen Las Aguas built a leadership base of vocal and active long-time residents, largely
seniors, who developed technical expertise to understand the planning process. This active
base consistently attended public meetings with UniAndes and represented their constituents’
demands.

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Long-time residents expressed preference for minimal change in the neighborhood, but
acknowledged its inevitability. Residents are aware that neighborhood upgrades can bring
economic opportunities, as well as speculation and displacement. A local architect substantiated
this fear, acknowledging that speculative property values in areas like Las Aguas are more
valuable for commercial land use than housing. In general, residents did not entirely oppose the
redevelopment project and subsequent neighborhood change, but they wanted to make sure
that they received proper compensation and benefits. One long-time Las Aguas resident
summarized their perspective as follows: "We're not against the project, we just want it to be
fair."

Given the history of uneven redevelopment in Las Aguas, residents did not trust UniAndes and
did not find them transparent during the planning process. For example, some residents viewed
the university’s attempts to refer to themselves as “neighbors” and host picnics while distributing
gifts UniAndes newly began referring to residents as “neighbors” and hosting picnics distributing
gifts as a transactional tactic to buy support for the redevelopment plan. Residents were also
skeptical of UniAndes meetings, where the use of technical language excluded many residents.
One academic refers to the primary actor in this opaque planning process as El Señor del
Maletin, or “The Briefcase Man,” describing a detached third-party professional motivated by
profits and disconnected from the local community. “El Señor del Maletin” is a phrase used to
describe most PP processes, including Fenicia’s, where “el señor” represents a third party hired
to convince people to sell their property. El señor goes door to door, persuading and oftentimes
pressuring residents to accept his offer. He threatens that if residents don’t sell, the state can
intervene and buy their property for less. Ultimately, el señor is tasked with buying up the entire
neighborhood from individual residents, parcel by parcel. A key mechanism enabling the third-
party’s success is the opacity of his relationship to the developer and state: el señor never
discloses for whom he is buying the land because it is regulated by a previous contract.
According to the academic, “[It] is a mechanism of land management that has traditionally been
used in these contexts not only in Bogotá but in many other cities. It is an acquisition via the
market, which takes advantage of partial conditions of information privilege."

While residents were not engaged at the beginning of the process, through their organizing they
were able to intercept “El Señor del Maletin” and compel many residents to refuse to sell.
Building people power across the neighborhood by raising their consciousness around el señor
del maletin’s pick-off strategy effectively resulted in institutional change by making his presence
obsolete. Preventing third-party property acquisition interrupted the planning process and forced
UniAndes to reevaluate their relationship and engagement with residents.

Community Benefits Agreements and Concrete Wins

Ultimately, residents’ active organizing led to the significant victory of Decree 420, which
allowed both residents and owners to participate in negotiations, granted a 10-year freeze of
estrato for existing Las Aguas residents who will occupy future new apartments, and guarantees
the meter-per-meter compensation on their constructed property. Additionally, both owners and
residents will receive compensation, paid in the form of relocation fees while construction is
completed, as well as a housing subsidy. Several community residents, UniAndes personnel,

58
and informants shared that the 10 year estrato freeze is a huge community win and an
example for other neighborhoods in the planning process. However, it is important to note
that the freeze is temporary and may only delay displacement. A Las Aguas community
resident, summarizing the complexity of the issue, said, “Freezing the estrato is a victory. But
we know that we won’t be able to pay the new estrato in the future. How would I be able to turn
land into air? People don’t understand that we will be displaced.”

In addition to changing the PP process, residents built technical knowledge of planning, which
was effective in negotiation and raising residents’ consciousness around planning processes.
The community has maintained continuity in organizing throughout the municipal political
changes, where each mayoral administration significantly shifts the direction of PPs. While
many PP’s are not realized due to lack of local support and buy-in, the power built by Las
Aguas’ residents has successfully engaged a range of stakeholders, won key community
benefits, and is exemplary in resisting displacement.

Conclusion
The Las Aguas neighborhood tells a unique story of the role that community organizing has in
delaying displacement. While displacement occurred in the early 2000s with the original
redevelopment plan, current neighborhood change is not yet producing displacement. Leaders
for both residents and government lift up Las Aguas as a model for participatory, horizontal, and
collaborative community engagement in urban renewal plans. “It is essential that [PP] Fenicia
succeeds for the future of the country and our urban planning,” remarked one professor of a Las
Aguas university. Bogota needs a more transparent start-to-finish planning process in order to
replicate the Las Aguas model, argues another scholar. Questions remain, however, including
whether the outcomes will be good enough to keep current residents engaged, and whether the
next ten years will eventually guarantee long-term residents the opportunity to permanently
remain in the area. If so, Las Aguas could serve as an exemplary model of development without
displacement for Bogotá and the all cities experiencing gentrification.

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Key Findings
Neighborhood stakeholders are asserting their agency and
negotiating benefits in small area plans, impacting Bogota’s future
planning processes.
Prior to the participatory planning that took place in Las Aguas, planning in Bogota was
antagonistic between the expert planners and community members because there were no
built-in processes of citizen involvement. Additionally, because of the country’s history, activism
in general was, and still is in many areas, associated with risk and violence.

In Las Aguas, a community organization made up of diverse stakeholders that cut across class,
age, and occupation built a broad coalition against the original urban renewal plans for the area.
They successfully negotiated terms of development that created concessions for community
benefits, such as a ten year estrato freeze for buildings.

Other localities are looking at this example of participatory planning in Las Aguas as a promising
practice and are exploring the policy transfer potential of such negotiations in other planning
contexts. The notion of participatory planning is still nascent in Bogota, but Las Aguas’ process
fundamentally shifted community perceptions of how residents could interact with planning from
an antagonistic framework toward negotiated coexistence.

Increasing market pressures trigger existing social networks to

build capacity among communities to be able to navigate opaque
legal and finance systems.
Much of the development and real estate deals within Bogota happen behind closed doors. The
opaque legal process of having el senor de maletin buy up individual homes as part of a larger
agglomerated development effort has consistently led to neighborhood confusion, as
demonstrated by the history of Los Olivos. The technical knowledge needed to understand the
function of fiducias and act within the given systems that govern real estate transactions put
residents at a disadvantage, especially in areas that are currently facing mounting market
pressure to develop.

The piecemeal development of Los Olivos happened in part due to the lack of resident
knowledge that individual assets were tied to the neighborhood’s collective decision-making; as
a result, residential assets were held for decades without consensus. However, the residents
within Juan XXIII, a closely-knit neighborhood, took heed and spread news of developers
offering payment for houses to each other, activating the existing social network to be aware of
the issue and educate themselves on their rights and how individual actions have major
neighborhood-level ramifications. Additionally, the existing strong-tie social network was
activated and neighbors began to educate themselves on the legal and financial systems of
fiduciaries, malatines, and land ownership to advocate for themselves.

60
Market pressures to develop neighborhoods often pit developers with deep cash reserves
against residents who have fewer resources against each other. Within the toolkit of resources
that residents have to resist this lopsided power structure, their existing social networks built
from shared experience of coexisting in the same place. In the same way that social networks
can provide communal services such as water services and security, social networks have the
capacity to develop expertise and provide guidance on complex planning processes.

Urban renewal is the final stage in a long process to actively

divest a neighborhood of its ability to resist displacement.
Urban renewal is regularly presented as the route to the restoration of economic and social
activity in the center city. Even in 2019, planes parciales invoke urban renewal strategies,
calling for the complete demolition of existing structures. Urban renewal is the final stage of
intentional state disinvestment that comes after years of undermining communities.

In the absence of state investments and services in La L, residents created their own social
services and codes of conduct that helped them adapt to the vulnerabilities of disinvestment.
The structure and security formed by residents – both la gente en la calle and la gente de la
calle – created informal networks that helped resist displacement and further
disenfranchisement.

Despite community adaptation to adverse conditions, urban renewal is often used as a tool in
areas that have been both disinvested in and have informal social connections to create a clean
slate for new real estate developments and to change the urban environment. While
neighborhoods and their residents have found ways to adapt to state disinvestment, urban
renewal shifts their state of precariousness to immediate vulnerability because the residents are
not able to resist displacement in the face of urban renewal.

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Recommendations
The findings in this study highlight the opportunities to reduce displacement due to current or
future plans for gentrification in the city. Taken together, our analysis of trends arising in Bogota
as a whole and within each case study neighborhood have emphasized specific ways that
neighborhood change leads to inequitable outcomes. Findings from our primary data collection
indicate that the state is the dominant actor – or at the very least is perceived to be the
dominant actor – driving displacement in Bogota, whether it be through planning mechanisms
like PEMP or Planes Parciales, or through the intentional deterioration of neighborhoods. The
motivation for this displacement appears to be development and gentrification, as both the Las
Aguas and La L case studies demonstrated. Furthermore, our findings provide insight to
interventions that can be taken to reduce the forces of displacement and respond to residents’
neighborhood-specific concerns. These interventions span various geographic scales and
include different actors, from residents to financial institutions, to city officials, and focus on
ways to institutionalize and strengthen methods of resistance like community participation,
renter protections, wealth building, and intentional data collection and research on the complex
process of displacement.

Actions taken at the city level should address the policies and laws that undermine
community participation in planning processes
● Allow residents to pick a fiduciary and negotiate the terms the fidicuary’s holding
administration by amending existing laws which currently grant this power to real estate
developers.
● Restore decision-making to residents in neighborhoods by altering Ley 311 to make a
majority decision require 51% of neighborhood resident approval instead of 51%
landowner approval, which is currently the case.
● Reduce the ability of the Bogota government to enact urban renewal by amending
existing laws which allow the government to seize private property if it is deemed to have
crime and drug activity.
● Strengthen and formalize renter agreements and protections. In Juan XXIII, the
handshake nature of agreements and month to month rents lead many young people to
move to Bosque Calderon

Action taken at the neighborhood level should build residents’ abilities to resist
displacement
● Reduce the impact of the speculative market on housing costs by creating community
land trusts that maintain a portfolio of homes with permanent affordability for community
members to live in.
● Create opportunities for long-time residents to build financial assets so they can weather
neighborhood changes that could result in higher prices for non-housing essentials.
● Formalize communities’ ability to participate in urban planning by incentivizing the
creation of Community Participatory Plans that outline community development goals
prior to the threat of displacement.

62
 ● Protect Juan XXIII from intense market forces to develop by designating it as a
Patrimonio Popular which prevent developers from building tall buildings in the
neighborhood.

Expansion of data collection and analysis: Create metrics that will guide future decision-
making and anti-displacement community organization efforts
● Undertake a 2021 census for the city to ensure up-to-date data to facilitate decision-
making and resource-allocation across the city. Additionally, ensure that the census
enumerates residents in informal living conditions, such as la gentes de la calle, and that
data is spatial in nature to help elucidate neighborhood-level patterns.
● Design a longitudinal study to monitor the outcomes of the 10 year estrato freeze in Las
Aguas to help understand if and how this type of agreement can be improved or applied
in other neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment.

63
Conclusion
While many cities across the globe are grappling with the dichotomy of growth, investment in
infrastructure, and issues of displacement, the stories of the Bogotano neighborhoods of Juan
XXIII, El Bronx, and Las Aguas remind us that a neighborhood’s ability to accelerate or delay
displacement change does not happen by chance. Instead it is a result of carefully calculated
strategies that are designed to either protect the existing population or to attract a new
population entirely. Moreover, in theses three case studies it is evident that a community’s
collective bargaining power rooted in an organized and diverse base of stakeholders, or there
lackof, plays a critical role in accelerating or delaying displacement across various geographies.

In Juan XXIII spatial analysis of land value changes over time confirm that Juan XXIII and Los
Olivos are experiencing gentrification due to the development pressures of Chapinero Alto. Los
Olivos is now a desolate, fragmented community and a reminder to Juan XXIII of the negative
effects of gentrification, primarily displacement. Juan XXIII, a majority estrato two neighborhood,
is uniquely surrounded by wealth and yet has successfully resisted displacement through its
strong ties, community organizing tactics, and the resident led anti-displacement tactics.

The narrative of El Bronx convey’s the stark realities of what can happen to a neighborhood and
the people of that community when the city fails to meet the basic needs of a community.
Moreover, El Bronx illustrates that despite despite limited resources and stigma disenfranchised
communities design their own counternarratives to protect themselves from the growing
pressures of development. However, in El Bronx gentrification returns to its rudimentary form
through the first step of urban renewal, displacing all residents to make way for new
development. The community is isolated from the planning process and excluded from the
vision for the new thriving creative district.

Lastly, Las Aguas is the most prominent success story highlighting that galvanizing local
homeowners and merchants can position a community as a strong negotiator to delay
displacement. However, Las Aguas residents are in a precarious situation were if the ten year
etsrato freeze is successful it could set precedent for all other neighborhoods facing
development pressures.

Bogota is no exception to capitalist expansion through land and development processes,

reimagining spaces for profit accumulation. Low estrato designations and rising land values,
representative of the rent gap, will pose a continued threat to existing communities. The
mechanisms and actors that drive, mediate, and resist gentrification in Latin America are locally
contextualized, but ensuring communities’ right to remain must be central to Bogota’s urban
planning processes and development goals - ensuring inclusive development without
displacement.

64
Limitations
We were unable to access or create a geographic crosswalk file to describe how DANE’s
geographic units from 1993 correspond to units from 2005. Methodologically, this was a major
limitation we faced when conducting change over time analyses using census data.
Comparisons were made by selecting the secciones censales which fell within the boundary
shapefiles of our case study areas and neighborhoods of interest. As a result the geographic
boundaries being compared between 1993 and 2005 are not identical.

In a larger sense, our team faced significant limitations in obtaining quantitative secondary data.
This is due in part to 1) challenges in accessing this data without necessary agency connections
in Colombia, and 2) the lack of recent, publicly-available, high quality, spatial data related to our
topics of interest. Income data is not collected in Colombia; other data sets of interest were
available, but only at the city level. More detailed and relevant variables are available in the
Census Ampliado; however the sample data collected for this dataset are not available at the
geographic level that we required. Lastly, census data is highly politicized in Colombia. The
most recent, publicly-available census data in Colombia is from the year 2005. Though a 2018
census was taken, no data has been approved or made available. As such, the census data
represented here largely reflects a period of time that precedes many of the planning initiatives
introduced and highlighted in this report.

The quantitative data for this report was only available a few days before researchers traveled
to Bogota making it difficult to confirm assumptions and discrepancies in the data. Researchers
who traveled to Colombia to collect data were in the country solely for 10 days. Additional time
in the field would have prompted an opportunity to obtain more findings and test assumptions in
the quantitative data. Language was a challenge for the research team not all members of the
team spoke Spanish fluently. As such, more time in the field and conducting this study could
have strengthened the findings.

65
Appendix A: Focus Group Protocol
Welcome
Who we are why we are here?
What we will be doing here today?

Start Focus Group

Focus Group Interview Guide & Questions

Name of Organization/site/ # of Name of Date

Interviewee(s): role attendees: Interviewer(s):

1. INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone and welcome to our focus group session. Thank you for taking the time to join
us to talk about neighborhood change in [neighborhood]. My name is [name] and I am
a current graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States. This is
[insert name] and s/he will be taking notes/co-facilitating today.

We are here today to understand how neighborhoods in Bogota have changed. In partnership
with Universidad de los Andes, we are talking to community members in various communities to
learn more about how Bogota residents define neighborhoods and community strengths, and
what your perception is generally of this neighborhood. We hope to better understand the needs
of Bogota residents. We are only collecting information at the neighborhood level. As a result,
we are not asking you to share any personal information you do not want to share.

(We are studying in the U.S. context how neighborhood change impacts people's’ abilities to live
in the communities that they want to live and in communities that they have lived in for many
year. We know that this happens outside the U.S. and we want to understand how it may be the
same or different in Bogota.)

There are no right or wrong answers, so please be honest. You do not have to answer any
questions you do not want to. If you ever feel uncomfortable, you can either say you don’t want
to answer questions, choose to remain silent or decide to stop participating altogether. Also, if
you say something that you don’t want to be saved, please let us know and we will make sure
not to include that information in the analysis. Your name will not be linked with what you share
and we will do our best to keep personal information confidential. The same will go for the
names of anyone else you mention in the session as we will try to keep this as confidential as
possible. Any summary interview content or direct quotations from the interview will be
anonymized so that you cannot be identified, and care will be taken to ensure that other
information in the interview that could identify yourself is not revealed.

We ask that you all respect each other’s opinions and thoughts. If you have a comment, feel
free to speak up. You might have a different opinion than another person. Just be mindful of

66
others’ speaking time and be respectful. We are also just as interested in positive comments as
critical comments.

Many of the questions will focus on your personal thought process. We encourage you to share
if you have a similar thought process or a drastically different one compared to someone else.
Our goal today is to gain a greater understanding and depth of your choices, how you made
them, and what influenced them. We are interested in your unique and personal stories.

We will also be recording this session to make sure that we do not miss any of your comments.
We will be on a first name basis here but your names and any personal information will not be
used in any reporting, publications, or presentations.
As per the consent form, you are not required to answer every question. You are also allowed to
end your participation in the focus group at any time. The session will take about [...] hours.
Also, if you could please turn off your cell phones, that would be great. Thanks!

Great! Let us start. First, if you could go around and introduce yourself, say where you are
from, and tell us a bit about yourself as a way to get to know each other and build a safe
environment.

(split large group into two smaller groups)

Opening question:
● In Juan 23 there has been a lot of conversations about how the neighborhood has
changed or might change and how this impacts the people in the neighborhood. What
does neighborhood change mean to you? (Pause: do changes in a neighborhood always
tend to be good or bad?)

Middle questions:
● Tell me about how neighborhood change has impacted or not impacted this community?
Who is involved? Who leads it? What does it look like?
● What were some of the most significant events/causes in the history of Juan XXIII that
prepared them to organize against displacement and keep their property? for example
when Metrovivienda received authorization in 2014 to intervene in Los Olivos
● How do residents who are not involved with the JAC learn about the decisions they
made for the broader community?
● What other alternative benefits came out of organizing work done in Juan 23? What are
some unforeseen consequences?

Closing questions:
● How did you learn about the changes happening in this neighborhood?
● Tell me about how neighborhood change has impacted or not impacted this community?
Who is involved? Who leads it? What does it look like?
● How has this organizing impacted Juan 23 long term?

67
Large group question:
● What do you hear from friends who have left Juan XXIII? What neighborhoods have they
moved to? What is their new neighborhood like? How has their situation changed
(commuting, community, etc)? Do they still come back to Juan XXIII to use the services
here, go to church, visit friends and family?

Extra questions
● What groups, individuals or organizations from outside the neighborhood have been
allies in the struggle against displacement and expropriation?
● Were there any voices that were left out of the conversations around organizing against
MetroVivienda

ESPANOL
Opening question:
● En Juan 23 habian muchas conversaciones sobre cómo el barrio ha cambiado o cómo
podría cambiar y cómo impacta a la gente en el barrio. Como se parece el cambio del
barrio para ustedes? (Pause: ¿Los cambios de barrio tienden a ser siempre buenos o
malos?)

Middle questions:

● Dígame acerca de cómo el cambio de barrio ha impactado o no impactado esta

comunidad. ¿Quién está implicado? ¿Quién lo conduce? ¿Como se parece?
● Cuáles fueron algunos de los eventos/causas en el historia de Juan XXIII que
prepararon la comunidad para organizer contra la desplazamiento y mantener sus
propiedades? Por ejemplo, cuando Metrovivienda recibió la autorización para intervenir?
● Cómo aprenden los residents que no están involucrados con el equipo JAC sobre las
decisiones que hacen para la comunidad más amplia?
● Cuales otros beneficios salieron desde el trabajo de organizer en Juan 23? Cuales eran
algunos de las consecuencias no anticipadas?

Closing
questions:
● Cómo aprenden ustedes sobre los cambios que ocurren en este barrio?
● Cómo ha impactado esta experiencia de organizar a Juan XXIII a largo plazo?

Large group question:

● Que oyen desde amigos o parientes que han salido Juan XXIII? A cuáles barrios se han
movido? Cómo es su nuevo barrio? Cómo ha cambiado su situación (viaje a trabajo,
comunidad, etc.)? Todavía regresan a Juan XXIII para usar los servicios aquí, ir a la
iglesia, visitar a amigos y familiares?

68
Preguntas extras

● Cuales grupos, individuos, u organizaciones desde fuera el barrio fueron aliados en la

lucha contra desplazamiento y expropiación?
● Hay algunos voces que no fueron incluidos en las conversaciones sobre organizar contra
MetroVivienda?

69
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