Willing to Stay: Residential Preferences of Former Inhabitants of an Urban Renewal Area

Abstract

In Latin America, after decades of difficulties in generating housing supply for lower-income households in good locations, as a result of market-oriented housing policies, an alternative has been their inclusion in urban renewal projects in central areas. Here, the challenge is to offer housing that meets the needs and expectations of those who already reside in the area in order to avoid expulsion. Through ethnographic work that included observation and interviews with residents, and using an analytical framework of residential satisfaction for urban renewal for changing contexts, we explore the residential preferences of the inhabitants of Las Aguas, a neighborhood in Bogotá’s city center, where an urban renewal project is underway. The findings indicate that the residential satisfaction of those living in the area incorporates a temporal dimension in which attributes of the present (location), the past (memory), and the future (hesitations about living in apartments) are articulated. An understanding of the factors that influence residential preferences in contexts of urban renewal is crucial to ensure that former residents are able, and willing, to stay.