Urban informality and data intelligence to optimize public management in intermediary cities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26871/killkana_social.v10i3.1831Keywords:
local administration, socioeconomic indicators, labor market, urban planning, informal sectorAbstract
Urban informality overflows the instruments of control of Andean intermediate cities. The municipal response is usually reactive because it lacks a territorial diagnosis that anticipates the pressure on public space. This work shows that data intelligence allows this diagnosis to be built with open official statistics and reproducible procedures. The study applies to Tungurahua and its capital, Ambato, in Ecuador. The design is quantitative, cross-sectional, and spatially explicit. It uses the provincial panel of the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment of 2024 and 2025 for the twenty-four provinces. The procedure combines descriptive statistics, Moran's global index, local indicators of spatial association, Spearman's correlations and a typology based on the level of informality and its interannual trajectory. The results show a territorial distribution without a continuous regional gradient. Moran's index was weak and not significant with five close neighbors (0.086; p = 0.095) and contiguity (0.093; p = 0.131). Tungurahua registers 52.0%, compared to the average of 71.2% of its neighbors, so it forms a low cluster surrounded by high values. However, it rises from 50.5%, while the country drops from 52.4% to 51.5%. Informality replaces adequate employment (−0.873) and cushions open unemployment (−0.581). The study proposes a replicable protocol that offers indicators, alert thresholds and decisions to efficiently optimize the management of public space.
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