Moving Up or Staying Down? Migrant-Native Differential Mobility in La Paz

Abstract

"The higher you live, the poorer you are" goes the common phrase in La Paz. On aggregate, this view of residential segregation in this high Andean city is accurate. However, the results from empirical research among the residents of different types of low-income housing zones point to some considerable variations in the housing careers of the city-born poor and the migrant poor in La Paz. Centrifugal mobility is the general pattern for the low-income groups in La Paz-but the city-born residents usually move over shorter distances than migrants and substantial numbers still locate in the central tenement district. The spatial aspects of housing careers are highly influenced by the geographical distribution of a respondent's contacts in the city. Many migrants nowadays end up in the far periphery of the city's high plateau, whereas the indigenous poor still manage to secure accommodation in the more sheltered parts of the central basin. The other side of the picture is that the city-born poor remain in non-owned accommodation for rather prolonged periods, whereas the migrant poor attain self-help ownership much more quickly.