Squatter Settlements

11 Key excerpts on "Squatter Settlements"

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  Urbanisation, Housing and the Development Process

  • David Drakakis-Smith(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  3 Squatter Settlements

  Introduction

  Although the structural framework outlined in the previous chapter has established the basic nomenclature that will be used throughout this book, further discussion is perhaps required for Squatter Settlements because of the proliferation of alternative descriptive terms which has emerged in recent years. In essence euphemisms such as ‘uncontrolled’ or ‘spontaneous’ have been put forward in order to avoid the use of two of the most common terms, viz. ‘shantytown’ and ‘squatter settlement’, which are currently regarded as disparaging. To a certain extent this criticism is valid although in the latter case the deprecatory connotations are not implicit in the etymology of the words per se.

  There has undoubtedly been a pejorative bias in many assessments of Squatter Settlements to date, a factor which is not unconnected with the dilapidated appearance of most communities. Atman (1975) typifies this approach when he described squatter kampungs in Indonesia as ‘the slum dwellings of homeless people’. But how can the inhabitants of a dwelling, however meagre, be considered homeless? It is similar refusals on the part of urban authorities to consider squatter houses as ‘homes’ which has adversely affected housing policies towards the urban poor for so many years. It was noted in Chapter 2 that the word ‘squatter’ is deliberately retained and used throughout this book because it reflects the illegal nature of most settlements and conditions the nature of their relationship with urban governments. In many ways the authorities are relatively content to allow such settlements to persist since, on the one hand, the low cost of squatter housing and the money earned from clandestine occupations ensure that large masses of the urban poor survive with minimum demands on the public exchequer. On the other hand, the illegal nature of so many aspects of squatter life enables the authorities to retain a strong, although not always tight, control over the inhabitants. Indeed, many government officials are deliberately lax in enforcing laws and regulations, provided they receive financial recompense. It is important to note, therefore, that extensive urban squatting is not always a manifestation of weak political or administrative control. As long as some laws are contravened the squatters remain in a precarious position vis-à-vis

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  Precarious Housing in Europe

  A Critical Guide

  • PusH Precarious Housing in Europe, Sybille Münch, Anna Siede, Sybille Münch, Anna Siede(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Edition Donau-Universität Krems

    (Publisher)

  converted or arranged for human habitation but are, nevertheless, used by one or more private households as their usual residence at the census reference time. This category also includes natural shelters such as caves, which are used by one or more private households as their usual residence at the census reference time. Source: Conference of European Statisticians,2015, pp. 187-189.

  Various definitions of informality may refer to widely divergent and even nonoverlapping sets of cases. For example, a typology of informal cities was developed to specifically address the situation in Southeast Europe covering settlements for vulnerable, often marginalized social groups in substandard housing as well as other forms of housing informality (Tsenkova, 2009b; 2012). This typology is based on the idea that there are different levels of informality and includes: (1) Squatter Settlements, (2) settlements for refugees and vulnerable people, (3) upgraded Squatter Settlements, and (4) illegal suburban subdivisions. The first three categories have mostly vulnerable inhabitants. Squatter Settlements are typically built by residents of illegally occupied land. These settlements are primarily the result of rapid movement into cities due to migration and changes in urban economies. Settlements of refugees and internally displaced persons, i.e. in countries of ex-Yugoslavia, are similar to the informal squatted settlements but generally appeared faster, more recently and were sometimes approved by authorities as a temporary solution. Upgraded Squatter Settlements, which typically appeared in periurban areas in the 1970s, have evolved into more established neighbourhoods. Over time, de facto legality is implied in some cases by the fact that the settlements have not been demolished, and that some infrastructure, such as piped water, electricity and sewage systems, have been provided. There are examples where these settlements have been included in city plans. Illegal subdivisions of agricultural land are widespread in the periurban areas but also occur on agricultural land and environmental reserves. Building often occurs without planning permissions in violation of standards for road accessibility, public space and infrastructure (Tsenkova, 2012). Others like Roy (2005) looking from a global perspective also considered a ‘continuum of legality and illegality’ including Squatter Settlements which exist ‘alongside upscale informal subdivisions formed through legal ownership and market transaction but in violation of land use regulations’. Based on examples and experiences from the Global South Tostensen (2005) coined the term ‘informal city’ formed by extra-legal housing and unregistered economic activities. The informal city as the term itself indicates is something big, fully functional, covering many areas of economic and social life and not exceptional or irregular by far. To understand it we have to recognize that the illegal is not necessarily illegitimate (Ibid.). We can imagine the informal city as a kind of parallel reality to the formal city, overlaying it and filling all the gaps and empty spaces.

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  Politics and Society in the Developing World

  • Mehran Kamrava(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  While comprised of residents who are not as poverty-stricken as some other migrants, these settlements are, nevertheless, also made up of huts that are a far cry from conventional housing. Lastly, a few squatters are able to move out of slum settlements altogether and become part of a group of middle-income status-seekers. Made up mostly of migrants whose ventures into the city have brought them relatively substantial revenues – through such activities as driving taxis or working in shops and factories – these former squatters have relatively more choices of residence and are often able to upgrade the quality of their housing. 60 Despite the possible social and economic mobility of some rural migrants, most spend their residence in the city in one shantytown or another. They become part of the sea of the urban poor that can be found in any metropolitan area of the developing world (Tables 3.3 and 3.4). In each country or region, Squatter Settlements are often popularly given condescending names denoting their inferior social and economic status. In Latin America they are commonly referred to as ‘barrios’, ‘barriadas’, ‘favelas’, ‘ranchos’, ‘colonias’, ‘proletarias’ or ‘callampas’; in North Africa, especially in Algeria, they are known as ‘bidonville’ or ‘gourbiville’; in India they are called ‘bustees’; ‘kampongs’ in Malay; ‘barung-barongs’ in the Philippines; ‘gecekondu’ districts in Turkey; and ‘halab-abads’ in Iran. 61 Despite their different names, however, Squatter Settlements share a number of strikingly common characteristics. Table 3.3 Population living on less than US$1 a day in developing economies Source: World Bank. World Development Indicators 1997. (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997), p. 31. Table 3.4 Percentage of the globe’s poor in developing regions South Asia 39% East Asia 33% Africa 17% Other 11% Source: World Bank. World Development Indicators 1997. (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997), p

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  Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries

  • Cedric Pugh(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Some 66 per cent of preventable ill-health owing to environmental conditions occurs among children, being especially significant in developing countries. Malnutrition continues to be a problem in terms of health, capacity to work and vulnerability for reduced social opportunities: various studies indicate that stunting and low body mass occur among sections of the population in poverty (ie, below US$370 per annum). Residential densities in the poorer parts of Calcutta range between 800 and 1000 people per hectare, compared with some 70 in most North American cities (World Resources Institute et al, 1996). In some cities, especially where housing markets are tight, Squatter Settlements house moderate- and middle-income groups, as well as the poor and the poorest of the poor. This partly indicates the inadequate supplies from the formal housing sector, reflecting mass poverty, underdeveloped housing finance systems and inadequacies in land policy and land delivery systems. Housing sector development represents only some 3–5 per cent of GDP in developing countries, although this is an underestimate because it omits large amounts of unaccounted self-help housing.

  Squatter Settlements are varied in their characteristics, and this influences their potential for conservation and regeneration. Some are massive, with populations over 100,000, and others are small, occupying infill sites. In some cases, the populations have expectations of imminent redevelopment, whereas in others de facto occupancy rights seem secure. Sometimes a settlement generates its own leadership and organizational structures which can be used for negotiating with politicians and bureaucracies for installing infrastructure. Other settlements have either apathy or powerlessness. Housing and environmental improvement can be spontaneous, and this is more likely in those settlements which are well established and where there is an expectation of medium- or long-term security. Also, some settlements may be selected for environmental improvement and the regularization of tenure rights. This will lead to some positive expectations, but also open the possibilities for using political skills and pressures to influence the selection of improvements, and the distribution of costs and benefits among households. State-assisted regeneration will sometimes raise the question of redesigning lay-outs and realignments, with implications for reducing housing densities and for rehousing schemes. In fact, in prescriptive principle – but not always in practice – the improvement of Squatter Settlements should be co-ordinated with new housing development and the macro-spatial planning of urban areas. Regeneration also increases land and property prices, and this may or may not lead to ‘gentrification’, depending on the dynamics of submarkets in urban housing.

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  Indian Communities in Southeast Asia (First Reprint 2006)

  • Kernial Singh Sandhu, A. Mani(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • ISEAS Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 19 INDIAN SQUAI.IER SEITILERS Indian Rural-Urban Migration in West Malaysia R. Rajoo S quatter settlements are identified as an urban phenomenon caused by rapid urbanization and the large-scale influx of rural inhabitants to city centres. It is thus associated with the 'push' and 'pull' factors. The growth and development of urban squatters is also identified as a characteristic of many of the rapidly urbanizing countries of the Third World. 1 What distin-guishes the Squatter Settlements from all other kinds of lower-class settle-ments is that they exist illegally on land belonging to the state or private citizens and are occupied by recent migrants from rural areas who swarm to the cities in search of new opportunities and the hope for a better future offered by industrialization. However, there are also other features attributed to the urban Squatter Settlements: overcrowding, congestion, disorderliness, an absence of basic amenities, a breeding ground for diseases, criminal activities resulting from unemployment and poverty -as the Squatter Settlements are usually deemed to be inhabited by the poor and, hence, characteristic of urban poverty -and the breakdown of certain cherished traditional values. They are thus viewed as 'asylums' for the poor and termed as ghettos, slums, and shanty towns in different parts of the world. Besides the squatters, perceived as passive in their outlook, have low social esteem and are diffused in their goal orientation. In short, they are regarded 484 Indian Squatter Settlers 485 as isolated from the outside world and the mainstream society and, conse-quently, as social, cultural, and political marginals. Without going into details, it may be stated briefly that such a view with regard to the squatters has been subjected to severe criticism by recent researchers 2 on the subject.

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  Caribbean Land and Development Revisited

  • J. Besson, J. Momsen, J. Besson, J. Momsen(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Part III Land for the Peasantry? Chapter 10 “Squatting” as a Strategy for Land Settlement and Sustainable Development Jean Besson Introduction Informal occupation or “squatting” is an escalating phenomenon in the postcolonial world. As Robert Home and Hilary Lim observed in 2004, “The millions of people in the world who lack access to land where they can find secure shelter present a great global challenge to law, governance and civil society. About half of the world’s population (three billion people) now live in urban areas, and nearly a billion are estimated to be living in informal, illegal settlements, mostly in the urban and peri-urban areas of less developed countries.” 1 At the turn of the millennium, Hernando de Soto argued that such poverty can only be reduced by replacing customary land tenure with legal property rights, 2 and (as Home and Lim summarize) that such property rights “are the hidden infrastructure that can help achieve sustainable devel- opment goals.” 3 These global issues of land and development are reflected in the Caribbean region, the world’s oldest colonial/postcolonial sphere, where land tenure and use have been controversial in relation to plantations, peasants, and towns since the European conquest of 1492. 4 Here too, as elsewhere in the developing world, rapid urbanization has been a major process of social change since the mid-twentieth century. 5 David Satterthwaite noted in 2002 that “[m]ore than two-thirds of the world’s urban population is now in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. . . . Africa now has a larger urban population than Northern America; so too does Latin America and the Caribbean—which also has close to three-quarters of its population living in urban centres.” 6 Informal occupation or squatting is a significant theme in this increasing urbanization in the Caribbean region, as studies including Trinidad, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Martinique, and Barbados show.

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  The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization

  • Roberto Rocco, Jan van Ballegooijen, Roberto Rocco, Jan van Ballegooijen(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In Albania, informal housing is a predominantly post-socialist phenomenon, while in the countries of ex-Yugoslavia informal settlements also existed during socialist rule due to the inability of the planning system to rapidly provide social housing for new urbanites. The critical factors spurring on the more recent formation of informal settlements include: (a) rapid urbanization and the influx of people into select urban areas; (b) wars – e.g. in the former Yugoslavia – and resulting displacement; (c) natural disasters and earthquakes that led to a massive movement of people to places of opportunity and/or safety; (d) poverty and a lack of low-cost housing and serviced land; (e) complex, lengthy, and costly procedures to build ‘legal’ housing; and/or (f) hyperinflation, to shield from which people invested illegally in real estate in the absence of other viable investment alternatives. In a sense, informal settlements were a spatial manifestation of a deep political crisis, including painful transitions to a capitalist system.

  While many Balkan Squatter Settlements house poor and marginalized populations, many others are inhabited by working-class families, and contain housing construction of good quality, often on legally owned land. Smaller pockets of more marginal settlements, often housing Roma minorities, can also be found under bridges and overpasses, on abandoned industrial lots, in proximity to landfills, and in other sites undesirable for conventional residential use. However, in the Balkans, most informal settlements housing the poor have not been in poor-quality areas. Most were built on public rather than private land. The illegal nature of these developments is associated with the lack of formal urban plans and/or building permits. Unlike the extremely poor and marginalized squatters of some countries in the Global South, discussed in other chapters of this volume, many southeast European squatters have had access to financial resources, either through remittances and savings or through the trade-off of housing inherited from the socialist era. Many squatters had previously been homeowners in their rural areas of origin.

  Despite its present magnitude, in-depth recent academic literature on informal housing in the Balkans is relatively scarce. Also, available studies are limited in scope. They focus on economic and legal aspects of informal settlements but not on political, social, and cultural challenges surrounding housing informality (see De Waal, 2004; NALAS, 2011; Tsenkova, 2009; UN, 2009; UN-Habitat, 2010; Pojani, 2013). Other studies (Arraiza & Ohman, 2009; Berescu, 2011; Slaev, 2007) focus on specific issues, such as the quality of Roma housing and the housing vulnerability of individuals displaced due to wars in the region. Most studies have emphasized the process which gives rise to informally produced housing rather than the public sector perceptions of informal settlements. Little is known of planners’ relationship with, and their perceptions of, squatters. Due to a virtual absence of empirical data, only a partial understanding of Balkan informal settlements has emerged.

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  Ordinary Families, Extraordinary Lives

  Assets and Poverty Reduction in Guayaquil, 1978-2004

  • Caroline O.N. Moser(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Brookings Institution Press

    (Publisher)

  In the 1950s and early 1960s, the prolifera-tion of squatter and shanty settlements was seen as a failure of conventional housing programs to satisfy low-income housing demand. Government officials identified these makeshift settlements as temporary reception areas in spatially “marginal” locations for recently arrived migrants, who were “unintegrated” into the city (Bonilla 1970; Leeds 1969). “Squatter Settlements were seen as zones of total social breakdown: policy-makers equated the problem of marginality with that of substandard housing; marginality was seen as something to be physically eradicated, a manifestation that had a simple cure” (Perlman 1976, p. 103). At the time government responses often involved the bulldozing and clearance of whole settlements labeled as “public eyesores” and a form of “urban cancer.” However, by the late 1960s, the formative work of John Turner (1968, 1969) and others led to the recognition that self-help housing was in fact a rational response by low-income populations to the growing shortage of conventional housing. The moradores of Indio Guayas benefited from the ensuing policy shift that swept across urban Latin America in which Squatter Settlements were now viewed as a viable alternative solution. Here the poor could incrementally build their own homes within their income constraints, allowing them the “free-dom” to decide on size, standard, and style according to their individual family needs (Turner 1972). Although the upgrading process could take ten years or more, subletting and home-based enterprises were seen as mechanisms that could be utilized to increase the homeowner’s income.

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  The Politics of Place Naming

  Naming the World

  • Frederic Giraut, Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-ISTE

    (Publisher)

  The Toponymy of Informal Settlements in the Global South 177 settlements (Jones 2017). The large population housed in these settlements is often referred to as “the unseen majority”. They are unseen due to several factors including the lack of accurate population data, and the omission or partial representation of the settlements in topo-cadastral maps. This is partly because of reliance on traditional methods of mapping using information from census data or remote sensing (Mahabir et al. 2018). It is also a result of a lack of political goodwill to include these settlements in official maps or a willful omission so as to enhance the narrative that these settlements are illegitimate. In addition, these settlements are spontaneous and mushroom quickly. Whereas topo-cadastral maps are updated every few years, these settlements can start, grow and even be destroyed within a matter of months; thus, they are not always accurately represented in maps. The persistence of informal settlements on the urban landscape has also has led to many remedial strategies being devised by governments and non-governmental organizations. These include incremental upgrading, infrastructural provision, and resettlement, and locally, to residents organizing legalization and upgrading including through community mapping (Choplin and Lovizit 2019). Other times, undesirable methods such as demolitions and evictions have been utilized leading to a vicious cycle of protests and skirmishes. Despite the many efforts to improve, upgrade, alleviate or eradicate informal settlements, they have remained an enduring part of the urban landscape in the Global South and thus need to be understood in their historical and cultural context. 9.2. Toponymy and informality – a theoretical background Informal settlement struggles brought about by poverty, poor living conditions, constant evictions and demolitions have often been symbolically expressed through names.

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  Settlement Systems in Sparsely Populated Regions

  The United States and Australia

  • Richard E. Lonsdale, John H. Holmes, Richard E. Lonsdale, John H. Holmes(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  Human Settlements in Sparsely Populated Areas: A Conceptual Overview, With Special Reference to the U.S. Stanley D. Brunn Donald J. Zeigler No territory is so small or remote today that it has no value. . . . The remote pioneer of today may be at the centre of a howling activity tomorrow. -Isaiah Bowman Like the earth of a hundred years ago our mind still has its darkest Africas, its unmapped Borneos and Amazon Basins. -Aldous Huxley The human occupation of sparsely populated areas is characterized by settlement systems which exhibit a variety of spatial forms and considerable dynamism over time. The processes which direct the evolution and the devolution of settlement hierarchies may be eco-nomic, cultural, political, or environmental in nature. These processes reflect the values of society, the technologies it chooses to employ, the preferences of individuals and subcultures for low-density environ-ments, the decisions of governments, and the reality of environmental constraints. Investigations into the spatial and temporal character of settlement geographies in low-density areas may be classified as those that identify and analyze specific settlement features, such as trade areas or central place hierarchies, versus those that discuss such areas in a more abstract conceptual and theoretical framework. Both geogra-phies provide useful insights into the processes that operate and the settlement patterns generated. Studies dealing with specific spatial attributes of lightly populated areas in the United States and elsewhere comprise the major part of this treatise. What is needed to integrate *The authors wish to acknowledge the useful discussions regarding sparseland settlements with David Campbell and Assefa Mehretu, both of the Department of Geography and African Studies Center, Michigan State University. 2 14

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  Economic and Social Geography

  • R. Knowles, J. Wareing(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Made Simple

    (Publisher)

  PART FOUR : SETTLEMENT GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER SEVENTEEN URBANISATION Urban geography constitutes a diverse and rapidly developing field of geographical study. Although settlement studies have long formed a tradi-tional branch of human geography, a great deal of progress has been made in recent years in refining and extending many of the earlier concepts. This growing interest in the geography of towns and cities is probably a reflection of the fact that the majority of the population in the Western World lives in an urban environment, while those who do not are increasingly affected by the decisions, ideas and influences emanating from the main urban centres. Urban geography is concerned with the spatial aspects of cities—then-location, growth, and relationships both one with another and with their surrounding regions. It also embraces the internal patterns of cities in terms of land use, functional areas, and social and cultural patterns. Another approach to the study of towns is what may be termed the ecological approach, which involves consideration of the relationships between the patterns and structure of urban society and the man-made city environment with its various neighbourhoods and districts. A basic aim is the search for recurrent patterns and the formulation of laws and theories. In this respect urban geography has a long tradition of model building, typified by E. W. Burgess's work on the internal structure of cities which dates back to the early 1920s and W. Christaller's work on the location and spacing of settlements which was produced as early as 1933. What is a Town? Before examining some of the main fields of study in urban geography, we must pose the seemingly naïve question: what is a town? In fact the town defies simple definition.

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