Ward, Peter. Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999, pp. 1-130.
Ward provides a useful overview of a variety of aspects of the colonias in Texas and Mexico. I plan on reading the entire book, however his introduction to his case studies and the processes of land use and development will provide a helpful introduction to the colonias. His view that “colonias are actively produced and articulated, rather than being a residual outcome of rapid urbanization” (Ward 9) is an insightful way of approaching and understanding the development of colonias – and communities like VES.
In 1996, there were nearly 1,400 colonias with a total of 350,000 residents along the Texas-Mexico border. According to Ward’s research, colonias tend to integrate with paved roads, services and two-story dwellings within 15-20 years. In terms of characteristics, 80% of the residents have incomes at or below the national poverty level. Anywhere from 65-80% of adults are U.S. citizens and 33% do not speak English. Colonias lack basic services such as water services and sewage disposal. This clearly leads to serious health problems, such as Hepatitis A and shigellosis; Ward also points out that the colonias became an issue for state and local governments only when the health problems related to inadequate water services began to affect city life. He also emphasizes the way in which water (or lack thereof) came to embody the definition of a colonia. This limited definition not only ignores the social and income aspects of colonia life, but also affects the way in which governments go about “solving” the problem. The lack of an integrated housing policy leads to the colonias being seen as an environmental or health care concern – not as a housing problem. Although public task forces are created to address issues within the colonias, they tend to see the problem in partial, restricted terms.
In contrast to their Mexican counterparts, colonias in the U.S. tend to be smaller in physical size and population density. This makes intervention more costly and low voter registration translates into less political influence for colonia residents. Furthermore, Ward claims that low population densities and high levels of owner absenteeism also limits a sense of community. Informal and formal “community organization structures are weak or nonexistent, especially during…settlement” (Ward 5) This aspect, which Ward covers in depth in later chapters, could provide an interesting contrast to the community organizations in VES.
In his chapter on land and housing production, Ward relies on development trends of Mexican colonias to explain the Texas phenomenon. Much like the development of other shanty towns, the colonias were a product of the inability of the market, public sector and government to provide housing for individuals with low wages and limited credit-worthiness. Ward also claims that rapid urbanization, the growth of the economy and demand for labor, as well as the integration of the low wage formal sector are all aspects of colonia development. Much like Gilbert, he claims that population growth was in sync with economic growth. Chronologically, the 1940-50s were a time of import-substituting programs and rapid urbanization in developing countries. Up until the 1960s, government viewed shanty towns as illegal and substandard. Such communites were either eradicated by the government or simply ignored. Influenced by scholars such as Turner and Mangin, the 1960-70s gave way to government-sponsored “sites-and-services” and upgrading programs, and the regularization of land titles. The 1980s, however, saw a decrease in direct involvement as governments focused on making the market work smoother via infrastructure projects, removing “bottlenecks” on land markets, and so on.
In terms of Texas colonias, Ward claims that the government is relatively passive. Unlike Mexican government, the federal and state governments in the U.S. support home ownership for a number of reasons. Public housing is therefore limited and socially stigmatized. In addition to less federal support for supplying housing, state regulations are much higher than in Mexico. With the end of the Bracero Program in 1964, employers no longer had to provide housing for laborers. Real estate developers and landowners responded by capitalizing on consumer demand, idle agricultural land, lax land development regulations and the Contract for Deed (CFD) mechanism. Unlike shanty towns elsewhere, this form of land development is usually legal, albeit exploitative.
According to Texas law, land developers must pave roads and provide basic infrastructure for residential land within city limits. Until 1989, developers used county land close to cities and sold “unimproved” lots at low prices. Also, until 1985, land titles were only given to the buyer after the entire price of the lot had been paid off; without equity protection, many residents were subject to immediate forfeiture of their land (and improvements they had made) if they were unable to pay monthly fees. The federal and state governments have passed a number of laws which require basic services in newly sold colonias and limit the exploitative nature of CFD. However, the laws and federal grants do not cover all colonias. As stated earlier, many of these grants are designated for water projects within colonias. This highlights the assumption that once services are installed, the settlement is no longer a colonia. However, Ward challenges this notion, claiming that a colonia is also constituted by its specific housing production process and embedded patterns of social and cultural organization.
