Informal settlements pose a major developmental challenge for professional urban planners and urban managers and are predicted to continue to do so in years to come. At the heart of this challenge lies the complex relationship between the nature of informality and that of urban planning as a profession and discipline. The greater part of research on informal settlements has focused, and continues to focus, on bottomup approaches. While these approaches are central to global South oriented research, I argue for more focus on what appears to be the overlooked role of the global South planner. Whereas my approach delves into the intersection between managing informal settlements, utopian ideals of urban planning, and a radical push for decolonial thinking, urban planning in both the global North and global South has long been critiqued for its persistent rigid, colonial-modernist approach to the managing and assessment of urban development. The specific emphasis of my approach is on the mindset and sensibility necessary for built environment professionals to adopt when undertaking processes of urban development, a focus which seems so far to have been missing in planning debates. I argue that change cannot fully start from the bottom, that, for several reasons, it needs to start from the top. The modernist colonial origins, influence, and culture of urban planning is critiqued by scholars, particularly in the global South planning field, for ‘saving', ‘hiding', or ‘eradicating', rather than liberating and empowering the ‘other' in urban development processes. Central to this liberation, I argue, is a radical reorientation of planners' consciousness toward the kind of mindset and sensibility necessary when managing ‘the other', i.e. the urban poor, the marginalised, and those living in informal settlements. Any acknowledgement of the importance of both social organisation and identity in informal place-making lies in the shift in urban planning practitioners' mindsets. The focus of my case study is an exploration of the specific ways in which planning practitioners collaborated with each other, and with informal settlement communities. This included the power relations at play within this collaborative process, and the potential this process has to harness and invigorate the informal upgrading process. I explore these by looking at a pilot (Phase 1) Upgrading of an Informal Settlement Programme (UISP) project in Thembalethu, municipality of George, Western Cape Province. Even though the UISP is a housing policy rather than a planning tool, the UISP is actively designed to address and upgrade informal settlements by following a four-phased approach to address broader socio-economic challenges. By exploring the Thembalethu UISP, I explore the degree to which planners are able to intervene and manage the complexities and contradictions inherent in informal settlement upgrading processes such as those in Thembalethu, and the specific factors limiting their role in this process. My study adopted a qualitative case study research design approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the professionals who administered, and were responsible for, the upgrading project, together with field observation. Data were analysed using a system change lens, adjacent to using a deductive thematic analysis technique. The planners were found to have played a marginal role in the upgrading process, and their agency to have been restricted, both by their employers and by the UISP budget, as their role was limited to technical layouts. Even though planning in this case remained ‘powerless' and tended to fall prey to ‘institutional victimisation', the role of the planner as revealed by the interviews was seen as imperative in providing spatial direction and balance in upgrading projects. Nevertheless, the interviews revealed that, in spite of their lack of agency and power in upgrading processes in the Thembalethu UISP, the planners were starting to reimagine informal spaces and the function of these, and, in so doing, challenging conventional ideas of design and layout, as well as the role of the planner, and their participation with communities in the planning process. This was all in addition, and at times in resistance to, policy considerations. While this process of incipient reimagining may have been the case in this study, the collaboration of built environment practitioners continues to mirror a disproportion of responsiveness between the state and the UISP implementing agent, and, in so doing, exposes the strength of governance systems continuing to remain in place. The current study is expected to hold significance both at empirical and theoretical levels. Some of the theoretical significance resides in the move towards an African or de-colonial turn in planning, as well as towards a grounded learning-driven planning approach. While there is a body of research which shows how planning need not overlook power, I suggest specific ways in which ideas of decentralisation have exposed the strength (i.e., distribution of power) of existing urban governance systems and community participation. The empirical significance of the study calls for a greater emphasis on how the role of the implementing agent has been discounted in the literature. The findings also suggest the necessity for neighbourhood design and scale of intervention in upgrading projects, and for these projects to be more appropriate to the specific needs of informal communities than are large-scale one-size-fits-all state funded projects. Even though there has been a shift in scale and exploration in layout design, there remains a need for a holistic approach to urban development. On a policy level, the findings point to both a gap in, and a need for, greater alignment between housing and planning legislation and policies. Thus, the study offers a deeper knowledge and understanding of policy considerations, and of how custodianship of policies can become a major stronghold, if not a greater power contender, in the urban development spectrum. Furthermore, existing ideas of ‘community empowerment' language in policy documents are interrogated. In the process of understanding the workings of this, I look in detail at management styles and at the kind of leadership necessary for implementing upgrading programmes. Based on the findings, I put forward the importance of ambivalence in any upgrading project. Thus, in the context of urban development as a dynamic ‘collective', I consider the inability of planners to hold ambivalence to be a significant hindrance to their ability to envision, or to re-imagine, informal settlements. I argue that this in turn implicates the way planners think and manage the collective needs, together with the dynamism of informal settlements.

Informal 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. / text

PhD, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010 / Informal settlements are a growing world-wide phenomenon. Up-to-date spatial information mapping settlements is essential for a variety of end-user applications from planning settlement upgrading to monitoring expansion and infill. One method of gathering this information is through the analysis of nadir-view aerial imagery and the automated or semi-automated extraction of individual shacks. The problem of shack detection and delineation in, particularly South African, informal settlements is a unique and difficult one. This is primarily due to the inhomogeneous appearance of shack roofs, which are constructed from a variety of disparate materials, and the density of shacks. Previous research has focused mostly on the use of height data in conjunction with optical images to perform automated or semi-automated shack extraction. In this thesis, a novel approach to automating shack extraction is presented and prototyped, in which the appearance of shack roofs is homogenised, facilitating their detection. The main features of this strategy are: construction of an anisotropic scale-space from a single source image and detection of hypotheses at multiple scales; simplification of hypotheses' boundaries through discrete curve evolution and regularisation of boundaries in accordance with an assumed shack model - a 4-6 sided, compact, rectilinear shape; selection of hypotheses competing across scales using fuzzy rules; grouping of hypotheses based on their support for one another, and localisation and re-regularisation of boundaries through the incorporation of image edges. The prototype's performance is evaluated in terms of standard metrics and is analysed for four different images, having three different sets of imaging conditions, and containing well over a hundred shacks. Detection rates in terms of building counts vary from 83% to 100% and, in terms of roof area coverage, from 55% to 84%. These results, each derived from a single source image, compare favourably with those of existing shack detection systems, especially automated ones which make use of richer source data. Integrating this scale-space approach with height data offers the promise of even better results.

faculty of Humanities School of Social sciences 0411881k muanzu@yahoo.fr / Previous studies on fertility in South Africa have mostly focused on the analysis of fertility trends, levels and differentials at the national level and have argued that socioeconomic development affects the national fertility level. This study examines the fertility levels in South Africa informal settlements with a view of examining whether there is any fertility variation between national and informal settlements. Data from the South Africa 2001 Census 10 per cent sample were used. Three levels of analysis were conducted. One examines fertility differentials. Two, multiple regression technique was applied to identify important socioeconomic factors of fertility in South African informal settlements and finally direct and indirect estimation of fertility was done. There is no difference in fertility levels between national and informal settlements. Fertility of 3 children per woman, in informal settlements is close to the national figure of 2.9. It is also shown that there is an inverse relationship between fertility and education and income, in South Africa informal settlements. Multivariate analysis shows that only about 6% of the variation in the dependent variable can be explained by the socioeconomic factors considered in the study. Fertility in the informal settlements was highest amongst women with higher education, among married women, and among those unemployed. In addition, the fertility of Christian women, and those women dwelling in households without radio and television was high. It is found that there is no difference between fertility levels at the national and informal settlements levels.

The main aim of the study was to explore the resident's perception of urban integration or integration of the settlement with the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) in terms of the economic, spatial, political, environmental and social aspects.In order to accomplish this aim, data were gathered from a sample of twelve Dukhatole informal settlement residents in the EMM. A research questionnaire was used as the main instrument of data collection. Collected data were analysed qualitatively using both coding and thematic formats.The findings of the study demonstrated that Dukathole informal settlement is spatially, economically, and socially integrated with the EMM. More importantly it is the physical location of the community that has ensured the the Dukathole informal settlement is economically and socially integrated with the EMM city. These results led to the conclusion that the proposed government processes to relocate Dukathole informal settlement to distant areas will disintegrate or exclude this community from the EMM city. It was also discovered that the majority of the respondents are unemployed and involved in the informal sector of the economy with less income. This automatically excludes them from the formal housing processes as they could not afford. Based on the foregoing finding it was concluded that formal rental accommodation does not and will not cater for the urban poor.

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. / text

This 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. / text

Water is the most important resource which is essential for sustaining all life forms, since without it, life cannot exist and industry cannot operate. However, increasing concern is being expressed at the rate of degradation of this important resource, which, to a large extent, is due to the advent of industrialization and urbanization. The major causes for this concern is that the progress towards urbanization is often made without due regard to the consequences. Furthermore, the effect of man's social and industrial activities can be seen in the extent to which river water quality changes as a river flows from its source to the sea. Water which is returned to the river as effluent is rarely the same quality and is normally contaminated with some form of pollution. South Africa is a country where water is a scarce and precious resource. Coupled with low rainfall and a high evaporation rate, is the lack of basic services which are concentrated in areas where demands of the most vital resource is ever increasing. In addition, urbanization is experienced at a phenomenal rate, much of which is in the form of informal settlements. These constitute overcrowded "shacks" with no running water and sanitation facilities. Furthermore, imbalances in the ecosystem are created when humans strive to undertake the economic demands of the world resulting in poor environmental management practices and unhealthy living conditions. These communities lack basic services and as a result, resort to environmental degradation where the removal of vegetative cover, waste disposal and water pollution are evident. Furthermore, many of the informal settlements are situated in close proximity to water source, especially rivers. In the absence of sanitation, these communities make use of shallow pit latrines, river banks, etc. The potential for pollution is therefore very high in these communities. This provided the researcher with theThe purpose of the study was to determine the influence of the Umlazi informal community, L-SECTION on the water quality of the Umlaas River. The physical and chemical parameters viz., pH, E-coli, COD, turbidity, electrical conductivity, nitrate and phosphorous concentration were examined to provide the researcher with some indication of water quality. Water samples with an interval of 100 metres apart were collected upstream and downstream of the informal community. The samples were analysed at the Metro Waste Water management laboratory to determine the concentrations of the said variables. The purpose of upstream and downstream sampling was to enable the researcher to determine whether the difference in values between the two sets of data was significant or not. The statistical test was achieved through the application of the students t test. The results of the investigation indicate that water downstream of the informal community is of a poorer quality than that of upstream. The results of the application of the test for each set of variables (upstream vs downstream) reveals that the difference is significant. The findings of the study indicate that the informal community have a detrimental impact on water quality. Authorities responsible for management of water resources are required, as a matter of urgency, to implement nec~ssary steps to ensure that water quality is not impacted upon negatively. Failure in this regard could lead to the following: a decline in water quality and quantity; a reduction in economic opportunities; deteriorating standards of human health and safety as well as a decline in the diversity of plants, animals, and fish in our rivers. However providing proper sanitation to people living in informal settlements; improving the quality of lives of the homeless people who resort to squatting as well as ensuring that policies ensure that minimum standards requirements are met are just some of the steps in overcoming the problem in water quality. motivation for the study. / Thesis (M.A.)- University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

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Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jason Brody / As global development trends continue, planners and social scientists of the future will have an increasingly pressing responsibility to effectively and sensitively address and interact with informal development. This report seeks to provide theoretical research to expand the knowledge base of planners and social scientists with respect to informal development. It aims to begin to explore and explain how informal development and living conditions interact, and to understand what the role of the planner and social scientist should be in interfacing with informal development in the future. Through case study this report considers two distinct typologies of informal settlements in order to compare and contrast factors in each settlement‘s history and development, living conditions, and overarching administrative relationships to identify trends in the development and manifestation of informal settlements.