Urban Informality

Seeing urban politics from the perspective of those who reside in slums offers an important dimension to the study of urbanism in the global South. Many people living in sub-standard conditions do not

Architects, urban planners, geographers, and other social scientists some in academia and some in practice from the three regions explore informal housing and land markets in terms of liberalization a

The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book prese

This edited volume develops a fresh perspective on popular commerce in Latin American cities by focusing on materiality, gender, and the interface of a wide range of actors, agencies, and informalitie

Äthiopien gilt als "Tiger-Staat Afrikas" (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6./7.12.2014). Die Entwicklung von Addis Abeba mit ihren Chancen und Problemen ist typisch für die von sogenannten "emergi

This collection of essays challenges long-entrenched ideas about the history, nature, and significance of the informal neighborhoods that house the vast majority of Latin America's urban poor. Until r

This collection of essays challenges long-entrenched ideas about the history, nature, and significance of the informal neighborhoods that house the vast majority of Latin America's urban poor. Until r

New research on the history of public housing and squatting in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace the development of squatting in Hong Kong from 1963 to 1985. The authors reconstruct government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. This book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. The authors argue that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. They address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, this book makes an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems.

Seeing urban politics from the perspective of those who reside in slums offers an important dimension to the study of urbanism in the global South. Many people living in sub-standard conditions do not

In Hong Kong Public and Squatter Housing: Geopolitics and Informality, 1963–1985, Alan Smart and Fung Chi Keung Charles trace two decades of development of squatting in Hong Kong. The authors reconstruct the government policy on squatting through both ethnographic and archival research. The book sheds new light on the consequences of various attempts to control encroachment on scarce urban space. It argues that intersecting policy agendas resulted in decisions that were often not desired, but which emerged as practical solutions from prior failures. The authors address the challenges of explaining confidential policy decisions and offer new approaches applicable in other contexts. Overall, Smart and Fung make an important contribution to the understanding of how public housing and squatting interacted in influential ways that have been poorly understood and offer new perspectives on the challenges of urban governance and housing problems.

This book addresses the on-going crisis of informality in rapidly growing cities of the global South. The authors offer a Southern perspective on planning theory, explaining how the concept of conflic

Alongside debates over rising inequalities, the stubbornness of urban poverty, globally, has emerged as a major academic and policy concern. Urban poverty policy positions are typically framed by paradigms of basic services and welfare. In the backdrop of Bangalore's evolution into India's silicon valley, the book presents research spanning old, inner city slums, new migrant settlements in urban peripheries, slum development projects, and garment export and construction workers, highlighting that intergenerationally, the urban poor remain tied to traditional low paying occupations, or, get incorporated into new urban growth channels (export industries, low end services) under highly unfavourable terms and conditions. Using the concepts of the old and the new poor, to explore channels of inclusion and exclusion, the book underscores that the poor's vulnerabilities are defined by different regimes of informality. Debates on the urban poor's political agency are used to problematize infor