2015 Urban Affairs Association Conference

This panel explores the impact of legislation and regulation upon housing production in a variety of low income self-built or self managed informal neighborhoods such as colonias (Texas) and polancos (California ); in model subdivisions (Texas) which form a hybrid of formal and informal housing activities; and in Los Angeles (California) where the subdivision and conversions of existing properties is also often undertaken informally and outside of regulations and ordinances. In the cases we describe, the aim is to explore how legislation and attempts at housing regulation – albeit often well meaning – more often than not generate new responses and workarounds, many of which continue to be informal. Developers and other actors are among the first to see how new rules may be bent or turned to new advantage, often creating unintended and negative consequences for those whose interest legislation and policy making original sought to protect.


Breaking the Housing Informality Policy Stalemate in Southeast Los Angeles County
Jake Wegmann, University of Texas at Austin

A successful failure: Preventing the spread of informal self-help settlements in the Texas border region
Noah Durst, The LBJ School of Public Affairs, U. of Texas at Austin
Model Subdivisions: The New Face of Developer Lot Sales for Low Income Colonia-type Housing in Texas
Carlos Olmedo, LBJ School, UT-Austin; Peter Ward, Dept. of Sociology, UT-Austin