Kids in India Are Sparking Urban Planning Changes by Mapping Slums (S. Sturgis)

"As part of a broader civic campaign centered on "child clubs," groups of children are creating detailed "social maps" of their marginalized neighborhoods to voice their concerns about public space, as first reported in Citiscope, a CityLab partner site. [...] 

Teams of young mappers and adult facilitators spend roughly 45 days traversing their slums. They learn the shape of their neighborhood, how streets interconnect (or don't), and the the density of homes there. This information becomes the map's skeleton. Then, they fill in the specifics. They stake out what's needed through the eyes of children—where underserved public areas could become play spaces, where trash bins could be added in an area they regularly see littered with filth. Their ideal neighborhood is drawn and detailed onto the map. Then, after it's complete, leaders from the child clubs present their work to local officials.

[...] Human activism, on the other hand, is a better indication of reality. Regardless of whether these child maps lead to more equitable urban development or not, it's indicative of a young Indian generation coming to the fore with a keen awareness of disparity—who are eager to correct it."

Read the article here.

Imaginario (A. Huffschmid)

We not only have the physical experience of the city, we not only walk or feel in our bodies the meaning of walking around for a long time, of travelling by bus, of standing up, of being out in the rain waiting for a cab; but we also imagine, while travelling, we construct suppositions about what we see, about the people crossing our way, the zones of the city that we do not know but have to pass through in order to get another destination; in a word, about what is happening to us in relation to the others in the city (Garcia Canclini 1999:89)

"Imagination in urban contexts, as a socially shared level, articulates social desires, feelings, fantasies and explanations related to city life. The outcome of collective imagination was conceptualised by Armando Silva, García Canclini and others as urban imaginario. It is the imaginario, as a key dimension of the sociocultural and semiotic constitution of the city, where social meaning and memory, senses of community and belonging, inclusions and exclusions are produced and negotiated. The imaginario approach relativizes and complements - without replacing - the weight of material features (socio-economic condition, built environment, urban planning) by incorporating immaterial dimensions such as semiotics, subjectivity and aesthetics in order to recreate the symbolic territoriality and cultural power relations in and of the city. [...]

(bifurcaciones.cl)

Exploring imaginarios means focusing on how the city is perceived, conceived and lived by the citizen, as the inhabitant and user of urban space; and incorporates into the analysis his or her subjective "spatial experience". This spatial subjectivity does not emerge directly from the physical or visual experience of space, but is created by sense-making narratives: a sequence of imagining, experimenting and telling space. These narrations can be analyzed on the level of artistic practices (music, literature, visual arts) as well as [...] on the level of social or urban practices, inscribed in the routines and disruptions of urban life. 

[...] imagination or subjectivity here are not to be reduced to the level of individual cognition or psychology, but to the amplified as "socially shared" imagination, on the grounds of a socially shared culture seen as a "flexible and invisible cage in which one's own conditioned freedom might be exercised" (Carlo Ginzburg 2000). Stating the social dimension of imaginarios is to acknowledge the intrinsic interrelation of the social and symbolic organization of urban life, the interconnectedness between material and immaterial dimensions, the impact of architecture and physical texture on perception and imagination. Within the "flexible and invisible cage" of culture, urban subjectivity is produced by and at the same time produces social experience in the city, including the exercise of cultural power such as community-building, identity politics or boundaries of exclusion. Imaginarios are to be seen as products of specific historical and cultural processes as well as the producers of the urban, such as for instance the proliferation of urban fear, the use of public transport or environmental behaviour, the perception of informal commerce or urban "otherness", disputes over cultural heritage and memory practices in general."

Huffschmid, Anne (2012) From the City to "lo Urbano": Exploring Cultural Production of Public Space in Latin America. Iberoamericana, Año 12, No. 42. pp. 123-124.

Informal Settlers in Lima (I. Olórtegui)

"The first invasions started in the Forties. Before long the urban popular organisations leading them started an autonomy movement at the State and dominant class which peaked in 1979-80 with the formation of the Federation of Young Towns and Popular Urbanisation of Lima and Callao. The first major group of spontaneous settlements in Lima were originally characterised as “urbanizaciones clandestinas” (clandestine urbanisations), and in 1953 they were officially designated “barriadas” by the National Bureau of Planning and Urbanism. As Ludeña indicates, the criteria to define this qualification were related to the materials of the constructions (brick, adobe, cane or waste materials), the level of advance of the building construction and the supply of services and equipment (stable or slow development, moderated advance, violent development), and mainly the ownership of invaded lands (State land, private property or rented plots)."

Read the whole article.

Slum Upgrading

"Slum upgrading is a process through which informal areas are gradually improved, formalised and incorporated into the city itself, through extending land, services and citizenship to slum dwellers.It involves providing slum dwellers with the economic, social, institutional and community services available to other citizens. These services include legal (land tenure), physical (infrastructure), social (crime or education, for example) or economic.

Slum upgrading is not simply about water or drainage or housing. It is about putting into motion the economic, social, institutional and community activities that are needed to turn around downward trends in an area. These activities should be undertaken cooperatively among all parties involved—residents, community groups, businesses as well as local and national authorities if applicable.

The activities tend to include the provision of basic services such as housing, streets, footpaths, drainage, clean water, sanitation, and sewage disposal. Often, access to education and health care are also part of upgrading.

In addition to basic services, one of the key elements of slum upgrading is legalising or regularising properties and bringing secure land tenure to residents.

Ultimately, upgrading efforts aim to create a dynamic in the community where there is a sense of ownership, entitlement and inward investment in the area."

Cities Alliance

Read all about slum upgrading here.

10 informal city projects

Brief descriptions of 10 projects concerning informal issues in different city contexts all over the world. Some of them well known. Some others definitely worth some extra attention.

Read the complete article.

Metrocable
(intermediatelandscapes.files.wordpress.com)

1. Belapur Incremental Housing. Navi Mumbai, India (1986-present) | Charles Correa

2. The Favela-Bairro Project. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1995) | Jorge Mario Jauregui Architects

3. Vertical Gym. Chacao, Caracas, Venezuela (2001-03) | Urban-Think Tank with Mateo Pinto and Matias Pinto

4. Medellin’s Cable Transit System (2006)

5. Metro Cable. Caracas, Venezuela (2007-10) | Urban-Think Tank

6. Manguinhos Complex. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2005-10) | Jorge Mario Jáuregui/Metropolis Projectos Urbanos

7. METI-Handmade School. Rudrapur, Bangaldesh (2004-06) | Anna Heringer and Eike Roswag

8. Palestinian Refugee Camp of Nahr el Bared, North Lebanon (2009-present) | Isamael Sheikh Hassan, UNRWA

9. Strategic Urban Projects Dharavi Mumbai, India | Kelly Shannon and Janina Gosseye

10. The Value of Informal Settlements in the Design of Cities. Cali, Colombia (2009-present) | LAU

Static / Kinetic city (R. Mehrotra)

"The static city is built of more permanent materials - such as concrete, steel and brick - and is comprehended as a two-dimensional entity on conventional city maps and is monumental in its presence. Architecture is clearly the spectacle of the static city. And while the static city depends on architecture for its representation, it is no longer the single image by which the city is read. On the other hand, the kinetic city is not perceived through architecture, but through spaces, which hold associative values and support lives. Patterns of occupation determine its form and perception. It is an indigenous urbanism that has its particular 'local' logics. It is not necessarily only the city of the poor, as most images and discussions of the informal city might suggest; rather it is a temporal articulation and occupation of space which not only creates a richer sensibility of spatial occupation, but also suggests how spatial limits are expanded to include formally unimagined uses in dense urban conditions.

The informal or kinetic city carries local wisdom into the contemporary world without fear of the modern, while the static city aspired to erase the local and recodify it in a written formal order. The issue of housing (alums, shanty towns, etc.) most vividly demonstrates the rendering process of the kinetic city by the static city. Flow, instability and indeterminacy are basic to the kinetic city. [...] Thus the kinetic city is a fluid and dynamic city that is mobile and temporal (often as a strategy to defeat eviction) and leaves no ruins. It constantly recycles its resources, leveraging great effect and presence with very little means.

Mumbai (web.mit.edu )

Clearly, static and kinetic cities go beyond their obvious differences to establish a much richer relationship both spatially and metaphorically than their physical manifestations would suggest. Here affinity and rejection are simultaneously played out and are in a state of equilibrium maintained by a seemingly irresolvable tension. The informal economy of the city vividly illustrates the collapsed and intertwined existence of the static and kinetic cities. In fact, the kinetic city presents a compelling vision that potentially allows us to understand more clearly the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism in Latin America, Asia or Africa and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society. The increasing concentrations of global flows in these contexts have exacerbated the inequalities and spatial divisions of social classes. In this context, an architecture or urbanism of quality in increasingly inequitable economic conditions requires that one looks deeper to find a wide range of places to mark and commemorate the cultures of those excluded from the spaces of global flows. These do not necessarily lie in the formal production of architecture, but often challenge it. Here the idea of a city is an elastic urban condition, not a grand vision, but a 'grand adjustment'."

Mehrotra, Rahul (2012 [2010]) "Foreword". In: Hernández, Felipe; Kellett, Peter; Allen, Lea K. Rethinking the Informal City. Critical Perspectives from Latin America. Oxford: Berghahn Books. pp xi-xii.

Gradual Redevelopment Does Promote Community (E. Jaffe)

"Recently [sociologist Katherine] King put Jacobs's belief to an empirical test. A few studies of housing type and social relations have been done over the years: researchers have found that residents of townhouses or villas have higher social capital than those in apartments or flats; that even the position of doors and common spaces can influence social contact; and that older housing does seem to promote interaction. However the idea that gradual redevelopment improves social ties hasn't really been studied in a direct sense.

"It remains to be seen whether the diversity of forms created by gradual development in fact predicts better neighbourly social relations," writes King.

To address this gap in the literature, King studied surveys of Chicago neighborhoods that included measures of community relations. She established four metrics of social ties: cohesion (shared values), control (a belief that community works toward a collective good), inter-generational closure (adults looking after local youth), and reciprocal exchange (trading favors, advice, information, etc.). Then she matched this information with data on the "age diversity" of housing — a proxy for gradual redevelopment, since a mixture of building ages might represent neighborhood evolution.

The results showed quite clearly that a mixture of buildings indicated strong social ties. Mid-century housing age was significantly associated with all four types of social relations, while recent construction had a negative association with social control in particular. Once King controlled for other demographic factors, only housing "age diversity" kept its significant link with all four social metrics she measured.

King concludes:

Empirical results show significant links between housing age diversity (historical development pace) and four measures of neighbourly social relations, even when controlling for other neighbourhood housing features, social composition and individual sociodemographics. It may be that gradual redevelopment preserves community ties, which may take decades to form and which new residents may 'inherit' from previous neighbours."

Read the full article.

Jaffe, Eric (2013) "Jane Jacobs Was Right: Gradual Redevelopment Does Promote Community". In: The Atlantic Cities. Place Matters. http://www.theatlanticcities.com

Lima Beyond the Park (Exhibition)

Lima Beyond the Park.

"Sustainable approaches in dealing with the extreme water shortage in the Peruvian capital Lima are the main deal of the interdisciplinary “LiWa” research project, where nine research institutes from Germany and Peru are working together. Therefore Lima, characterized by very low rainfall and over eight million people, has to struggle with high water demand besides low water availability. Nevertheless, green areas are largely irrigated by the scarce potable water resources.

LOTTE is pleased to show contributions developed by students and staff of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Stuttgart , that connect new approaches to solve water problems with design of urban open spaces in Lima. The resulting projects show a new understanding of productive parks, which do not exhibit expensive luxury but seek to integrate indispensable infrastructure systems. The entire process ‐ from the research of existing water resources and new technologies, the construction of prototypes as part of a summer school till to the development of comprehensive park concepts ‐ is part of the effort, which aims to implement a pilot project in situ in Lima."

José Castillo on informality (C. Brillembourg)

"Carlos Brillembourg In your Praxis Journal article “Urbanism of the Informal,” you discuss the contemporary history of Lima and Mexico City, pointing to what you call the globalized situation of settlements where 60 percent of the inhabitants live in “favelas, barriadas, kampong slums, villas miseria, bidonvilles or asentamientos irregulars.” Is this “urbanism of the informal” a new urban condition?

José Castillo Informality is not an exclusive phenomenon of the twentieth century (nor of underdeveloped countries, for that matter); there has been ex-urbis housing, “outside” the legal, planning and professional realms of city making, for centuries. What is remarkable is that informality became the dominant mode of city making in the twentieth century. The high point of informal urbanization was probably during the late ’60s and early ’70s, when large demographic growth, high migration, an economic boom and misguided urban and housing policies formed a scenario in which housing provision and land appropriation could not take place through traditional means. This meant that over half of all urban housing stock had to be provided through non-traditional channels such as squats, illegal land subdivisions, land invasions and other schemes of appropriation.

Now, even 40 years after the zenith of informal urbanization, we still face the same issues. We have not modified urban and housing policies that have proved—if not outright failures, at least limited in their impacts.

Open-air markets in Mexico City, 1996
Photo: Carlos Brillembourg

CB Would self-built settlements be a better term than informality? What exactly is informal about these settlements?

JC Informal is a deliberately ambiguous term. In my description of the phenomenon of urbanization as it relates to Mexico City, I address a three-tiered definition of the word: First, it incorporates the notion of the casual; second, it refers to the condition of lacking precise form; and finally, it relates to the realm outside what is prescribed. I use the term urbanisms of the informal to explain the practices (social, economic, architectural and urban) and the forms (physical and spatial) that a group of stake holders (dwellers, developers, planners, landowners and the state) undertake not only to obtain access to land and housing, but also to satisfy their need to engage in urban life. These practices are characterized by tactical and incremental decisions, by a complex interaction among players and a distinct set of spatial strategies that produce a progressive urban space and reconfigured hierarchies."

Read the complete interview at BOMBSITE.