Contracts and Retaliation

Abstract

The current housing policy paradigm supports the integration of informal settlements’ housing markets with the larger housing markets. Given, however, that housing production and exchange happen in a continuum of formal and informal processes, this article seeks to look at the effects of this integration on the conditions of housing acquisition for low-income urban dwellers. Based on a case study in Hayy el-Sellom (Beirut), the article traces the changing practices that ensued from the integration of this informal settlement’s housing market in the affordable housing market of the city’s suburbs by looking at how exchanges were secured and redress sought in cases of default. Research findings indicate that the introduction of practices borrowed from the larger housing market did not improve market securities. This suggests that rather than focusing on the formal—informal divide, planners should devise context-specific methods to address locally identified market weaknesses.