In the last few decades, most Latin American countries have made good progress in improving the living conditions of urban populations, but still face enormous challenges. This paper describes the roles of city and other local governments in designing housing policies and integrating them into governance, planning and finance. This includes many innovations in local governments’ housing policies, especially those implemented in the first decade of this century by progressive city governments. It also includes decentralization that supported municipal governments to develop their housing and urban development plans. Relevant as well are policies to address the quantitative deficit (insufficient supply of housing) and the qualitative deficit (inadequate quality of housing), such as informal settlement upgrading. The paper includes examples of where housing policy decentralization created spaces for democratic, participatory and inclusive city governance. It also highlights the importance for social housing of finance and the measures that may be taken to address this, including land management instruments and capture of real estate surplus value. But much of this innovation has been lost over the last decade, after the economic crisis and the rise of a new wave of conservative regimes in the region.

中文翻译：

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拉丁美洲的住房政策和地方政府的作用：最新经验

在过去的几十年中，大多数拉丁美洲国家在改善城市人口的生活条件方面取得了良好的进展，但仍然面临着巨大的挑战。本文介绍了城市和其他地方政府在设计住房政策并将其纳入治理，规划和金融方面的作用。这包括地方政府住房政策的许多创新，特别是本世纪前十年由进步的城市政府实施的创新。它还包括权力下放，以支持市政府制定住房和城市发展计划。同样相关的政策也要解决，例如解决非正式住区升级问题，以解决数量赤字（住房供应不足）和质量赤字（住房质量不足）的问题。本文列举了住房政策分权为民主，参与性和包容性城市治理创造空间的例子。它还强调了社会保障性金融的重要性，以及为解决这一问题可采取的措施，包括土地管理工具和不动产剩余价值的收取。但是，在过去的十年中，在经济危机和该地区新一波保守政权兴起之后，这种创新的大部分已经消失了。