informally is a diverse phenomenon, which includes many different types of housing practices and neighbourhoods, almost always shaped by contextual factors. It occurs in Latin American, Asian and African cities – reflected in the diverse terminology for such neighbourhoods, such as colonia popular , gecekondu and bidonville – but is also increasingly recognized in global North contexts, for example, with the recent phenomenon of ‘beds in sheds’ in the UK. People may live informally in the inner city, as well as at the urban fringe; and living informally is a practice
eradicate informal settlements gave way to more tolerant and supportive approaches which recognized (to a greater or lesser degree) the existence of these neighbourhoods and the effort that had gone into constructing them. This trajectory of responses to living informally, from punitive to supportive, was both shaped by and contributed to shaping the conceptual and policy debates outlined in Chapter 2 . In this chapter, we explore in more detail diverse approaches to providing or improving the provision of land, housing and services in contexts characterized by
countries). In the different chapters we draw on research and other sources from diverse contexts, and also from conversations with expert practitioners from specific regions, in order to broaden the book’s geographical and intellectual scope. Irregular building and inadequate housing conditions remain a key feature of informal neighbourhoods across the globe, an issue that we discuss in Chapter 3 , on ‘living informally’. Addressing irregularity and inadequate conditions in informal neighbourhoods represents a key challenge for people involved in the governance and
here as living, working and governing informally, which must nevertheless be understood and addressed in a context-specific way. Shared features of living informally refer to particular characteristics of land (informally acquired, characterized by insecure tenure and/or residential status), housing (constructed incrementally and/or through self-help, often not complying with official building and planning standards, and characterized by poor structural quality), and services such as water, electricity, sanitation and public infrastructure (provided incrementally
This book is the first to provide an introductory overview to the concept of ‘urban informality’, taking an international perspective across the global North and South. It explores theoretical understandings of the term, and looks at how it affects ways of living, such as land use, housing and basic services, working lives and politics.
Using a broad range of material to bring the topic to life, including non-conventional sources – such as fiction, poetry, photography, interviews and other media – the book helps students, practitioners and scholars develop learning and research on this topic. The book also includes interjections from diverse voices of practitioners, community activists and regional experts.
Older people experience a range of age-related conditions such as arthritis, respiratory disease, circulatory disease, and mental health problems such as depression and dementia. The prevalence of such conditions increases with age as does multiple pathology. One consequence of this age-related increase in morbidity is that older peoples’ ability to remain living independently in the community may be compromised as they experience difficulties with essential activities of daily living. Informal or family care is fundamental to any community care policy for older people and the contribution of the family generally in providing care is well established both qualitatively and quantitatively. Approximately, 12% of adults self-define themselves as ‘informal carers’, whilst 56% of adults expect their family to provide care and support in old age. This chapter examines how health care needs are differentially distributed within the older population and the importance of class (and gender and ethnicity) in the distribution of both longevity and morbidity. Consequently, it examines how the typology of caring about, taking care, care giving and care receiving extends our understanding of the formal and informal care sectors and how these dimensions of caring are linked to the key socio-structural factors of class, gender and ethnicity.
punitive to supportive approaches. We begin by returning to core conceptual debates (dualism, legalism, structuralism and voluntarism) introduced in previous chapters and discuss their implications for policy and planning practice focusing on informal work (when reading this you may also ask yourself how these conceptual debates would inform responses to living informally, discussed in Chapter 6 ). The chapter then examines interventions that treat working informally as a ‘problem’ for urban development. These include evictions and revanchist responses that seek to
cases, episodic collective action may lead to the formation and subsequent consolidation of collective organizations (for example, trade unions representing street workers or neighbourhood associations representing those living informally) that defend the rights of marginalized individuals over a longer period of time. This is the case, for example, in El Alto (Bolivia) where residents established informal neighbourhood organizations in the 1980s to collectively protect their rights to occupy land, self-construct housing and access services. These neighbourhood
model.1 The latter can be considered the opposite of the independent living model (Dejong et al, 1992) (Table 12.1). Table 12.1: Models of long-term care for disabled people Independent living Informal support Provider model model model Consumer-directed Family-directed Provider-directed Consumer role Dependant role Patient role Accountability of Little accountability Accountability of provider consumer No physician plan No physician plan Physician plan of treatment of treatment of treatment No nurse supervision No nurse supervision Nurse supervision Assistant
), about the origins of Peru’s barriadas. For bird’s-eye views of inequality around the world, visit photographer Jonny Miller’s website of his project Unequal Scenes ( https://unequalscenes.com/projects ). Watch this video which uses live action sketch techniques, Are Slums the Global Urban Future? , by Ananya Roy and Abby Vanmuijen (2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xk7dr3VG6s ). For more intimate portraits of people living informally in diverse urban contexts, see Jonas Bendiksen’s book, The Places We Live (2008, https
