Informality and the City: Theories, Actions and Interventions

Description

Informality is a transnational phenomenon encompassing urban challenges that must be addressed at both local and global levels. Although the notion of "the informal" is usually associated with informal settlements and the informal economy, current discourse expands the concept to embody broader parameters. This book represents a call for action whose urgency derives from the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic combined with the effects of climate change on informal urbanism around the world. As a critical survey of informality, it examines a range of informal phenomena in urbanism, architecture, activism, and participatory design, offering a critical introduction to groundbreaking theories and practices in the built environment. Authored by a diverse and international cohort of leading architects, urban designers, planners, social scientists, educators, and theorists, 45 chapters refine and expand the discourse surrounding informal cities with writing dedicated to the principal regions of the Global South―Latin America, US-Mexico Borderlands, Asia, and Africa―as well as comparative analysis of crosscurrents between the Global South and Global North. Foreword Introduction Contents Acknowledgements Editors and Contributors Part I Informalities—An Overview 1 Everything but Housing Under Turner’s Shadow Housing, Definitively Unfinished Sidelining Housing: The Cases of Rio de Janeiro and Medellín Conclusion 2 Room by Room: An Exploration of the House A Brief History of a Global Crisis The Case of Mexico and Minimums Rethinking the House Bedroom Kitchen/Dining Bathroom Garden/Terrace Looking Forward 3 Tactical Appropriations in the Urban Realm: Informal Practices and Reinventions in the Contemporary City 4 Milan Potential City: Informality and Resilience in Times of Crisis The Informal City in Times of Opportunity The Informal City in Times of Crises The Affordance of Major Disused Areas The Affordance of Neighborhood Public Spaces Tales of a Railway Yard Tales of a Square Conclusion 5 The Mathematics of an Ideal Village 6 Assembling Informal Urbanism Forms of Urban Informality Emerging Research Pathways Assemblage Thinking as a Theoretical Lens Conclusion 7 Informalizing Yugoslavia Unraveling and Recomposing Informal  Conditions Squatter Settlements Appropriated Buildings Refugee Camps Romani Encampments Illegal Suburbs Conclusion 8 Micro-Informalities: Spatial Appropriations in the COVID-19 Era The Exterior/Interior New York Restaurant Micro-Informalities: Context and Criteria Coda: Social Distancing Micro-informalities as Spatial Appropriations Psychological Atmospheric Form Program Case Study: Rockwell Group|The DineOut Tool Kit Postscript Part II Latin America 9 Red and Green: Toward a New Framework of Civilized Coexistence Socio-spatial Conglomerates The Problem with Interpretation Mottled Inequalities Strategies and Tactics Slums Collective momentum Malaise of the Present Moment of Civilization Urbanism, Housing, and Society Reflection 10 No Time to Lose: Fostering the Predominantly Informal City in Latin America The Challenge Ahead The Informal Armatures Approach (IAA) Assembling Public Land Multi-Scalar Armatures: A System of Design Components Corridors Patches Stewards Additional Contributions of the IAA Some Obstacles 11 Exploring Critical Urbanities: A Knowledge Co-Transfer Approach for Fragmented Cities in Water Landscapes Local Elements as Conditioning Factors Co-create and Co-transfer Knowledge Conclusion 12 The Practice of Listening: Community Learning Toward a Social Architecture 13 The Limits of Urban Design in Slum Upgrading Process: The Case of Parque Fernanda I, São Paulo, Brazil Parque Fernanda I: The Logic of the Slums and the Regulatory Logic of the State Green Path: Different Levels of Appropriation for Each Solution Conclusions: What Have We Learned from Parque Fernanda I? 14 Villa 31: Regeneration as a Consequence of Social Urbanism Barrio 31—Integration Barrio Padre Carlos Mugica—Regeneration A Renewed Relationship between the Waterfront and the City Conclusion 15 El Amate in Guatemala City: An Urban Intervention Informal retail in Urban Planning Guatemala and Guatemala City Local Context El Amate El Amate Studies Findings and Discussion “Improving Business” Performance Conclusion: Vendors as Citizens and Entrepreneurs 16 Cuba’s Informal Gardens: Situating State Support and Public Participation Background The Commons Usufruct Lands Improvisation in Urban Spaces: Direct Action Urban Design Informal Food Production Design Opportunities and Limitations Cuban Futures 17 Urban Permeability in Medellín: Case Studies of Santo Domingo Savio and El Poblado 18 Hopeful Rebar: Speculating on Urban Informality in Mexico City Hopeful Rebar The Informal Cities Field Studio Tierra Perdida | Brandon Kroger Degrees of Informality | Todd Funkhouser Paseo de las Estrellitas | DaMario Walker-Brown Constructing Community | Robert Peebles Reflecting on Informality Part III US-Mexico Borderlands 19 Lesson of Hope: A Case Study on Self-built Homes in the Informal Neighborhoods of Tijuana Border Urbanism The Architecture of Houses in Tijuana The Work of Fundación Esperanza de México Community Development Through Self-help Housing Self-building The Slow House The Future of FEM and Self-built Housing 20 Informality in South Texas: Understanding the Evolution of Colonias in El Cenizo and Rio Bravo Two Colonias Downriver from Laredo The Legacy of Cecil McDonald El Cenizo and Rio Bravo after Half-a-Century Lessons Learned? 21 Stigmas of Informality: Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction in the South Texas Colonias Examining the “Stigma of Informality” Case: Colonias of the Río Grande Valley Colonias After Hurricane Dolly Stigmas of Informality as Illegality in the Colonias Conclusion 22 Quasi-Informality on the Border: The Economic and Socio-Spatial Dimensions of Latino Vendor Markets Economic Dualism and Marketplaces Latino Vendor Markets on the Border Quasi-Informality within Latino Vendor Markets Economic Spatial Social Conclusion 23 Houston, Informal City A Brief History of Houston A Periphery in Transition Otherness and Heterotopias Finding Opportunity in Obsolescence Conditions of Informality Reflecting 24 Tanks, Wells, Tacos, and Pitches From the Outside Looking Inside Fractured Infrastructure: Tanks and Wells Privatized Publics: Pitches and Markets Constructed Difference Conclusion 25 Understanding Informal Housing in the Mississippi Delta: Lessons from Latin American Informal Settlements Housing Challenges in the Mississippi Delta Housing Typologies: Precarity and Informal Practices Lessons from Latin America: Incremental and Assisted Self-help Housing Conclusion Part IV Asia 26 Understanding “Free-form” Micro-morphology in Informal Settlements The Status of Research on Micro-morphology in Informal Settlements The Processes Determining Free-form Micro-morphology Patterns Increments: The Building Blocks of Micro-morphological Change Conclusion 27 Informality and the Production of Publicness in India Public Space and Publicness Informality: The Organizing Structure of Urbanization in India Intersection of Informality and Public Space Visible Informality and the Production of Publicness Participation Legitimacy Inclusion Recognition Belonging Conclusion 28 Desperate City Builders Moria Camp European Makeshift Tower of Babel Moria 2.0 29 (In)formal Land Delivery Processes: Relational Perspectives on Squatter Settlements in Kathmandu Research Method Context Evolution of a Squatter Settlement in Kathmandu, Nepal Initial Access to Land (Legal) Securing the Legitimacy of Land (Legal) Securing the Legitimacy of Land (Physical and Social) Physical Consolidation Social Consolidation Conclusion 30 Meeting Unmet Expectations Revisited: Environmental Management in Indonesian Urban Kampungs after 30 Years Informality in Urban Settlements: Society-State Interactions Urban Sustainability: Human-Environmental Interactions Linking Informality and Sustainability for Problem-Solving Informal Solutions to Urban Environmental Concerns in Jakarta Over 30 Years Conclusion 31 Urban Informality Tactics Through the Layers of Socio-Spatial Connectivity Layers of Informality in Urban Everyday Space Emerging Layers of Spatial Connectivity in an Urban Neighborhood Appropriation of the Formal Spatial Structure Spatial Connectivity as the Key Tactics of Informality Overlapping Layers as Informality Tactics 32 Carnival Nonmovements and the Repoliticization of Urban Space in Yazd, Iran Spatial-Carnivalesque Agency Informal Resistance Spatial Encroachments Conclusion 33 Pop-up Cities: Refugee Camps between Transience and Resilience Introduction The Camp as a Social City Camp-Cities, Networks for Collective Identity The Refugee City and the Bid for a Translocality Learning from Al Zaatari: A Case Study of the Camp-City Refugee Cities between Hospitality, Agency, and Belonging Pop-Up Cities and the Subsistence of the Societal Collective The Cyclicality of Urban Growth and Decay Conclusion 34 Leveraging Rural Urbanisms: Design at the Intersection of Formality and Informality in Xixinan, China Intersectional (in)Formalities Village Acupunctures: Designing Rural Village Acupunctures in Xiaoxian Anhui Province, China; Architectural and Urban Design and Studio, Summer 2015 Village Acupunctures Xixinan, Anhui Province; Summer 2015 Design Studio Mapping Methodology(ies) and Site Reconnaissance Village Field Research Design as Village Acupunctures Bridge(ing) Platform(ing) Water Village Urbanisms Adaptive Reuse Occupying Interstitial Space Village Demonstration Kitchen Conclusion Part V Africa 35 Towards Sustainable Interventions in Unplanned Communities: Adapting the Urban Nexus approach to the Greater Cairo Region Urban Informality—What it is and What it Represents Unplanned Communities in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) Characteristics of Unplanned Communities in the Egyptian Context Can Urban Nexus be the Right Path? Applying the Urban nexus in the Greater Cairo Region Conclusion 36 Power Relations and the Influence of Cultural Factors in Cairo’s Ashwa’eyat– Informal Settlements Power Relations and Daily life in Cairo’s Informal settlements Re-defining “Culture” within Cairo’s Ashwa’eyat Power Relations and Use of Public Space Conclusion 37 Obscured Innovations? Inventiveness in Collective Infrastructure Management in Accra, Ghana Abese Old Quarter: Location and History The Social Collective of the Indigenous and Informal in Abese Quarter Indigenous Social Deliberative System Condition of Water and Sanitation Collective Infrastructure Management in Abese Quarter Provisioning Financing Construction Maintenance Modeling Indigenous Systems of Infrastructure Provision and Management Conclusion: Toward Co-producing Bottom-Up Urbanisms 38 The Inclusion of “Unequals:” Hotspot Network Strategy for a Metropolitan Agricultural Revolution Eluding Informality The Phenomenon of Metropolization. A Discussion on the Relationship Between Informality and the Inability of Governance Structures to Manage the Phenomenon The Challenge The Unexpected Post-COVID City: Tactics Without a Strategy Informal Metropolization: The Project of Transition Between an Agricultural and Urban Culture Methodological Outlines: The “Imaginary” Power of Informality Outcomes: Metropolitan, Urban-Scale, and Informal-Formal Integration Otros Saberes and Territorial Intelligence The Project: Metropolitan Development in Fragile Informal Territories: Cooperation, Integration, and Leadership Project The Site-Specific Priorities of the Action: Type of Activities Proposed and Specified Related Outputs and Results The Hotspot Network Project Description 39 Toward an Architecture of Civil Disobedience in the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Legal Framework Architectural approach Evaluation Conclusion 40 Seeking Disciplinary Relevance in the Informal City: Rebuilding Architectural Practice through Community Engagement Problem Statement Methodology Case studies Discussion Conclusion 41 Ponte City: An Architecture of Utopia, Informality, and Rebirth Utopia Informality Rebirth Reflecting Conclusion 42 Urban Housing in Nairobi: Expectations and Realities of Densification in the Middle- and Low-Income Sectors Densification in African Cities Densification in Nairobi Densification in Residential Neighborhoods Kilimani Estate Donholm Estate Pipeline Settlement Issues and Interventions Socioeconomic Factors Politics and Governance Conclusion Afterword: Miquel Adrià