ABSTRACT
In Latin America a new economic independence emerged from the extensive industrialisation that took place during 1940s and early 1950s, which occasioned dramatic rates of urbanisation. Housing procurement activities were influenced indirectly by government through programmes that regulated them in some way or other through development control legislation on urban land approved for residential use. Inevitably, the impact of such measures on the housing that was built, particularly by the lowest income groups, was determined by the extent to which local authorities were able to enforce them. While in upper-income urban areas, land use regulations and building controls were relatively easy to enforce, this was not the case in the large and growing low-income neighbourhoods where such public controls were virtually impossible to police. The aesthetic homogeneity of residential areas became a symbol of public affluence, good health and social wellbeing and therefore political stability with which governments and city administrations wanted to be identified by their electorate and internationally.
