Colonias (USA)
| Colonias 🇺🇸 | ||
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| Location: USA | ||
| Definition: Informal settlements housing migrant populations in unincorporated and unregulated areas | ||
| Keywords: USA – North America – Informal settlement – Borders – Urban – Migration – Entrepreneurship – Mutual help – Ethnicity – Land – Agriculture | ||
| Clusters: Informal dwelling – Survival – Market – Functional ambivalence – System made me do it – Poverty | ||
| Author: Michael J. Pisani | ||
| Affiliation: Department of Management, Central Michigan University | ||
| Website: Profile page at CMU | ||
By Michael J. Pisani, Department of Management, Central Michigan University
| Colonias (singular: colonia) are informal, self-built housing units typically clustered together in unregulated and unincorporated subdivisions in the Southwestern United States – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas (Donelson and Esparza 2010, Esparza and Donelson, 2016). This low-income housing is often located outside the formal city limits and is characterized by deficient infrastructure (e.g. water, roads, electricity, health, police, street lighting, wastewater and trash removal), lack of regulations or enforcement (e.g. zoning, building codes), poverty and health challenges, and land title ambiguity (Donelson and Esparza, 2010). The primary residents of colonias are people with contemporary or historical familial ties to Mexico. The majority of colonias were built in the post-World War II era. The name translates to community, neighbourhood or suburb from Spanish (Ward, 1999) and originates from low-income urban colonia neighbourhoods in Mexico. The legacy of colonias in Mexico facilitated the development of colonias in the US. |
A geographic concentration of Southwestern colonias is prominent in South Texas, especially along the US-Mexico border. More than 1,500 colonias in South Texas (Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, 2019) house an estimated 400,000 residents, or nearly 20% of the local population (Richardson and Pisani, 2017). Colonias in South Texas evolved out of worker camps on larger ranches and farms. Flood- and hurricane-prone areas, less suitable for agriculture, were subdivided into smaller plots by the landowners and sold to Mexican immigrant farmworkers. Since the plots fell outside the city borders where building codes were not as stringently enforced, the residents manoeuvred around them to build their housing informally. Colonias were also a springboard for engaging in other informal economic activities (Richardson and Pisani 2012).
The poverty that envelops South Texas facilitates the existence of colonias (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 1996). In 2017, about one-third of the population and approximately half of children lived below the poverty line (Richardson and Pisani, 2017). The creation and persistence of colonia housing outside of the city borders is a low-income housing strategy that mitigates homelessness and overcrowding, allowing a pathway to homeownership to those on the margins of the economy. Deposits for plots of land, as low as $50-$100 for a property lot with a price of $10,000 ease entry into colonia communities (Durst and Ward, 2014). Median price for a colonia housing hovers around $40,000 for completed homes (Durst and Ward, 2014).
Colonias are a conduit for informal economic activities, a social and cultural sanctuary and point toward a failure of formal housing systems. Economic survival in colonias is often tied with an engagement in informal work and entrepreneurship (Richardson and Pisani, 2012). Since colonias housing is cheap, it often attracts the most vulnerable—the undocumented who cannot legally work (about 30% of colonia residents, Barton et al., 2015). But a shared Mexican heritage and identity facilitates social and cultural bonding. Colonia residents assist one another in building their homes, provide safety and care to residents and help to access extended social and family networks (Richardson and Pisani, 2017). The formal housing market in South Texas is beyond the financial reach of many. There are few public resources devoted to providing public housing, highlighting the inadequate social safety net for housing needs.
The existence of colonias also point to deficient regulation. Land development projects often receive insufficient level of formal scrutiny, leading to deficient infrastructure, missing property sales records, insufficient enforcement of the building code and exploitative financing schemes. The most notorious such scheme was the ‘contract-for-deed’ property sale, in which the seller retained ownership of the property until the final payment and denied access to the accumulated equity before (this is now illegal).
Since the mid-1990s, the Texas state government has made efforts to understand and ameliorate offenses, failures in infrastructure and exploitative financing, but more work is needed (Richardson and Pisani 2017, 2012). Colonias are paradoxes for public policymakers. On the one hand, colonias can be seen as a free market supply-based response to excess housing demand in border communities. Informal housing has not only offered a solution to a lack of affordable housing stock (Giusti, 2008) but has also pushed homeownership rates among colonia dwellers to 72 percent, nearly ten percentage points above the Texas state average (Richardson and Pisani, 2017). Rates such as these may help portray the government as absolved of its financial responsibility to help those in need of housing. On the other hand, colonias can be viewed as blight—a scourge of unregulated housing that encourages crime, disease, inadequate infrastructure, unemployment and settlements of undocumented populations—that need to be reduced or eliminated. Many public officials denounce colonias as eyesores that impede local economic development (Richardson and Pisani, 2012).
Colonias face many challenges. The policy emphasis has continued to prioritise the building of infrastructure able to improve the quality of life, such as enabling direct access to potable water, paving roads, provisioning drainage, street lighting and trash collection, and removing wastewater and contaminants. Infrastructure improvements are sporadic and evolving affairs—the gains of which are distributed unequally among colonias dependent upon local organizing and political will and influence. For example, South Texas-based community organizations La Unión del Pueblo Entero and ARISE have assisted more than 25 colonia communities in securing street lighting since 2016 (Taylor, 2019). They have done so by organizing committed colonia residents at the grassroots level and by exerting public pressure, presence, and plans at government meetings of county officials.
Ongoing crises in access to healthcare and health insurance, poverty and public safety are more difficult to address by policy. More than two-thirds of colonia residents lack health insurance and half of colonia households earn below the poverty line (Barton et al. 2015). In contrast to urban neighbourhoods in South Texas with comparable low incomes, colonias report lower rates of crime (Richardson and Pisani, 2017). This finding is remarkable, given that colonias receive very little public protection and public services. Half of all colonia residents engage in seasonal migratory work in the agricultural fields or in informal work, which suggests that colonia income-earners would benefit from supplemental, complementary or alternative work arrangements (Barton et al., 2015). Half of colonia residents also lack a high school education or proficiency in English (Barton et al., 2015). Improving educational access and adult education, including English language training may reduce pronounced gaps in fuller participation in the larger economy and society.
The stigmas of living in colonia communities and the infrastructure challenges are addressed by the residents with relying on a shared culture and strong familial ties. More permanent solutions to problems faced by colonias may come in the form of increasing public awareness and investing in meaningful immigration reform (Richardson and Pisani, 2017).
Further reading
Texas Attorney General: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/divisions/colonias
References
Barton, J., Permeter, E.R., Blum, E.S., and Marquez, R.R. 2015. ‘Las Colonias in the 21st Century: Progress Along the Texas-Mexico Border,’ April, https://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/cd/pubs/lascolonias.pdf.
Donnelson, A.J. and Esparza, A.X. (eds.) 2010. The Colonias Reader: Economy, Housing, and Public Health in U.S.-Mexico Border Colonias. Tucson: University of Arizona Press
Durst, N.J. and Ward, P.M. 2014. ‘Measuring Self-help Home Improvements in Texas Colonias: A Ten Year ‘Snapshot’ Study,’ Urban Studies, 51: 2143-59
Esparza, A.X. and Donnelson, A.J. 2016. Colonias in Arizona and New Mexico: Border Poverty and Community Development Solutions. Tucson: University of Arizona Press
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas 1996. ‘Texas Colonias: A Thumbnail Sketch of the Conditions, Issues, Challenges and Opportunities,’ https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/cd/pubs/colonias.pdf.
Giusti, C. 2008. ‘Nuestra Casa (Our House): A New Model for Self-Help & Improvement Along the Texas/Mexico Border,’ Texas Business Review, August, 1-5
Richardson, C. and Pisani, M.J. 2017. Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados: Class and Culture on the South Texas Border, revised edition. Austin: University of Texas Press
Richardson, C. and Pisani, M.J. 2012. The Informal and Underground Economy of the South Texas Border. Austin: University of Texas Press
Taylor, S. 2019. ‘Hidalgo County Asked to Pump Half a Million Dollars into Colonia Street Lights Program,’ Rio Grande Guardian, 22 May, https://riograndeguardian.com/hidalgo-county-asked-to-pump-half-a-million-dollars-into-colonia-street-lights-program/.
Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs 2019. ‘2019 State of Texas Low Income Housing Plan & Annual Report,’ https://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/housing-center/docs/19-SLIHP.pdf.
Ward, P.M. 1999. Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico: Urbanization by Stealth. Austin: University of Texas Press