Informal settlements are a form of housing found in many parts of the world. Self-help housing in informal settlements has different influences that are denoted in the customs and preferences of the residents, which in turn, are reflected on the elements of house exteriors as well as its interior. Colonias in the U.S-Mexico border region are a model of informal settlements. The purpose of this study is to analyze the social and cultural influences on housing fronts in Webb County Colonias. The study focuses on investigating traditional features, vernacular forms, building rituals, and social features as they relate to the morphology of house fronts and their production. The housing model of Geddes and Bertalanffy explained by Turner (1972) was the premise of establishing the argument of this study. A mixed-method approach was used in data gathering from the following three Colonias: Los Altos, Larga Vista, and Rio Bravo. Utilized methods included image-based research through systematic random sampling of housing fronts in the Colonias, as well as a group-administered structured survey distributed during community monthly gathering for food distribution. The development of the research process and methodology incorporated the input of the local community and local leaders and volunteers assisted in its implementation. The study concluded that past and present experiences of Colonias residents have intense impacts on different aspects contributing to the themes comprising the morphology of Colonias housing fronts. A classical pattern of migration as well as maintained contact and continuous dialogue between residents and their kin were found to result in preserving the inherent native culture of the Colonias’ residents and can thus be considered as core elements. This preservation of native culture was indicated by utilization of semi-private space, traditional roof forms, privacy and security elements, and building rituals. The study also identified additional secondary modified elements, represented by the lack of gates utilization as a measure of security. These core and modified elements coincide with the Geddes and Bertalanffy model and therefore it can be deduced that this model can be applied in the case of the Colonias.

Many Latin American countries have transitioned from agricultural to service-oriented societies since the 1950s and have consequently seen a vast migration of people from rural to urban areas in search of new jobs created in cities. The vast majority of migrants have not been able to afford or obtain formal or government- built housing. They have, consequentially, turned to the informal sector, settled land that was owned by another and built their houses there despite in many cases not having services. The Dominican Republic has seen a similar sequence of events and has also seen a large increase in urban populations and informal housing in its cities. This paper examines the housing in one of these informal settlements, the community of Los Platanitos, located in the municipality of Santo Domingo Norte and among the poorer settlements in Santo Domingo. Specifically, this study examines the process in which the community was settled and consolidated as well as residents’ ability to improve their situation through acquisition of this property. It also looks at the current state of housing in Los Platanitos in terms of spatial distribution and existing and needed support systems. / text

The challenge of both the public and private sector to provide infrastructure to meet the demand of current and future housing has emerged as a central issue in discussions urbanization in the developing world. Informal settlements, rapidly developing on the outer peripheries of urban areas are straining cities abilities to provide the infrastructure resources necessary for their survival. This thesis is based on a case study of an informal settlement in Tijuana, Mexico named Las Lomas del Valle. This thesis explores the conditions of infrastructure within the colonia, focusing on the condition of the current road network and its interrelationship with the residents of Las Lomas. It explores the current needs of the residents and how their dependency on the road network and its conditions is essential to their well being. / text

This study is an initial attempt to assemble a dual history of the topics of informal settlements and sustainability within architectural discourse over the past fifty years. During the 1960s and 1970s, architecture adopted a renewed sense of social immediacy, which increased the study into informal and slum settlements, as well as a burgeoning concern of its own ecological impact, which encouraged investigation into sustainable design. While these interests all but disappeared amidst the artistic and political climate of the 1980s, they have again become relevant to architectural discourse, albeit as separate entities. The aim of this study is to unite these two discussions within architecture so that they may together become more potent. / text

Entering the informal domain may be considered contrary to a formal understanding of architecture yet it is within this context that many architectural strategies are being resolved. Unbound by law and tradition, informal settlements allow for creative solutions that would otherwise not be explored. Such unconventional solutions speak to the discourse of architecture and planning, challenging ideas of public space and private ownership. The goal of this thesis is to investigate how public space is achieved in established informal houseboat communities using off-grid systems and salvaged material. An investigation of the houseboat community in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and the Narrow boats in London, England are case studies in this process. This thesis seeks to identify how the city of West Kelowna, the Westbank First Nation and the Central Okanagan Regional District of British Columbia can be agents of an informal intervention on the Okanagan Lake in British Columbia.

Magister Artium - MA / The concern that weather variability and climate change has raised nowadays puts every society or community on the alert. This is arguably the most persistent environmental threat to global stability in vulnerable communities in recent times. City dwellers are now experiencing increased variable weather episodes such as frequent flooding, heat waves and drought with increased wind and storm activities. Unfortunately, the aftermath of these weather irregularities are felt most severely by vulnerable urban poor residents with the least mechanisms to cope. This study focused on the residents of Enkanini in Makhaza, an informal settlement in the greater Khayelitsha Township of Cape Town, South Africa. It documented the challenges they encounter with respect to weather, seeking to understand their adaptive strategies. Emphasis was also placed on the vulnerable nature of their dwellings and their ingenuity in coping with the variable weather pattern in Cape Town. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyse field data, using codes derived from themes and SPSS respectively. Ethnographic methodology guided the researcher to participate overtly in the activities of the community over an extended period, watching what happened, listening to what was said and asking questions pertaining to their vulnerability to the vicissitudes of the prevailing weather in the informal settlement. Findings from the study revealed that over 62% of the dwellings do not conform to the City‟s Disaster Risk Management Centre and Fire & Rescue safety regulations and that over 80% of the residents do not adapt very well to weather-related episodes. It also identifies the most challenging weather episodes to be floods during winter and shack fires during summer; amidst other health concerns that occur all year round.

Transformation of informal housing settlements by urban renewal and redevelopment has become one of the major tasks of Turkish urban policy in the last decades. Nevertheless, in some cases urban redevelopment could not be facilitated due to low level of investments / and moreover most of the transformed settlements are still problematic with added difficulties brought out by urban transformation itself such as lower levels of physical quality, gentrification or dislocation. Understanding the sources of these implications and incompetence would be an important step for developing more successful policy and planning tools. To serve this aim, hypothesizing that there would be available regulatory tools including planning besides policy options relying on finance for local and central authorities and planning institutions on the basis of their political and regulative power and resources to overcome most of these bottlenecks / I have carried out both a theoretical and an empirical research to discuss the relevancy of this hypothesis. First, I have developed an institutional model of urban transformation to unravel the constituent shaping factors and actors of the process. Secondly, I have implemented this model for the analyses of urban transformation in informal settlements in Turkey with a case study in Sentepe and carried out surveys with households and interviews with developers to focus more on household and developer perspectives in terms of their aims and the implications they have an impact upon and are subjected to. Thus, this thesis includes an institutional analysis of urban transformation in informal settlements of Turkey, outlines the major problems of implications, discusses the links between factors, actors, events and their implications and accordingly searches for clues of efficient policies and better practices in urban transformation with a case study in Sentepe Neighbourhood. The findings of the empirical study revealed that first and foremost, the problem of disinvestment and very low levels of transformation in the area have been solved dramatically by a new &#039 / project&#039 / by the local authority in 2005, after almost twenty years passed since the first redevelopment plans were prepared. Moreover, the results indicate that the Sentepe Transformation Project could also managed to avoid the well-known unintended or undesirable social outcomes of a typical redevelopment like dislocation of residents or social integration of initial and new residents. These findings of the research suggest that local authorities and planning institutions could avoid some but not all of the bottlenecks and drawbacks of market mechanism in urban redevelopment even by making minor changes in the institutional environment such as providing information flow, easing the procedures for investors and developers, changing subdivisions and planning additional green areas for increasing the attractiveness of investments by builders in that area, and adoption of more participative approaches for developers and households. On the other hand, if the complementary housing and non-housing policies for redevelopment / such as affordable housing, employment or rent assistance are lacking, some of the outlined problems remain hard to solve. For local authorities and planners, these findings suggest the importance of accommodating policies, which are more responsive to the locality, to the needs and perceptions of local residents, local developers and local economy as well as of considering vulnerable sections of the society. For central authorities, on the other hand, the findings underline the cruciality of upper scale policies both directly and indirectly related to housing such as affordable housing and employment in the overall success of any local urban redevelopment practice. Once we have the institutional model to imply on various urban renewal processes, it would be helpful to carry out comparative studies for future research to better understand and evaluate various policy tools.

The rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s played an important role in renewing interest in the role which the rule of law could have in fostering free markets and economic growth in the developing world. One prominent participant in this neoliberal movement, which might be termed the Project for Markets, was Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian businessman who championed the extension of formal property rights as a solution to the developing world’s ills. In so doing de Soto became an international celebrity venerated by global leaders who welcomed a straight-forward free market solution to complex developmental issues. This thesis explores how de Soto’s work on property formalization in the last three decades both reflected the core assumptions of the Project for Markets as well as many of its short-comings. To do this I will rely on a case study of Cairo, a city central to de Soto’s work, to argue that de Soto ignores both the variable ways in which property rights can function “on the ground” as well as the extent to which there is rarely a technical “quick-fix” for serious problems in a nation’s political economy.

Colonias are low-income settlements on the US-Mexico border characterized by poor infrastructure, minimum services, and an active housing construction with a high self-help and self-management component. Housing in colonias is very diverse showing house forms that include temporary and permanent structures, campers, trailers or manufactured houses and conventional homes. Most of this housing does not meet construction standards and codes and is considered substandard. Colonias households are also of diverse nature and composition including single households, nuclear and extended families, as well as multiple households sharing lots. This wide variety of house forms and households in colonias fits poorly within the nuclear household, single family detached housing idealized by conventional low-income housing projects, programs and policies. As a result, colonias marginally benefit from the resources available to them and continue to depend mostly on the individual efforts of their inhabitants. This research identifies the housing diversity and the process of housing consolidation in colonias of the US-Mexico border by looking at the patterns of house form and household arrangements in colonias of South Texas. Ten colonias located to the east of the city of Laredo along Highway 359 in Webb County, Texas were selected based on their characteristics, data availability and accessibility. Data collected included periodic aerial images of the colonias spanning a period of 28 years, household information from the 2000 census disaggregated at the block level for these colonias, and information from a field survey and a semi structured interview made to a random sample of 123 households between February and June 2007. The survey collected information about house form and household characteristics. The survey also incorporated descriptive accounts on how households completed their house from the initial structure built or set on the lot until the current house form. Data was compiled and analyzed using simple statistical methods looking for identifiable patterns on house form and household characteristics and changes over time. Findings showed that housing in colonias is built and consolidated following identifiable patterns of successive changes to the house form. Findings also showed that households in colonias share characteristics that change over time in similar ways. These results suggest similarities of colonias with extra-legal settlements in other developing areas. Based on these findings, the study reflects on possible considerations that could improve the impact of projects, programs and policies directed to support colonias and improve colonias housing.

Submitted by Viviane Lima da Cunha (viviane@biblioteca.ufpb.br) on 2016-07-12T13:21:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 7542345 bytes, checksum: 33e9e060025e8b9c075043b7218a5033 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-12T13:21:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 7542345 bytes, checksum: 33e9e060025e8b9c075043b7218a5033 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-10-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The deterioration and depreciation process on urban centers, especially in the oldest areas of Brazilian cities, has as a main phenomenon resulting from the multiplication of villages, hives, among other means of collective houses. The relative “invisibility” of precarious collective rental houses (HCPAs) in central areas, with special focus on/specially for the city of João Pessoa, leads to conclusions, sometimes rushed ones, in order to asserting of non-vitality, abandon or even the death of “historical centers”. This job points in another direction when highlights the existence of a high number of collective rental houses in the neighborhood of Varadouro. The objective is to evaluate the relations between living conditions and informality of such ways of housing, through their identification, mapping and characterization (achieved through survey forms and photographic records), as well as semi structured interviews with lessors, lessees, and representatives from PMJP (City Hall of João Pessoa). The hypothesis was investigated that the condition of invisibility of collective rental houses facilitates the establishment of precarious living conditions, which strengthens the condition of informality and consequently the performance of the informal housing rental market, consolidating a vicious circle where such issues are conditional and feed. It was observed that the inserted HCPAs in the neighborhood of Varadouro have poor living conditions on the scale of the housing unit as opposed to urban livability; despite the poor collective rental housing do not offer proven, appropriate living conditions for their tenants, they prefer to safeguard the ease of access, transport means and the proximity of the work, namely, the coordination and integration with its surroundings, the having to live in households located in the outskirts of the city, away from their activities and destinations. The work also showed that the informal housing rental market in Varadouro is fraught with uncertainties and conventions based and balanced from interpersonal relationships of trust-loyalty. Finally, it was found that the relationship between habitability and the informal rental market of HCPAs in Varadouro happens clearly in the way it gives (or not) the maintenance of precarious tenements rentals. Due to the relationship of trust-loyalty and dominance between lessors and lessees, adjustments and improvements of buildings usually are not hired; the habitability of housing units is submissive to these relations, when agreements and disagreements lead to precarity of HCPAs. / O processo de deterioração e desvalorização dos centros urbanos, em especial nas áreas mais antigas das cidades brasileiras, tem como um dos principais fenômenos resultantes a multiplicação de vilas, cortiços, dentre outras formas de moradias coletivas. A relativa "invisibilidade" das habitações coletivas precárias de aluguel (HCPAs) nas áreas centrais, com destaque para a cidade de João Pessoa, leva a conclusões por vezes apressadas no sentido de afirmarem a não-vitalidade, o abandono ou até mesmo a morte dos "centros históricos". Este trabalho aponta em outra direção ao destacar a existência de grande número de habitações coletivas de aluguel no bairro do Varadouro. Objetiva-se avaliar as relações entre as condições de habitabilidade e a informalidade de tais formas de moradia, através de sua identificação, mapeamento e caracterização (realizados através de fichas de levantamento e registros fotográficos), bem como de entrevistas semiestruturadas com locadores, locatários e representantes da PMJP (Prefeitura Municipal de João Pessoa). Investigou-se a hipótese de que a condição de invisibilidade das habitações coletivas de aluguel facilita o estabelecimento de precárias condições de habitabilidade, o que fortalece a condição de informalidade e, consequentemente, a atuação do mercado imobiliário informal de aluguel, se consolidando um círculo vicioso, em que tais questões se condicionam e se alimentam. Observou-se que as HCPAs inseridas no bairro Varadouro apresentam péssimas condições de habitabilidade na escala da unidade habitacional em oposição à habitabilidade urbana; apesar das habitações coletivas precárias de aluguel não oferecerem, comprovadamente, condições habitacionais adequadas para seus inquilinos, estes preferem salvaguardar a facilidade de acessos, de meios de transporte e a proximidade do trabalho, isto é, a articulação e integração com o seu entorno, a ter que residir em domicílios situados nas periferias da cidade, afastados de suas atividades e destinos. O trabalho mostrou ainda que o mercado imobiliário informal de aluguel no Varadouro é permeado de incertezas e convenções, baseado e equilibrado a partir de relações interpessoais de confiança-lealdade. Finalmente, identificou-se que a relação entre a habitabilidade e o mercado informal de locação das HCPAs do Varadouro acontece nitidamente no modo como se dá (ou não) a manutenção das habitações coletivas precárias de aluguel. Devido à relação de confiança-lealdade e de dominância entre locadores e locatários, os ajustes e melhorias das edificações comumente não são efetivados; a habitabilidade das unidades habitacionais fica submissa a essas relações, cujos acordos e desacordos conduzem à precariedade das HCPAs.