The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization

Roberto Rocco, Jan van Ballegooijen, Roberto Rocco, Jan van Ballegooijen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781317292326
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization investigates the mutual relationship between the struggle for political inclusion and processes of informal urbanization in different socio-political and cultural settings.

It seeks a middle ground between two opposing perspectives on the political meaning of urban informality. The first, the 'emancipatory perspective', frames urban informality as a practice that fosters autonomy, entrepreneurship and social mobility. The other perspective, more critical, sees informality predominantly as a result of political exclusion, inequality, and poverty. Do we see urban informality as a fertile breeding ground for bottom-up democracy and more political participation? Or is urban informality indeed merely the result of a democratic deficit caused by governing autocratic elites and ineffective bureaucracies?

This book displays a wide variety of political practices and narratives around these positions based on narratives conceived upon specific case cities. It investigates how processes of urbanization are politicized in countries in the Global South and in transition economies.

The handbook explores 24 cities in the Global South, as well as examples from Eastern Europe and East Asia, with contributions written by a global group of scholars familiar with the cases (often local scholars working in the cities analyzed) who offer unique insight on how informal urbanization can be interpreted in different contexts. These contributions engage the extreme urban environments under scrutiny which are likely to be the new laboratories of 21st-century democracy. It is vital reading for scholars, practitioners, and activists engaged in informal urbanization.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Political Meaning of Informal Urbanization
• 2 Ahmedabad: Urban Informality and the Production of Exclusion
• 3 Ankara: Struggles for Housing – Legitimate, Self-Contradictory, or Both? Impacts of Clientelism and Rights-Seeking on Informal Housing in Ankara
• 4 Informal Settlements in the Balkans: Squatters’ Magic Realism Vs. Planners’ Modernist Fantasy Vs. Governments’ Tolerance and Opportunism
• 5 Beirut: Dahiye – An Active Space for Social Justice and Resistance – Re-Imagining Informality in Light of Growing Urban Marginality
• 6 Belo Horizonte: New Urban Occupations in the Metropolitan Area of Belo Horizonte and the Struggle for Housing Rights
• 7 Cairo: Right to the City and Public Space in Post-Revolutionary Cairo
• 8 Fortaleza: Informal Urbanization Versus Modernization – Popular Resistance in Fortaleza, Brazil
• 9 Guangzhou: Fewer Contestations, More Negotiations – A Multi-Scalar Understanding of the ‘Politics of Informal Urbanization’ in Southern China
• 10 Guayaquil: Conflicting Competences in Guayaquil’s Contested and (In)Formal Periphery
• 11 Hanoi: A Study of Informally Developed Housing and its Role in the Political Arena of a Post-Reform Communist City
• 12 Harare: Informality and Urban Citizenship – Housing Struggles in Harare, Zimbabwe
• 13 Jerusalem: The Multifaceted Politics of Informality in Jerusalem at the Time of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• 14 Johannesburg: The Political Ecology of the Right to the Rainbow City – Informal Spaces and Practices and the Quest for Socio-Environmental Rights in Urbanizing Johannesburg
• 15 Khartoum: The Politics of Displacement in a Conflictive Polity
• 16 Lima: Informal Urbanization and the State – The Rise and Fall of Urban Populism in Lima
• 17 Mashhad: Claiming the Right to the City – Informal Urbanization in the Holy City of Mashhad
• 18 Medellin: Performative Infrastructures – Medellin’s Governmental Technologies of Informality – The Case of the Encircled Garden Project in Comuna
• 19 Mumbai: Profit Versus People – The Struggle for Inclusion in Mumbai
• 20 Nairobi: The Socio-Political Implications of Informal Tenement Housing in Nairobi, Kenya
• 21 Port-au-Prince: Haiti’s Disaster Urbanism – The Emerging City of Canaan
• 22 Rio de Janeiro: Tackling Informality in Low-Income Housing – The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro
• 23 São Paulo: Cortiços – Interstitial Urbanization in Central São Paulo
• 24 São Paulo: Occupations – A Pedagogy of Confrontation – Informal Building Occupations in São Paulo’s Central Neighborhoods
• 25 Seoul: The Evolution of Informal Settlers’ Political Gains in Changing State Regimes in Seoul
• 26 Yogyakarta: Slum Dwellers’ Strategies and Tactics in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
• Index