Question
Is the distance to the city the same for everyone who lives on the edge?
The low-income periphery accumulates deficits
In Montevideo, containers miss their collection deadline on 2% to 3% of days in the central and coastal municipalities, and on 21% to 24% in the western and northern ones. Across neighborhoods, delays and the proximity index have a correlation of −0.85: where everyday life is far away, trash also takes longer to be collected. Complaints are closed in a median of 17 days in the Cerro municipality and in 6 to 7 in those of Centro, Prado, Malvín and Maroñas, and in Piedras Blancas 62% of people have fewer than 4 buses an hour or no stop at all.
In Bogotá, one hour of public transit from Usme reaches blocks with 17.5% of the city’s population; from Puente Aranda, 46.5%. In Usme, 60.5% of people need more than 30 minutes by transit to reach a public health facility. In Cancún, a 45-minute bus ride from subzone 8 reaches 4% of jobs; from 1-A, 61%.
The gated periphery is also far away
The second periphery is that of gated subdivisions and complexes. In Cancún, people who live behind a boom gate reach 17% of jobs by bus, half the share reached from outside, and their elementary school is 1,355 m away on foot, compared with 572 m. In Bogotá, 71.1% of residential city blocks of 1 ha or more are condominium complexes, and from inside, the gatehouse is 76 m away at the median. In the index for Mexico’s 17 metropolitan areas, the lowest values recur in mass housing on the periphery and in upscale gated subdivisions.
The numbers look alike, but the two peripheries are not the same. In Cancún, 68% of homes behind a boom gate have a car; in subzone 7-B, a social housing area, only 18%. People who live far away without a car pay for the distance with time; those who live far away with a car pay with money. In Guadalupe, Nuevo León, the highest socioeconomic quintile has fewer nearby services (15% with all seven within 15 minutes) than the lowest (24%).
A reading for decision-making
Treating the periphery as a single problem leads to the wrong policies. The low-income periphery needs public services, frequent transit and reliable urban operations; the gated periphery needs access points and mixed uses, and its cost is borne mainly by those who live inside. In all three regions, the data make it possible to tell them apart block by block.