Valoración de la Sostenibilidad urbana y el habitar en la vivienda pública en Cuenca, Ecuador

This article contributes to the debate on public housing policies in Ecuador through an evaluation of urban sustainability and living experience in public housing projects in Cuenca (Ecuador). To this end, the projects built from 1970 to 2014 were identified and three were chosen that correspond to different urban fabrics and are located in various areas of the city and promoted by dissimilar public entities. To evaluate sustainability, assessment models were used to demonstrate that the three projects are poorly rated and that those located on the city limits are rated even lower. In order to assess living experience, surveys were conducted to identify differences in the ways of inhabiting the immediate surroundings and the city. The results indicate that projects disconnected from urban centers generate a series of unsatisfactory effects for life in society. In light of the results, public housing policies must be rethought with a view to overcoming their role as clientelism tools whose only purpose is to compensate the housing deficit in quantitative terms, in order to transform them into planning tools capable of building sustainable cities.