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Due partly to neoliberal policies-especially in developing countries-and as a result of globalization, urban informality has become an indisputable part of urbanization since the 1970s. As a developing country, Iran has also dealt with the onset of this type of urbanism since the 1920s. The majority of global studies recognize the status of informal settlements and explain relevant approaches and actions. However, less emphasis is placed on informal reproduction factors; This study critically examines the factors that culminate in the reproduction of informality in Iran, namely the ominous triangle of power (government), the state economy, and knowledge-based on instrumental rationality (Technocracy) and its social, physical and environmental effects. This study seeks to evaluate the influential factors of urban informality in Iran with a critical and comprehensive view of the social, economic, political, physical dimensions and avoids an uni-dimensional tunnel vision. Findings show that the government policies and the economic sector monopoly play significant roles in the reproduction of poverty and informal settings in Iran. Furthermore, managerial and technical tools will act as government tools, the output of which manifests in its physical, social, and environmental factors.

RESUMEN: Este trabajo se interesa por el modo como se construye y gestiona una disputa por el acceso al derecho a una vivienda digna en una ciudad bonaerense de Argentina. A partir de la reconstrucción de un evento de ocupación de tierras se indagará en las diversas lecturas jurídicas y criterios de legitimidad movilizados por los actores involucrados. Por otro lado, se explorará la administración estatal del conflicto prestando atención a las acciones, lenguajes y temporalidades que operaron en su procesamiento. La inscripción del evento en un contexto mayor de significación posibilitará advertir que no constituyó una excepcionalidad, sino una problemática recurrente que, en este caso, escaló al nivel de un reclamo colectivo. Ocupação de terras e administração estatal de disputas: Um estudo antropológico em uma cidade de Buenos Aires se interessa pela forma como uma disputa pelo direito à moradia digna é construída e administrada em uma cidade de Buenos Aires, Argentina. A partir da reconstrução de um evento de ocupação do solo, serão investigadas as diversas leituras jurídicas e critérios de legitimidade mobilizados pelos atores envolvidos. Por outro lado, será explorada a gestão estadual do conflito, atentando-se para as ações, linguagens e temporalidades que operaram em seu processamento. O registo do evento em um contexto de maior relevância nos permitirá perceber que não se trata de uma excepção, mas sim de um problema recorrente que, neste caso, ascendeu ao nível de reclamação coletiva. Land Occupation and State Administration of Disputes: An Anthropological Study in a Buenos Aires City is interested in the way in which a dispute over access to the right to decent housing is built and managed in a Buenos Aires city in Argentina. Starting with the reconstruction of a land occupation event, the various legal readings and criteria of legitimacy mobilized by the actors involved will be investigated. On the other hand, the state administration of the conflict will be explored, paying attention to the actions, languages and temporalities that operated in its processing. The registration of the event in a greater context of significance will make it possible to note that it was not an exception, but a recurring problem that, in this case, escalated to the level of a collective claim.

In the wealthy and orderly city of Geneva, Switzerland, accommodation centres built in haste between the 1950s and the 1980s to house seasonal guestworkers from southern Europe are still standing and still inhabited. Today’s residents are precarious workers, undocumented or with temporary permits as well as asylum seekers. While the seasonal status disappeared in the early 2000s, the demand for low-skilled, flexible labour did not. Analysing the historical trajectories of specific buildings helps us to answer the question of who replaced the seasonal workers, not only in the labour and the housing markets, but also in the symbolic spectrum of legitimacy. This article introduces the notion of ‘Subaltern Housing Policies’ to account for the public action that leads to the production and subsequent use of forms of housing characterised by standards of comfort and security far below those of the rental and social housing stock, but considered ‘good enough’ for their occupants. We argue that ‘subaltern’ relates not only to housing conditions, but also to the policies themselves, and last but not least to the people who are subjected to them. This notion allows us to trace a link between the production of substandard forms of housing and the production of categories of people who are kept on the margins of full citizenship.

How has the informality of urban slums exposed a gap in policy formulation and research questions in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic? This paper seeks to identify the appropriate questions and policy frame that would assist future researchers and policymakers on the subject of pandemics in densely populated urban settlements. The authors argue that the nexus between asking the appropriate questions and developing appropriate policy response measures during a pandemic can significantly impact the outcome of the response. The paper examines how the government of Kenya's response to the COVID-19 pandemic reveals a deep-rooted socio-economic and cultural inequality when "blanket" policies are adopted without taking into consideration the unique dynamics characterizing the society. The findings show that the effectiveness of implementing COVID-19 containment policies such as lockdowns, the cession of movement, working from home, distance learning, and social distancing are affected by other factors such as the nature of jobs, one's income levels, where someone lives, cultural beliefs, access to water, sanitation, internet, and medical facilities. This means that a significant number of people within the society experience a double tragedy from the pandemic and impact of government response measures. Yet most of the existing literature has focused on the causes, spread, and impact of the pandemic on health institutions, economies, and public health with little emphasis on the impact on policy measures especially on the vulnerable segments of the society. This paper, therefore, looks at the question of how the various public health intervention strategies disrupt or construct the livelihood of the already complex informal settlement. It provides policymakers and researchers with a number of questions that can frame policy and research during a pandemic with important consideration to urban informality.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the particular way of residential and city production in the informal habitat interacts with the residential and domestic organization of those who inhabit it. For this purpose, different residential strategies of the population are analyzed, being cohabiting and support networks the most relevant. Through a qualitative approach, applied to two informal-origin neighborhoods in Bogotá, it is found that the flexibility offered by informal housing allows shaping certain forms of residential organization that complicate the formulation of domestic agreements. Simultaneously, these residential organizations are conditioned by the networks of relationships that they establish outside the dwelling which facilitate or hinder the development of life in this context. It is concluded that the relationship between households, dwellings and families in informal contexts leads to questioning the different categories used for housing policy making.

Resumen En este artículo nos proponemos redefinir los espacios informales a partir del análisis de las representaciones cartográficas que producen los urbanistas. Con este fin, nos apoyamos en la revisión de tres episodios clave del planeamiento urbano de la ciudad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) desarrollados en el período de posguerra. Más que indagar en el contenido o en el contexto de los planes, nos centramos en los efectos de transparencia que producen sus documentos gráficos, para mostrar cómo la racionalidad técnica y los objetivos políticos se estructuran mutuamente, estabilizando un tipo de conocimiento específico sobre los espacios informales. Estos espacios, más allá de las definiciones legales y sociológicas, al estar filtrados por la normatividad modernista, se explican a partir de nociones como lo transitorio, lo omitido y lo prospectivo. Además de contribuir a la teoría crítica sobre la práctica urbanística, el artículo es un aporte a los marcos de investigación de los estudios urbanos y de la informalidad urbana. Abstract In this article we aim to redefine the notion of informal space through the analysis of their cartographic representations as produced by urban planners. To this end we undertake a historical review of three key planning episodes of Buenos Aires (Argentina) developed during the post-war period. Rather than delving into the content or context of plans and maps, we focus on the effects of transparency they produce, to show how technical knowledge and political objectives are mutually structured, stabilizing and naturalizing, in this process, a specific epistemology of informal spaces. Beyond empiric legal and sociological definitions, informal spaces are a specific type of heterotopia that, filtered by the modernist norma-tivity, can be explained by notions such as the transitory, the omitted and the prospective. The article contributes not only to critical theory discussions about urban planning practice, but also to the analytical frameworks of Urban Studies and urban informality. Resumo Neste artigo, tentamos redefinir os espaços informais a partir da análise das representações cartográficas produzidas pelos planejadores urbanos. Para tanto, contamos com a revisão histórica de três episódios-chave do planejamento urbano de Buenos Aires (Argentina) desenvolvidos no período de pós-guerra. Ao invés de nos aprofundarmos no conteúdo ou contexto dos planos e mapas, nos concentramos nos efeitos da transparência que eles produzem, para mostrar como o conhecimento técnico e os objetivos políticos são mutuamente estruturados, estabilizando e naturalizando, nesse processo, uma determinada epistemologia dos espaços informais. Espaços que, além das definições empiristas, legalistas e sociológicas, são um tipo específico de heterotopia que, filtrada pela normatividade modernista, é explicada a partir de noções como o transitório, u omitida e o prospectivo. Além da teoria crítica sobre a prática dos urbanistas, o artigo é uma contribuição para os Estudos Urbanos e da informalidade urbana. Résumé Dans cet article, nous proposons de redéfinir les espaces informels à partir de l'analyse des représentations cartographiques produites par les urbanistes. À cette fin, nous nous appuyons sur l'examen de trois épisodes clefs de la planification urbaine mis à Buenos Aires (Argentine) au cours de la période de l'après-guerre. Plutôt que d'enquêter sur le contenu des plans ou leur contexte de production, nous nous concentrons sur les effets de transparence produits par ses documents graphiques, afin de montrer comment la rationalité technique et les objectifs politiques s'agencent, structurant ainsi un type de connaissance spécifique sur les espaces informels. Ces espaces, au-delà des définitions juridiques et sociologiques, sont analysés par le filtre des réglementations modernistes et sont expliqués par des notions telles que le transitoire, l'omis ou le futur. En sus de sa contribution à la théorie critique de la pratique urbanistique, l'article est une contribution à l'épistémologie des études urbaines et de l'analyse de l'informalité urbaine..

Resumo A luta pela terra e a permanência no território é um dos temas mais acirrados na atualidade, potencializado pelo contexto pandêmico, com crescentes flagrantes de violações dos direitos humanos. O presente artigo visa refletir acerca do processo de remoção forçada em Salvador/BA, fundamentado no discurso e conceito sobre a informalidade urbana, e da resistência das comunidades, mediante a construção coletiva da matriz de reparação dos danos materiais e imateriais. O texto fundamenta-se, principalmente, nas abordagens teóricas de Jacques (2001), Rolnik (2015) e Zibechi (2015) acerca dos territórios populares, que ultrapassam a noção de precariedade e constituem-se em espaços plenos de sentido. A metodologia qualitativa fundamenta-se na pesquisa-ação, com a participação de representantes das comunidades, entendidos como sujeitos conscientes da dimensão política da realidade na qual estão inseridos. Como resultados, destacam-se o entendimento da violação dos direitos praticados pelo estado, a valoração dos danos materiais e a identificação dos danos imateriais, dando subsídios aos órgãos de justiça às ações de revisão dos valores de indenização. O trabalho contribui para potencializar a denúncia e dar visibilidade às violações de direitos humanos, bem como para a construção de novos modelos de gestão das cidades, em respeito aos direitos humanos e à moradia digna. Abstract The struggle for land and permanence in the territory is one of the most heated issues today, enhanced by the pandemic context, with increasing flagrant violations of human rights. This work aims to reflect on the forced eviction proceeding in Salvador/BA, based on the discourse and concept of urban informality, and on the resistance of communities, through the collective construction of the matrix for repairing material and immaterial damage. The text is mainly based on the theoretical approaches of Jacques (2001), Rolnik (2015) and Zibechi (2015) about popular territories, which go beyond the notion of precariousness and constitute spaces full of meaning. The qualitative methodology is based on an action-research with the participation of the communities representatives affected, understood as subjects aware of the political importance of the reality they are inserted. As a result, it is highlighted the understanding of the violation of rights practiced by the state, the valuation of material damages and the identification of immaterial damages, providing subsidies to the justice agencies for actions to review the compensation values. Thus, this work contributes to enhancing the denunciation and giving visibility to human rights violations, as well as to the construction of new management models for cities, with respect for human rights and decent housing.

Building with natural materials has proven to be a sustainable approach in addressing the needs of affordable and healthy housing and improving living conditions in informal settlements in an era of ecological transition. In view of this, the use of bamboo as a building material is considered a promising practice. However, although many traditional building techniques incorporate the use of bamboo, its application in contemporary informal settlements is disputed. This interdisciplinary study critically explores the social and cultural factors limiting the use of bamboo in a contemporary context by investigating housing perceptions and practices in an informal settlement in Colombia. Results show how the combined effect of cultural globalization, modernization, and the standardization of construction practices have marginalized and are now devaluing traditional knowledge on natural local building materials. Structured observations and in-depth interviews reveal that inhabitants’ refusal of the local bamboo building tradition, their representation of bamboo as an unsafe and temporary material, and their choices of less sustainable contemporary building materials, are better understood by situating these preferences within the complex system of the community’s imaginary. These social representations validate housing behaviors for their symbolic implications rather than for their actual consequences on livability, comfort, and overall dwelling quality. The study also discusses the limits of policies promoting natural building materials in housing when exclusively focusing on technical performance, while neglecting the prevailing impact of the cultural domain on housing preferences and behaviors.

El objetivo del trabajo es determinar las características asociadas a los trabajadores urbanos y rurales con la informalidad. Esta investigación cuantitativa y correlacional se desarrolló a partir de la encuesta ENEMDU de Ecuador, de formal longitudinal desde septiembre de 2014 hasta septiembre de 2019, donde se realizaron modelos Heckprobit y Kaplan-Meier. Los resultados indican que las probabilidades de ingresar al sector informal son superiores en el área rural que en la urbana, por características socioeconómicas. Sin embargo, la probabilidad de permanencia en el sector informal es superior en el área urbana que en la rural.

In this paper we address the formation of urban border territories through the case study of Cañada Real Galiana. Through a qualitative study focused on interviews, drifts and documentary analysis, we will deploy four analytical orders: legal, territorial, media and embodied discourse. Thus, we will explore how the physical, symbolic and temporal border of the city of Madrid are built and sustained, assuming that the Cañada Real exemplifies its east-south limit, but also the limit of the civilized with a space without law or order. The geographical and epistemic concept of “border” is characterized by four elements: successive urban designs, bollards, mud and rubble. In short, we will articulate a story that reveals the Cañada Real as a border area capable of activating a deep debate about disorder, segregation, stigma and rupture of a possible future horizon., En este artículo partimos del estudio del caso de la Cañada Real Galiana para reflexionar sobre las zonas de la periferia urbana desde el concepto de frontera. Proponemos este objeto (geográfico y epistémico) en la medida en la que enfatiza las dinámicas de demarcación, tensión y resistencia de estos contextos urbanos. A través de un trabajo etnográfico analizamos cómo se construyen y sostienen los límites sociomateriales y simbólicos de la ciudad de Madrid asumiendo que la Cañada Real expresa las contradicciones y conflictos de su modelo urbano. Para ello nos apoyaremos en cuatro elementos que dan forma al asentamiento informal. Los planes urbanos, los bolardos, el barro y los escombros nos servirán para articular un relato que desvela la Cañada Real como un espacio fronterizo capaz de activar un debate profundo sobre el desorden, la segregación, el estigma y la quiebra de un posible horizonte de futuro.

Nearly one quarter of Cape Town’s population lives in informal settlements, sites characterized by limited access to basic infrastructure. This article examines how local experiences with waste management reinforce resident understandings of squatted sites as political and material landscapes, emphasizing the structural and spatial foundations of persistent exclusion. Such local understandings are set against the municipality’s neoliberal framing of resident interactions with waste and infrastructure as irresponsible and illegal, implying that residents are to blame for service limitations and using this to justify further restrictions. Drawing from public service campaigns and ethnographic research, this article examines neoliberal ideologies as discourses of blame that erase the political context for marginalized lives, and argues for the need to understand ideologies of governance by setting them against the broad politics of everyday life. Circa un quarto della popolazione di Cape Town vive in insediamenti informali, luoghi caratterizzati da un limitato accesso ai servizi di base. Questo articolo esamina come alcune esperienze locali relative alla gestione dei rifiuti rinforzino la comprensione dei residenti delle zone occupate in quanto panorami politici e materiali, enfatizzando le basi strutturali e spaziali della loro persistente esclusione. Tale comprensione locale viene mobilitata contro la municipalità, che inquadra le interazioni dei residenti con i rifiuti e con le relative infrastrutture come irresponsabili e illegali, incolpandoli così dei limiti imposti nell’erogazione dei servizi e giustificando ulteriori restrizioni. Prendendo spunto da dati etnografici e dall’analisi di diverse campagne della pubblica amministrazione, questo articolo esamina le ideologie neoliberali concretizzatesi in discorsi colpevolizzanti che cancellano la dimensione politica delle persone marginalizzate e dimostra il bisogno di comprendere tali ideologie di governance posizionandole nel quadro delle più ampie politiche della vita quotidiana.

This article investigates urban informality via the lens of southern theory and sets out a postcolonial conceptual framework for researching and theorizing the urban. The article develops the framework via arguing towards advancing ontological queries rather than epistemological probing. To this end, it proposes to investigate the urban via informality and not the other way around, of understanding informality as an anomaly to, the constructed notions of the urban.&nbsp

RESUMENLa informalidad urbanistica se constituye en una de las principales amenazas de origen socio-natural que ha marcado el rumbo de los riesgos en muchas de las ciudades latinoamericanas. La pobreza y la necesidad de vivienda han sido los motores de una resolucion riesgosa del espacio urbano cuando la materializacion de la residencia se ha producido por cuenta propia, al margen de regulaciones urbanas y de los derechos urbanisticos de propiedad, tributario y comercial regulados por el Estado de derecho y sus sistemas de control (Abramo, P., 2003; 2009). En la presente Ponencia proponemos el analisis de esa relacion “irreflexiva” entre sociedad y territorio (Beck, U. Et al, 1997) via la informalidad urbanistica, enfocandonos en el desastre ocurrido el 6 de febrero de 2018 en la zona de Chilimarca, Municipio de Tiquipaya (Cochabamba-Bolivia), parte importante de la Metropoli Kanata, comprometida con 39 cuencas hidrograficas que merecen atencion.Palabras clave: vulnerabilidad, informalidad urbanistica, desastres, suelo urbano.Linea de Investigacion: 2. Ciudad y ambiente Bloque tematico: Riesgo, vulnerabilidad y resiliencia ABSTRACTUrban planning informality becomes one of the main threats from social-natural origin that sets the course of risks in many Latin-American countries. Poverty and the need for housing have been the engines of urban space risky resolution when materialization of residency is produced on own account, apart from urban regulations and urban planning, tax and commercial ownership rights that are regulated by the State of law and its control systems (Abramo, 2003; 2009). In this paper I propose the analysis of this “unreflecting” relationship between society and territory (Beck, et al, 1997) through urban planning informality, focusing on the disaster that took place on February 6, 2018 in Chilimarca area, Tiquipaya township (Cochabamba-Bolivia), being an important part of the Kanata metropoly, comprising 39 attention-deserving hydrographic basins or watersheds.Keywords: vulnerability, urban informality, disasters, urban landThematic clusters: 2. City and Environment Topic: Risk, vulnerability and resilience

This study analyses the meanings street vendors confer upon informal work. Episodic and semi-structured interviews were used to generate and analyze the meanings and vision constructed by 50 street vendors in Bogotá, Colombia. We organized the data through the analysis of thematic networks, starting with initial categories complemented with categories that emerged during the process. Findings show that street vendors confer meaning upon their work as a service, as the only chance to earn a living, and of their autonomy. They construct meanings of work as individualistic, responsible, and helpful workers. Thus, at the same time that they express satisfaction with what they do, they also express nonconformity and dissatisfaction with not having the opportunity to access other types of work. Despite the existence of stigmas and the negative effects thereof that Colombian society maintains about the work and the presence of street vending activities, street vendors carry out their work out as a dignified lifestyle and they see their activities as honorable and as contributing to the well-being of society. This study seeks to contribute to the debate about the meaning that society and academia form about street vendors, their activities and the workspaces they occupy.

Amid globalization and market liberalization, urban informality has continued to grow in leaps and bounds in many parts of the world. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of studies conducted on urban economic informality at various geopolitical contexts to provide an update on the current state of knowledge in the urban informal economy-related research. A total number of 290 studies were sourced from various academic sources; however, a total number of 166 research papers satisfied the requirements of this review paper. The findings of this paper show that research on the urban informal economy has grown from 2000 to 2021, which is a 22-year period in which this review paper was based. The main themes of urban economic informality research depict it as a multifaceted system that is constituted by inputs, processes and outputs that have linkages with the formal economy. Based on these findings, it is recommended that more research should focus on how to integrate research on urban economic informality into the broader agenda of sustainable development.

This paper is engaged with the critical perspective that highlights the role of the state in the production of urban informality by examining the dynamics of informal land-use practices in Dongguan, China since 1978. Based on in-depth interviews and archival analysis, the relationship between informal land development, the state, and land institution change has been revealed. Our findings show that informal land development is practiced by village collectives from below in Dongguan as a response to the absence and limitation of the national land law. The local government handles the informality in a pragmatic way that serves the goal of economic development in different historical conditions by actions of encouraging, tolerating, and authorizing, suggesting that the definition of informality is not a neutral classification. It is argued that while informality represents people’s creativity in dealing with practical problems, when and to what extent it can be tolerated, formalized, and absorbed depends on the intention of the state in a specific historical context.

This article investigates the relationship between urban gardening and planning by building upon the results of field research on gardening initiatives in the city of Rome, Italy. The work ...

The green economy is widely promoted as a 21st century solution to sustainable development. The role of cities in pursuing this agenda is increasingly recognised. Yet, the informal economy, which so many urban dwellers and workers in low- and middle-income countries depend upon, is seldom considered. This paper examines the opportunities and barriers that the urban informal economy pose for making economies greener, and the risks that such attempts pose for vulnerable informal dwellers and workers. In contemplating how this group can be included in the transition to a greener economy, the different schools of thought on informality are reviewed, with a focus on recent thinking that relates urban informality to conflicting processes of inclusion and exclusion. The paper then considers a set of action areas aimed at leveraging the positive contributions that informal dwellers and workers can make in the transition to an economy that is not only greener, but also more inclusive. Leveraging these contributions will require recognising and supporting women's unpaid reproductive work (including community organising and strategizing around environmental improvements) and applying the principles of inclusive urban planning.

Author(s): Sadikoglu Asan, Hatice; Ozsoy, Ahsen | Abstract: The phenomenon of urban informality has coincided with rapid urbanization in Turkey from the 1950s onward. By the urban transformation act that was presented in 2012, formal developments and activities have increased in informal areas. Although recent activities are legal/formal, they have caused the reproduction of informality in these areas. With focusing on this spontaneous collaboration of formal and informal activities, this article seeks to understand the new urban fabric that was created by formal and informal builders who are both rule-breakers and rule-makers. The research was carried out in the Guzeltepe neighborhood, a complex neighborhood with a mix of squatter houses and renewal areas. The field study was conducted from 2014 to 2017 with site visits, photo analysis, and archival research. We will reveal and discuss legalization and upgrading processes, and the effects of this transformation. We will then analyze how informality operates as a logic of urban life.

The movement of people in Southeast Asia is an issue of increasing importance. Countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are now the origin of 8 percent of the world's migrants. These countries host only 4 percent of the world's migrants but intra-regional migration has turned Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand into regional migration hubs that are home to 6.5 million ASEAN migrants. However, significant international and domestic labor mobility costs limit the ability of workers to change firms, sectors, and geographies in ASEAN. This report takes an innovative approach to estimate the costs for workers to migrate internationally. Singapore and Malaysia have the lowest international labor mobility costs in ASEAN while workers migrating to Myanmar and Vietnam have the highest costs. Singapore and Malaysia's more developed migration systems are a key reason for their lower labor mobility costs. How easily workers can move to take advantage of new opportunities is important in determining how they fare under the increased economic integration planned for ASEAN. To study this question, the report simulates how worker welfare is affected by enhanced trade integration under different scenarios of labor mobility costs. Region-wide, worker welfare would be 14 percent higher if barriers to mobility were reduced for skilled workers, and an additional 29 percent if barriers to mobility were lowered for all workers. Weaknesses in migration systems increase international labor mobility costs, but policy reforms can help. Destination countries should work toward systems that are responsive to economic needs and consistent with domestic policies. Sending countries should balance protections for migrant workers with the needs of economic development.

© 2017 Dr Nastaran Peimani, A key response to the challenges of car-dependency and urban sprawl has been to build dense, functionally mixed and walkable urban areas around existing and new transit stations – broadly defined as Transit-oriented development (TOD). While the concept of TOD has been extensively researched in Western cities, less formal and more congested cities lack empirical investigation, particularly in the ways TODs work in relation to micro-scale morphology, urbanity, informality and gender issues. This research explores the case study of Tehran to investigate synergies between urban morphology, transport modes and streetlife around five major transit nodes. It examines the ways that different modes of transport variously mesh or compete for the same networks and spaces. The study explores the relations of informal to formal transport and discusses on the prospects for formalisation. It documents the advantages that motorcycles have within this urban assemblage - capacities to slip through congested traffic and narrow streets and between different spatial networks. It also explores the ways that gender-based rules both constrain women's use of public transport and keep the system informal. Using comparative mappings of urban density, functional mix, streetlife, transport access and interfaces, the thesis explores both existing synergies between such properties and possibilities for urban design transformation.

This paper addresses the crucial need to gather more in-depth knowledge on the social construction of hazard by exploring risk exposition in informal settlements. The confluence of certain hazard conditions and inherent or contextual vulnerability configurations increases exponentially the risk of damages in the case of calamitous events. This suggests that the eradication of urban informality may contribute to reduce the vulnerability to natural hazards as well. This study proposes the use of the Geography of Opportunity and the Basic Liveability approach to understand the processes triggering the (re)production of informality and, more specifically, the factors driving settlements localisation into hazard-exposed areas. Two Chilean cities have been taken as case studies, as they constitute a paradigmatic example of social construction of hazard in Latin-America. The proposed case studies allow us to analyse the residential deficit and informality eradication policies in Chile. As a result, we observed that informal settlements are strategically located in relation to the structure of metropolitan opportunities, but the trade-off for this is the occupation of marginal and hazard-exposed areas. The conclusions give some recommendations in order to support policymakers to provide more comprehensive urban planning and risk management strategies to face future challenges, involving issues as urban poverty, social inequality and housing policy in addition to aspects related to pure hazard exposition.

In Sydney, a variety of informal spaces of musical production and performance exist, from autonomously-organized public performance spaces, to top-down, hierarchical, closed spaces, and any number of configurations in between. Are these informal spaces an enactment of progressive rights to the city? Do they contribute to gentrification and urban renewal processes? This thesis critically interrogates the urban politics of these different expressions of informality in the Sydney music scene. Following McFarlane and Waibel (2012), I consider informality as a multi-dimensional concept that can be conceived of in four ways: spatial categorization, organizational form, governmental tool, and negotiable value. In my own contribution to the literature, I seek to understand the relationship between informality and the State, based on these criteria. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of several informal performance spaces and events in Sydney, I have devised a typology of informal spaces. These are: (1) informal spaces, (2) informally formal spaces, and (3) formally informal spaces. This typology allows us to differentiate between the urban politics of different kinds of informality in globalizing cities, in order to understand which processes subsume informality into neoliberal modes of urban governance, and which processes aim to create more socially just cities.

This paper aims to investigate the negotiation between the “formal” and the “informal” urban space in Jakarta through the examination of use of space of marginalized transportation of bajaj – a three-wheeled public transportation. Bajaj drivers continuously and creatively create their use of space and territory as the result of the limitation of space. Creativity in using space emerges as a way to get available space and this activity results in the appropriation of urban space. The basis of such appropriation is how to survive in urban space and such condition is characterized by negotiation, flexibility and adaptability. In high-density Jakarta city, it is necessary for bajaj drivers – who have only limited possibility in using strategic urban space – to use both the formal and the informal to sustain the city at large. An analysis of how bajaj drivers negotiated urban spaces around Manggarai Station reveals the appropriation of urban space that relies on temporality, tactics and negotiation of rules of access among users. In this paper, we analyze how urban informality as an ‘organizing logic’ results in a specific mode of the production of space. The analysis of negotiations of space around Manggarai Station is intended to contribute to an understanding of how informal and negotiated spaces, which shape everyday life in the city, are inseparable parts of formal and designed spaces in the city of Jakarta.

Em Praia, Cabo Verde, a administracao local vem implementando politicas de transformacao no espaco, politicas estas que atingem especialmente a area central da cidade. Estas transformacoes visam a transformacao da paisagem urbana esperando especialmente a entrada de turistas internacionais. Este artigo analisa algumas destas transformacoes e as diferentes percepcoes que estas acarretam, particularmente para as mulheres vendedoras ambulantes. Trata-se de um estudo etnografico cujos resultados preliminares apontam para tensoes e conflitos entre as politicas de remodelacao da cidade e as atividades de venda ambulante efetuadas pelas mulheres. Palavras-chave: informalidade urbana, vendedoras ambulantes, transformacoes urbanas.

This paper seeks to explore the definitions and uses of both urban informality, and temporary appropriation in a city/urban setting. Temporary appropriation is usually overlooked and misinterpreted as a form of informal practice. By separating temporary appropriation from informality, we have been able to create a simpler model for understanding urban informality, whilst at the same time crystallising temporary appropriation as a concept in its own right. We challenge the existing definitions of informality as applied in studies concerning informal practices in the Global North and argue that some understandings of informal behaviour in urban settings could be better understood when viewed as forms of temporary appropriation. We provide a categorisation of temporary appropriation by providing examples from different cities and cultures and show that there is a definite need for a deeper understanding of temporary appropriation and its relationship with the urban informality of any socio-cultural landscape.

There has been a renewed interest in informal urbanization among urban thinkers in the last decades. In their contributions to the discourse on urban informality, we often find an overvaluation of informality’s positive aspects. The underlying argument is that governments and planners should ‘learn’ from informal settlements in the global south, as informal settlements represent a more authentic, ‘honest’ and politically desirable form of urban development. Other authors identify intrinsic formal qualities that should be emulated. In this tekst, we challenge these viewpoints with an account of the political history of São Paulo’s informal periphery and its struggle for rights and democratization. The hypothesis we explore is that the informal urbanization of the peripheries of São Paulo is closely tied to a plea for rights and the emancipation of the working classes during the second half of the twentieth century in Brazil. We adopt the position that exclusion from formal political structures has deep-reaching consequences and is reflected on the built environment as well. In many cases, informal urbanisation can be the physical expression of the absence of rights and deficiencies in the rule of law. In this sense, informal urbanisation is not a pragmatic solution for the lack of formal housing in developing countries, but the sign of non-inclusive political systems. Informality can therefore be seen as the expression of exclusion from the rule of law and the protection it offers to citizens. It often creates all sorts of distortions in the relationships between citizens and political power.

Existing scholarship on postcolonial urbanisms has judiciously analysed the role played by the state and private capital in the expansion of global information-technology clusters and exclusive high-tech knowledge enclaves that have emerged across different metropolitan fringes in India and in the wider global South. However, much of this scholarship has focused primarily on the antagonisms wrought by the ‘expulsion’ of local rural populations from their lands and livelihoods, at the hands of the neoliberal state and global capitalist elites. In contrast, there is not enough research on how diverse local communities and subaltern actors emerge in place, and help organise, support and sustain these modern infrastructural spaces well after the initial moment of their establishment. Citing this important gap in our knowledge, this article argues for the need to move beyond some of the adversarial accounts associated with the overarching logics of postcolonial capitalist accumulation and new suburban development in the global South, to focus instead on the complex ‘afterlives’ of these modern high-tech suburban spaces. Drawing on ethnographic data from Pune city in Western India, and an emerging IT and IT-enabled services (IT and ITeS) outsourcing hub, the article reveals that contrary to popular perceptions of high-tech clusters as sovereign spaces for transnational capital, these sites are, in fact, constitutive of their multiple ‘outsides’—which include diverse forms of informal and illegal economies and labour. To evidence these claims, the article highlights different examples of ‘urban co-dependencies’ which have in situ emerged in Pune’s new urban fringes, to meet the growing gaps in demand of essential public services in these areas. The article then proceeds to show how Pune’s local micro-political cultures, including the numerous instances of territorial conflict and collaboration between so-called elites and subaltern actors at the local level, continue to ‘co-shape’ the typologies and the temporalities of local land use, planning and development that takes place in India’s new urban fringes. This paper attempts to expand this discussion in digital geographies by exploring their interaction with uneven urban development and planning in cities of the global South. At the centre of its enquiry are ‘high-tech’ urban clusters located at the fringes of Pune (a Tier-2 metro city in western India), that include several large and small, highly securitised software technology parks, associated industrial zones, glitzy shopping malls and luxury residential condominiums, bordered by an ever-shrinking reservoir of vacant and un-built ‘village’ land. Instead of cataloguing the genealogy and evolution of ‘technology-parks’ or ‘knowledge corridors’ as ‘spaces of sovereign exception’ (Gonzalez-Vicente, 2019), this paper theorises large urban IT-clusters in Indian cities as constitutive of ‘a multiplicity of normative orders’ (Mezzadra and Neilsen, 2019, p.152), which intersect with the multiplicity of economic actors, labour forms and practices – whether they be formal or informal, legal or illegal, sustained or provisional. Through this, the paper emphasises the need to emplace these global infrastructural spaces and zones within a grassroots conception of co-dependent urbanisation and highlight rootedness of these modern infrastructural spaces or zones within urban social networks, territorial collaborations and contestations among heterogeneous urban actors and their everyday micropolitics.

This book deals with slums as a specific question and a central focus in urban planning. It radically reverses the official version of the history of world cities as narrated during decades: slums are not at the margin of the contemporary process of urbanization; they are an integral part of it. Taking slums as its central focus and regarding them as symptomatic of the ongoing transformations of the city, the book moves to the very heart of the problem in urban planning. The book presents 16 case studies that form the basis for a theory of the slum and a concrete development manual for the slum. The interdisciplinary approach to analysing slums presented in this volume enables researchers to look at social and economic dimensions as well as at the constructive and spatial aspects of slums. Both at the scientific and the pedagogical level, it allows one to recognize the efforts of the slum’s residents, key players in the past, and present development of their neighborhoods, and to challenge public and private stakeholders on priorities decided in urban planning, and their mismatches when compared to the findings of experts and the demands of users. Whether one is a planner, an architect, a developer or simply an inhabitant of an emerging city, the presence of slums in one’s environment – at the same time central and nonetheless incongruous – makes a person ask questions. Today, it is out of the question to be satisfied with the assumption of the marginality of slums, or of the incongruous nature of their existence. Slums are now fully part of the urban landscape, contributing to the identity and the urbanism of cities and their stakeholders.