The Informal Land Market in the Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Area: Evidence from the Inspection of Irregular Subdivisions (2009–2018)

Abstract

Peripheral capitalist cities are characterized by extreme socio-spatial inequality, precarious housing conditions, and the prevalence of informal arrangements for access to land and housing. In Latin America, one of the main access routes for the lower classes into the city, in addition to squatting on unused land and property, is the informal market for urban land. In Belo Horizonte, this market expanded considerably from the 1950s onwards, and its most striking socio-spatial impact was the rapid expansion of precarious and self-built peripheral areas. In the last decade, the strong Brazilian real estate boom led to an expansion of the formal real estate market and its extension to populations previously excluded from it. The article presents the results of a study that examines the informal market for land subdivisions based on official data and interviews with informal land developers. The text presents the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation that emphasizes the importance of further examining this pervasive and complex form of urbanization considering its relations with the increasing penetration of financialized and rent-seeking logics of urban production, as well as the challenges and contradictions related to the action of the state and social movements.