Land Tenure Security and Housing Improvements in Recife, Brazil

This article presents the preliminary findings of research on levels of land tenure security carried out in five contested settlements of low-income groups in Recife, Brazil. The study examines the relationship between respondent’s sense of tenure security and their housing conditions. The aim of this paper is to ascertain whether there are differences in levels of security and physical housing conditions, and to obtain some idea of the scale of such differences. Data was gathered from 63 households. While some results confirm assumptions from previous research regarding higher physical improvements on housing where higher levels of land tenure security were assumed, the overall picture shows only weak evidence of higher levels of tenure security amongest the most physically improved cases investigated. Several assumptions regarding the interpretation of perceived security differences are examined and re-evaluated in the context of a framework which takes into account the levels of tenure security and the meanings of security. The data on housing conditions show very small differences in different levels of land tenure security, but there is a rather large difference in housing improvement rates between more complex concepts of security, such as tenure security and personal security.