Workshop 2014: Micro-library

In joint efforts with Iowa State University and the neighbours at El Carmen, Comas, we will start building a library unit.

We invite volunteers to participate in the construction, between March 4th and 15th.

Book donations are also welcomed!

Informal Housing: Conventional Wisdoms Reappraised (P. M. Ward)

(www.texashousing.org)

"Since the mid-1970s self-help housing policies have entered the mainstream of international planning conventional wisdom. Prior to this period self-help advocacy was limited largely to academics or research workers concerned to identify the natures of squatter or irregular settlements, the characteristics of their populations, and the processes whereby theses areas were physically upgraded and became part of the urban fabric. They argued that the self-build and the mutual-aid activities in these neighbourhoods should be stimulated through supportive government intervention. This would include the provision of essential services which the residents could not organise themselves or readily afford, and the provision of some sort of tenure security (invariably outright ownership) that would stimulate investment in the dwellings.

[...] the incorporation of self-help philosophy into planning has not been without criticism. Emerging practices are criticised on several grounds. It is said to be an abrogation of government responsibility insofar as housing construction is placed firmly in the hands of the worker rather than those of the industrialist, local or central government. Labour is, therefore, exploited twice over; first in the workplace where wages are low; second, in the home where householders bear the burden of life in poor dwelling conditions with inadequate services and have to use their spare time and labour to build or improve their dwellings. This is a primary means whereby labour is reproduced cheaply. Others have suggested that self-help romanticises and confuses freedom of choice to construct one's own home with no choice at all (Harms, 1976). Politically it is seen as inherently conservative; the acquisition of home ownership through a bootstraps self-help approach fosters a petty-burgois mentality (Harms, 1976). [...] In is increasingly apparent that self-help functions to the advantage of a range of interests: it offers politicians opportunities for patronage and social control exercised through vote catching and negotiation over services and land. The construction industry benefits through an enhanced market for materials; while industry, commerce and the rich in general benefit through being able to pay low wager. Lastly, it is argues that successful consolidation achieved by low-income groups in the past is seriously threatened as economic growth declines, inflation increases, real wages drop and, as self-help policies require, a commitment to pay the costs of land and legal recognition, together with the costs of service installation and land taxes."

Ward, Peter M. (1982) Informal Housing: Conventional Wisdoms Reappraised. Built Environment, Vol 8, No 2. pp. 84-94.

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.

The Future Of Slums: On The Line Between Hope & Despair

Cities Alliance

"The future of slums can be projected in two entirely different variants: slums of hope, and slums of despair. Based on the prevalent trends, despite some successes which could be termed as ‘best practices’ in formulating slum policies, slums have continued growing in the urban regions of the developing world."

"The need of the hour is to focus on a more comprehensive approach that will integrate factors of emergence and growth of slums and at the same time cooperate with different stakeholders responsible for addressing slum problem. The most striking outcome of past and existing slum policies and strategies are their short sightedness with respect to housing needs in urban regions."

"Governments need a paradigm shift in attitude by looking at the poor settlements not as part of the problem but as part of the solution and look at the poor not as beneficiaries but primary actors of their own development, key tenets of slum upgrading and enabling approaches."

Read the entire article at Urban Times.

Lessons to be taken from slums

Favela Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro
(upload.wikimedia.org)

"I realised that the formal city couldn't survive without the informal city … in the slums I discovered a whole new social geography … I began rethinking my whole profession, unlearning what I had learned, and then re-focused on adaptation and reuse and using scarcity as a resource." (Brillembourg)

[...]

This notion is that the slum at its best – or at least at a conceptual level – is a Wiki city. There are no rules other than the resources available and the collective agreements among residents. "An interest that the profession has had for a few years, and it is shared by the public, is that cities don't need to be so planned," says Zaera-Polo. "That cities can be more varied … this raises interest in the idea of cities that are almost self-built: the Wiki house, and the crowd sourcing of design." [...]

"What is probably most fascinating about going to [slums] is that you see the public realm emerging from the bottom-up, you experience it literally," says Zaera-Polo. "As opposed to those of us who have been lucky and born into wealthy economies where it was already there. To see the favelas and slums in South America gives you an incredible insight into how the public realm emerges out of a group of individuals. I think this is something that advanced economies need to look at now."

Read the complete article at The Guardian.

The Right to the City (D. Harvey) I

"The city, the noted urban sociologist Robert Park once wrote, is:

man's most consistent and on the whole, his most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart's desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.

The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart's desire. We need to be sure we can live with out own creations (a problem for every planner, architect and utopian thinker). But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights. The sheer pace and chaotic forms of urbanization throughout the world have made it hard to reflect on the nature of this task. We have been made and remade without knowing exactly why, how, wherefore and to what end. How then can be better exercise this right to the city?

The city has never been a harmonious place, free of confusions, conflicts, violence. Only read the history of the Paris Commune of 1871, see Scorsese's fictional depiction of gangs of New York in the 1850s, and think how far we have come. But then think of the violence that has divided Belfast, destroyed Beirut and Sarajevo, rocked Bombay [...]. Calmness and civility in urban history are the exception not the rule. The only interesting question is whether the outcomes are creative or destructive. Usually they are both: the city is the historical site of creative destruction. Yet the city has also proven a remarkably resiliant enduring and innovative social form.

But whose rights and whose city?" 

Harvey, David (2003) "The Right to the City". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Published in: Lin, Jan & Mele, Christopher (2013) The Urban Sociology Reader. London: Routledge. p 429.