The LAC Slums Comprehensive Dataset

About

This dataset compiles NGO records and official government registries of informal settlements (slums, favelas, campamentos, asentamientos) across 11 Latin American countries, harmonized into a common schema and linked to city boundaries and household surveys. The goal is to track slum formation, growth, and formalization across multiple census waves.

This dataset serves as the empirical foundation for the companion working paper (see link above).

The project covers two analytical branches:

• Slum-level panel — location, size, infrastructure access, and distance to urban amenities across waves.
• Household-level repeated cross-section (Chile) — who lives in informal settlements, entry and exit dynamics, and resident selection.

Countries covered

Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Guatemala Honduras Mexico Perú Paraguay Uruguay

Key variables

For each slum unit: country, census year, settlement name, municipality, household count, access to electricity, piped water, sewerage, land title, and polygon geometry. Slum locations are linked to the closest city and we measure normalized distances to city centers using global city boundaries data (Bai et al. 2026).

Data

Country-level registries compiled from NGO records (TECHO) and official government sources, harmonized into a common schema.

Chilean Slum Cross-Section Cohort Data

Household-level data from three waves of the Catastro Nacional de Campamentos, Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo (MINVU), Chile. All waves include year of arrival. The 2019 and 2022 waves include a comprehensive survey with individual-level variables (education, housing quality, aspirations).

Additional data sources

Bai, M., Zhang, X., Ai, W. et al. A high-resolution global annual city and town boundaries dataset (2000–2022) derived from GLC_FCS30D product. Scientific Data 13, 50 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06368-9

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for data access to numerous current and past TECHO workers across different local offices throughout Latin America, who generously shared their datasets and the knowledge needed to work with them.

Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite:

Gertler, Paul, Marco González-Navarro, Matías Labbe, Raimundo Undurraga, and Joaquín Urrego. "The LAC Slums Comprehensive Dataset." Technical Report, 2026. https://lac-slums.github.io

@techreport{gertler2026lacslums,
  author = {Gertler, Paul and González-Navarro, Marco and
            Labbe, Matías and Undurraga, Raimundo and Urrego, Joaquín},
  title  = {The {LAC} Slums Comprehensive Dataset},
  year   = {2026},
  type   = {Technical Report},
  url    = {https://lac-slums.github.io}
}