Rethinking the Informal City


Book Description

Latin American cities have always been characterized by a strong tension between what is vaguely described as their formal and informal dimensions. However, the terms formal and informal refer not only to the physical aspect of cities but also to their entire socio-political fabric. Informal cities and settlements exceed the structures of order, control and homogeneity that one expects to find in a formal city; therefore the contributors to this volume - from such disciplines as architecture, urban planning, anthropology, urban design, cultural and urban studies and sociology - focus on alternative methods of analysis in order to study the phenomenon of urban informality. This book provides a thorough review of the work that is currently being carried out by scholars, practitioners and governmental institutions, in and outside Latin America, on the question of informal cities.




Rethinking the Informal City


Book Description

Latin American cities have always been characterized by a strong tension between what is vaguely described as their formal and informal dimensions. However, despite intrinsic semantic implications, the terms formal and informal do not refer only to the physical aspect of cities but also to their entire socio-political fabric. Given the fact that informal cities and settlements exceed the structures of order, control and homogeneity expected to be found in the formal city, the wide-ranging essays in this volume from disciplinary areas such as anthropology, architecture, history, cultural and urban studies, and sociology are concerned with the need to produce alternative methods of analysis in order to study the phenomenon of urban informality. This book provides a thoroughgoing review of the work that is currently being carried out by scholars, practitioners and governmental institutions, in and outside Latin America, on the question of informal cities.




Rethinking Third Places


Book Description

Ray Oldenburg’s concept of third place is re-visited in this book through contemporary approaches and new examples of third places. Third place is not your home (first place), not your work (second place), but those informal public places in which we interact with the people. Readers will come to understand the importance of third places and how they can be incorporated into urban design to offer places of interaction – promoting togetherness in an urbanised world of mobility and rapid change.




The Informal Economy Revisited


Book Description

This landmark volume brings together leading scholars in the field to investigate recent conceptual shifts, research findings and policy debates on the informal economy as well as future challenges and directions for research and policy. Well over half of the global workforce and the vast majority of the workforce in developing countries work in the informal economy, and in countries around the world new forms of informal employment are emerging. Yet the informal workforce is not well understood, remains undervalued and is widely stigmatised. Contributors to the volume bridge a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, development economics, law, political science, social policy, sociology, statistics, urban planning and design. The Informal Economy Revisited also focuses on specific groups of informal workers, including home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, to provide a grounded insight into disciplinary debates. Ultimately, the book calls for a paradigm shift in how the informal economy is perceived to reflect the realities of informal work in the Global South, as well as the informal practices of the state and capital, not just labour. The Informal Economy Revisited is the culmination of 20 years of pioneering work by WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), a global network of researchers, development practitioners and organisations of informal workers in 90 countries. Researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and advocates will all find this book an invaluable guide to the significance and complexities of the informal economy, and its role in today’s globalised economy. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429200724, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license




Rethinking Urban Risk and Resettlement in the Global South


Book Description

A study on urban risk and resettlement programs in the Global South in the era of climate change. Environmental changes impact everyone, but the burden is especially heavy upon the lives and livelihoods of the urban poor and those living in informal settlements. In an effort to reduce urban residents' exposure to climate change and natural disasters, resettlement programs are becoming widespread across the Global South. Yet, while resettlement may reduce a region's future climate-related disaster risk, it can also often increase poverty and vulnerability. This volume collates the findings from a research project that examined urban areas across the globe, including case studies from India, Uganda, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The book offers a unique approach to resettlement, providing an opportunity for urban planners to re-think how disaster risk management can better address the accumulation of urban risks in the era of climate change.




Rethinking the Latin American City


Book Description

A book which admits that Latin American cities are out of control - socially, economically, politically, administratively and culturally - and seeks to adjust scholarly discourse to the realities of contemporary urban phenomena. Experts presents their responses to this situation.




Public Space in Informal Settlements


Book Description

Public Space in Informal Settlements: The Barrios of Bogotá contributes to the debate on informal settlements by viewing them as an opportunity to understand different ways of seeing and thinking about the city. Public spaces in informal settlements, like the housing stock, are to a large extent the product of local self-help and self-managed processes; however, the equivalent level of understanding has not been achieved, partly because such settlements are often seen as spare spaces with little value. Public spaces in informal settlements are public in terms of ownership and accessibility, but are communal in terms of use and attachment. They play an important role in the physical and social dynamics of the barrios, and have done since their inception; however, the improvement and consolidation of such spaces may not be realised for many years. The book will be of primary importance to architects, urban planners and researchers who are interested in the city in general, and in informal settlements in particular. The book will also be of interest to those in the humanities and social sciences who are concerned with politics and postcolonial studies, and to academics working in people–environment studies and in the relationship between people and place in terms of place self-building, place attachment and place identity. However, the volume will be of most interest for Latin Americanists who do not read Spanish or Portuguese, and would like to know more about the region, the problems and the views, from the perspective of an insider with extended knowledge of the field.




Urban Geopolitics


Book Description

In the last decade a new wave of urban research has emerged, putting comparative perspectives back on the urban studies agenda. However, this research is frequently based on similar case studies on a few selected cities in America and Europe and all too often focus on the abstract city level with marginal attention given to particular local contexts. Moving away from loosely defined urban theories and contexts, this book argues it is time to start learning from and compare across different ‘contested cities’. It questions the long-standing Euro-centric academic knowledge production that is prevalent in urban studies and planning research. This book brings together a diverse range of international case studies from Latin America, South and South East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East to offer an in-depth understanding of the worldwide contested nature of cities in a wide range of local contexts. It suggests an urban ontology that moves beyond the urban ‘West’ and ‘North’ as well as adding a comparative-relational understanding of the contested nature that ‘Southern’ cities are developing. This timely contribution is essential reading for those working in the fields of human geography, urban studies, planning, politics, area studies and sociology.




Rethinking Sustainable Cities


Book Description

Sustainable urbanization has moved to the forefront of political debate and policy agendas for numerous reasons. Among the most important are a growing appreciation both of the implications of rapid urbanization now occurring in China, India, and many other low and middle income countries with historically low urbanization levels and of the related challenges posed to urban areas worldwide by climate and environmental change. Conceptualizing urban sustainability for this new era, this compact book makes a clear contribution to the sustainable urbanization agenda through authoritative interventions that contextualize, assess, and explain the importance of three central characteristics of sustainable towns and cities everywhere: that they should be fair, green, and accessible.




City of Shadows


Book Description

Alongside debates over rising inequalities, the stubbornness of urban poverty, globally, has emerged as a major academic and policy concern. Urban poverty policy positions are typically framed by paradigms of basic services and welfare. In the backdrop of Bangalore's evolution into India's silicon valley, the book presents research spanning old, inner city slums, new migrant settlements in urban peripheries, slum development projects, and garment export and construction workers, highlighting that intergenerationally, the urban poor remain tied to traditional low paying occupations, or, get incorporated into new urban growth channels (export industries, low end services) under highly unfavourable terms and conditions. Using the concepts of the old and the new poor, to explore channels of inclusion and exclusion, the book underscores that the poor's vulnerabilities are defined by different regimes of informality. Debates on the urban poor's political agency are used to problematize informality's complex relationship to contemporary theories of class.