Browsing by Subject "Informal settlements"
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Item Co-production and enterprise culture: negotiating local urban development culture in Santo Domingo’s ‘barrios populares’(2016-05) Tabory, Samuel Hart; Sletto, Bjørn; Ward, PeterResponsibilities for securing urban citizenship rights and providing basic urban services have decentralized to such a degree across much of the global south that identifying who the various relevant players might be in any given urban development context and what role they might play is increasingly difficult. Moreover, informal, non-codified, and ad hoc decision-making have emerged as fundamental planning and urban governance idioms in much of the global south, and as a result the “rules of the game” that affect the allocation of urban development resources are increasingly illegible in many areas. With more actors and few clearly delineated policies, the work of cataloguing local urban development cultures and the applicable “rules of the game” that govern resource allocation is increasingly important. This work attempts to catalogue such local urban development culture and explore its operationalization in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. More specifically, the study is concerned with how key actors in urban development space—local government officials, civil society representatives, and neighborhood development activists—understand and articulate the values and principles that affect urban development practice in their local context. The goal of my work is to develop a composite set of “rules of the game” for urban development practice in Santo Domingo regarding how, when, and for what purpose material resources are brought to bear on neighborhood level urban development projects in informal settlements and other economically or environmentally distressed neighborhoods. My results show that in the context of Santo Domingo, it is a community’s ability to demonstrate an entrepreneurial capacity for self-management, proactive organizing, and project financial sustainability that are the predominant determinative factors affecting whether a community will likely win the favor and eventual material support of local government entities, communicating a message that citizens are expected to be full partners in service provision rather than mere beneficiaries.Item Context-dependent interventions : understanding change through urban morphological studies of informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya(2012-08) Flemister, Lauren Sheagbe; Dooling, Sarah; Wilson, Robert HInformal human settlements, often so large that they are cities onto themselves, have been absent from urban morphological study. As the population of the urban world grows, hundreds of millions of people live in informal settlements. This report attempts to present why it is important to understand how, why, and where informal human settlements form, as well as how they evolve, and conditions for their emergence and evolution. Each region and individual city has its own varied economic, political, cultural, historical, environmental and legal issues and concerns. Such issues in certain areas of cities, including slums, pose unique challenges for governments, non-governmental organizations, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Each stands to benefit from critical analyses that not only indentify and understand informal settlements more historically, sociologically, and spatially, but that inform plans that effectively harness limited national and international resources towards carefully targeted interventions. The focus of such interventions could include slum upgrading or assistance to secure land tenure, based on a deeper knowledge that increases efficacy. In Nairobi, one of the oldest and largest informal settlements, Mathare, provides an opportunity for historical analysis. Through seven interviews with researchers, government bureaucrats, and residents, visually observing villages in Mathare, and analyzing archival maps, this report has identified factors driving change and the resulting impacts on the urban morphology of informal settlements in the African context. Various factors dealing with cultural, environmental, political/economic, and legal/regulatory issues are discussed. These data substantiate land tenure, speculative investment, tenancy insecurity, and government administrative structure as the issues that most directly drive emergence and growth of informal settlements. These issues date back to the earliest days of Nairobi, where African workers lived on land owned by their employers. These workers were denied access to land ownership, tenancy rights, and dwelling improvement through legal, economic, and institutionalized prejudice and coercion. Little has changed, as colonial-aged government administration and systemic disadvantage still determine the development of Nairobi’s informal settlements.Item Green stormwater infrastructure in an informal context : feasibility and potential stormwater impacts of implementing rain gardens and rain barrels in peri-urban Santo Domingo(2015-05) Strickler, Kelly Rebecca; Sletto, Bjørn; Hollon, MatthewLatin America is the most urbanized region in the developing world, with much of this urbanization occurring informally. The pressure of increasing impervious cover without the provision of adequate stormwater infrastructure frequently leads to urban flooding in informal contexts. This study investigates the feasibility and potential benefits of implementing a network of decentralized green stormwater infrastructure controls in the subwatersheds of three channelized creeks that contribute to flooding in Los Platanitos, an informal settlement in Santo Domingo Norte, Dominican Republic. Through a mixed-methods research design including interviews with institutional actors and residents, as well as detailed field mapping with local experts, a Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) model was developed to estimate the potential runoff and storage impacts of the construction of a network of rain gardens and rain barrels throughout the contributing subwatersheds. The model predicts a 20% reduction in flooding for a 5-year storm, and a lengthening of the time it takes for the system to start flooding. These benefits, albeit small, are substantial when floodwaters are highly contaminated and pose a significant health risk.Item Hybrid systems : relationships between formal and informal communities in Caracas(2012-05) Cruz Pifano, Jimena Laura; Moore, Steven A., 1945-; Lara, Fernando L.During the decade of 1950s, the intensive rural to urban migration, in search for new job opportunities, created a high housing demand that was partially solved by the dictatorial government of Marcos Perez Jimenez. However, in the absence of effective public policy and failed housing projects, the population started to create solutions of their own to satisfy their housing needs, settling themselves in an improvised way around the urbanized areas and constituting what we know today as informal settlements or barrios. By 1957, around 35% of the population of Caracas lived in barrios. During the past decade, Venezuela has experienced a series of changes that have modified the economic, political and social model that governed the country. During Chavez's government, there have been many policy changes regarding property, land, economic and social organization, in search for solutions to the housing problem that integrate the marginalized sector of the population. However, a different pattern of informal settlements has emerged. Some organized communities have started to invade not only vacant land in the city peripheries; they are now invading buildings that are inserted in the center of the city, contrasting to the formal systems already existing in the city. There is now a new interpretation of what is legal and what is not. We are experiencing the changes and understanding the consequences of their implementation. The purpose of this research is to understand the current processes of housing production and acquisition in formal and informal communities in Caracas through a review of existing literature and qualitative studies of the relationships between stakeholders. I analyze the new policies and the current housing production organization system and contrast it to what is actually happening in practice. I also investigated how incremental changes in existing practices can contribute to the development of safe and legible housing production processes. My recommendations are the result of hybrid systems that consider different actors and perspectives of the same reality in order to find a healthier and more sustainable building culture in Caracas.Item The integration of emergency economies in developing countries : the case of Los Platanitos, Santo Domingo Norte, Dominican Republic(2010-05) Strange, Shawn Michael; Sletto, Bjørn; Wilson, Robert H.Slum development in the Global South continues at a rapid pace, leading to a search for solutions to the severe environmental, social, and economical challenges facing these settlements. Informal economic activities are central to these communities’ survival and structure. Ownership policies have been initiated that contribute to security for residents, and there is evidence that this can lead to increased social and economic productivity. However, studies have also shown that broad ranging titling reforms may destroy existing networks, practices, and livelihoods of residents. This raises a fundamental question on how land titling and formalization of business ownership can be accomplished, while still maintaining local social networks and livelihoods. This thesis calls attention to the need to develop policy approaches that are context specific while also taking into account the complex economic networks that develop in informal settlements.Item Learning displacement: self-building, educational infrastructure, and the politics of development in Brazilian informal settlements(2015-08) Stiphany, Kristine Marie; Moore, Steven A., 1945-; Ward, Peter M.; Oden, Michael; Dooling, Sarah E.; Lara, Fernando L.; Wegmann, JacobIn the wake of mid-twentieth century mass urbanization and the inequitable access to education that ensued, people in consolidated informal settlements in São Paulo, Brazil united to self-build educational institutions and programs in their communities. Initially constructed to address severe gaps in educational access, the social and physical networks that advanced an educational agenda evolved to address a range of power and equity issues. While some charge that any form of self-building exploits the city’s most vulnerable, or that self-building operates at a scale too insignificant to impart significant outcomes, proponents assert that self-building in its contemporary form of autogestão (self-development) has galvanized communities through substantial spillover effects. Critically examining these positions, this dissertation analyzes how the social and technical dynamics of self-building have shaped education in three informal settlements and how self-directed efforts of communities to fill gaps in the educational infrastructure might inform current planning and development practice. In a context shaped by the political fluctuations characteristic of Brazil’s emerging democracy over the past twenty-five years, the cases reflect the unevenness wrought by São Paulo’s high levels of urban development and displacement, and contradictions between improved housing conditions and new challenges within informal settlements – from environmental degradation to organized crime. This study draws on data from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2008-2014 among residents of informal settlements, community advocates, architects, planners, educators, and policy makers in São Paulo. These investigations reveal how the efficacy of self-building draws from its displacement by citizens from housing to an educational focus. The cases offer key insights into how the translation of self-building into new cultural domains of learning and action has begun to compensate for underdeveloped educational infrastructures provided by the state. These social and technical displacements challenge the centralized logic of planning and development with new forms of infrastructure that increase access to education, expand citizen participation, and contribute to broader urban networks. In the cases of successful displacement, actors have moved beyond the rote adoption of self-help’s in-situ development approach, and suggest how a situated lens might better account for the social contingency, experimentation, and transdisciplinary and inter-generational collaborations that characterize the ongoing planning efforts that communities employ to realize their aspirations.Item Quiet encroachment and spatial morphologies in Jallah Town, Monrovia, Liberia(2013-12) Palmer, Joshua Daniel; Almy, DeanThis paper will build upon the idea that informal settlements communities develop characteristic spatial morphologies as a response to outside forces. By understanding those forces and the resulting use of space, in particular public spaces, we can develop more appropriate urban design and planning interventions based in local realities. I begin by presenting the urban theories of Christopher Alexander and Bill Hillier, which provide analytical tools for understanding public space morphologies and the uses of public space. I then introduce Asef Bayat’s concept of quiet encroachment to more fully theorize the characteristics of public space as a response to the outside forces, in particular as an informal means of claiming space and rights to the city. Finally, I draw on this analytical and theoretical framework to analyze public space in the informal settlement of Jallah Town, in Monrovia, Liberia. I conclude by outlining how these analytical and theoretical tools can be used to further urban theory and international development and planning practice in informal settlements.Item The rise of renters and renting in Texas colonias(2013-05) Durst, Noah Joseph; Ward, Peter M., 1951-; Wilson, Robert HinesThis report documents the growth of renting in Texas colonias, low-income informal settlements along the US-Mexico border. Historically, owner-occupied self-help and self-managed housing has been the norm in these settlements, so scholarly treatment of renting in colonias has been very limited. I begin with a literature review of housing development and housing policy in colonias, before turning, for comparison, to a discussion of renting in the US as well as in informal settlements in the developing world. Chapter 2 draws upon data from the US Census Bureau to describe the nature and extent of the colonia rental market in the six Texas counties with the largest colonia populations: my analysis reveals that renters now make up more than one in five colonia households. I expand on this discussion by examining differences between renter and owner households, paying particular attention to factors that make renters more vulnerable than owners. Chapter 3 employs a variety of regression models to identify the determinants of varying rental rates in colonias. The results suggest that larger, older, and more densely populated colonias have higher rates of renting. In Chapter 4, I utilize a mixed methods approach -- including household surveys, key informant interviews, and intensive case study interviews -- to a) better understand the tenure decisions of colonia renters and to place such decisions within a context of extreme socio-economic vulnerability and b) examine the factors that incentivize a turn toward renting among property owners. I conclude with a discussion of potential policy solutions to ensure that colonia rental accommodation remains affordable, accessible, and of sufficient quality.