Brazil Launches Property Rights Program

[Judi Lynn]

Associated Press
Brazil Launches Property Rights Program
By ELIZABETH DWOSKIN , 09.26.2006, 03:48 AM

Rio will spend $1 million to map two sprawling shantytowns as the first step toward granting land titles to residents who otherwise have no property rights in the sprawling slums, officials said.

Minister of Cities Marcio Fortes Almeida announced Monday that the government would survey the Rocinha and Vidigal shantytowns, which drape two mountainsides overlooking some of the city's most famous beaches.

Without title, residents cannot finance home repairs, get credit or mail, or sell their property. They can also be evicted without legal recourse - a real fear in a city where entire slums - known as favelas - have been removed to make way for commercial developments.

Since 2003, 272,000 families nationwide have received titles to property in favelas and another 450,000 families are in the process of getting them, Almeida said.
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http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/entretech/feeds/ap/2006/09/26/ap3044523.html



Rocinha, Brazil



Vidigal

[Vidar]

1. A step in the right direction.

[1932]

2. I think Joe Stiglitz was the first person I read who pointed out that this

problem was a seed cause of poverty in developing countries.

I think I heard a program on the CBC once explaining how microcredit programs which make people leverage their labor can only go so far to alleviate poverty and the nut that needs to be cracked so that people can make a bigger jump is the ability to leverage real property that they own.

The history of exploitation from the 13th century on has been two-fold: take people's land and turn them into slaves. In the last 140 to 40 years, we've given people back their labor. Maybe the next couple decades will be remembered for giving people back their land, and then we'll see some real improvements in terms of getting rid of property.

(Incidentally, I think the housing bubble in the US is going to be the way banks take property AWAY from the middle class -- so we're sort of going in the opposite direction the developing world is headed.)