Modes of Informal Urban Development

Abstract

The concept of informality has often been misunderstood. Its, especially, urban character is rarely appreciated. With respect to urban development, it was once thought to distinguish the Global South, a view that is changing, but an alternative has not been systematically articulated. Based on an extensive survey of literatures, this article clarifies the urban character of informality, articulates its global relevance, and proposes a framework for understanding its major modes: latent, diffuse, embedded, overt, and dominant. Their relative frequency distinguishes cities, regions, and nations while their identification facilitates the comparison of places.

Hidden homes? Uncovering Sydney’s informal housing market

“…Scholars stress the importance of discarding binary, oppositional conceptions of 'formal versus informal' to appreciate that the two are mutually constitutive, with informality 'produced by formal structures and always intimately related to them' (Porter et al, 2011: 116). Thus the state is engaged in producing informality as well as in responding to it, whether through formalisation, toleration or eradication (Iveson et al, 2018;Harris, 2018;Tonkiss, 2013).…”

Learning from Latin America’s Informal Sector

“…Indeed, as Richard Harris and others observe, there are multiple examples and modes of informality in US cities today: day labor sites and casual laboring; self-building in colonias and informal subdivisions in Texas and across many parts of the US; informal financing of the same; backyard second-and third-family housing units built outside of code in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, and many other cities; home extensions; informal off-street parking arrangements; garage and front-of-lot sales of second-hand goods; the booming industry of food trucks; the ubiquitous street sellers of New York and Los Angeles, and so on. 12 Many of these activities have existed in the US for decades, albeit often largely invisible and "underground" (e.g., the sweatshops described by Saskia Sassen), 13 and are therefore rarely adequately documented. The legion of studies from Latin America, and those discussed in this review, offer insights and a framework for how scholars and policy makers might think about informal processes in our own backyards and better understand the logic (and needs) that drive them.…”

El campamento en relación con la ciudad: informalidad y movilidades residenciales de habitantes de Alto Hospicio

“…La informalidad urbana a nivel global ha estado sometida a un intenso debate (Harris, 2018). Se interrogan sus diversos contextos, más allá del sur global, y se indaga por su rol en las vidas cotidianas de sus habitantes más allá de la economía política.…”