01:450:250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Land Titling, Land Values, Gentrification
1 Apr 2019
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Despite the middle class world view of slums being decrepit and worthless, Desoto took the time to go across the slums of the world and did surveys to take their value. He found that the value of the slums, if legalized and formalized, equates to at least . 3 trillion of capital. He argues that the state/government is being too strict and redtaping too much for slum dwellers to formalize their properties. What the poor lack is easy access to the property mechanisms that could legally fix the economic potential of their assets so that they could be used to produce economic value. Property is a concept not an asset. Titles serve as collateral for mortgages and loans. Titles are necessary to generate surplus value from assets. To him there isn"t a problem with the current distribution of wealth, only with the way, property is currently recognized.
