Learning from Informality
Urban planning needs to accommodate the informal to build inclusive communities.
This piece should be read as a continuation of the perspective I have used in my previous post on Policies for Places. I have been arguing that providing mixed-use developments at high density is not enough on its own to build cohesive communities and that for effective urban planning we should not lose sight of Lefebvre's argument in The Production of Space that space is a social product, a complex social construction which affects spatial practices and understandings. This would suggest a shift from a focus on the design of spaces to the processes that produce them.
Here I want to explore ‘informal’ urbanism, and its problematic relationship with public space and the more formal character of urban planning. By informal urbanism I am referring to how people use and shape urban spaces in ways which are unplanned and often un-regulated and outside formal planning frameworks. My contention here is that informal urbanism offers important insights into the adaptive use of space and into its social role which should be given greater prominence in more formal planning practice.
Informality
Informality is traditionally associated with the rapid urbanization and fast growing cities and developing regions in the global south. The map below, using UN-habitat data, shows the estimated populations in informal settlements in different regions around the world (the numbers in the circles are millions).
The map shows, that although the large majority of this population is distributed across the global south and Asia there is a significant number in Europe and western cities. The housing crisis is now present in all regions of the world. Although informal settlements were previously seen as a problem faced by developing countries, housing shortage is now an issue for many rich countries and established cities, struggling to ensure their citizens have access to adequate housing.
Informal urban development is not a new phenomenon in Europe, especially in the south of the continent, but is one which has gained more urgency in the last 20 years or so. In the 1990s informal settlements started to increase as a result of political and economic changes in eastern Europe coupled with rapid urbanization, and often uncontrolled, massive internal migration due to poverty, conflicts, marginalization and natural disasters.
Informal settlements are often associated with poverty and the poor - as an adaptation made of necessity when urban planning and infrastructure is inadequate for the demands placed upon it by expanding populations. As such informal development is often viewed as a challenge for national and city governments who seek, in various way, to bring un-regulated activity within conventional regulatory and legal frameworks and strategies for urban planning and development. Informality is now part of city life in most cities worldwide. Rather than treating informality as a problem to be eradicated, it should perhaps be seen as a key element in understanding and designing cities that are properly responsive to the evolving needs of their residents.
I suggest that city planners have much to learn about the potential benefits to cities stemming from informality in its various forms. In this essay I want to explore some of these with particular reference to cities in Europe and the western world both, both at city and neighbourhood level. I will then turn to the learning for cities and for urban planning.
The scope of informality
Informality is found in many crucial aspects of city life spanning land-use, housing, the economy and employment, transportation and more. It is important to recognize that informality, unplanned settlements and markets are currently a reality in most cities: they are, as I said, essentially, part of the city. For instance, informal settlements often arise in areas where formal housing policies can not meet demand, or when affordable living spaces are not available to all. Informal markets and small-scale businesses use urban spaces in creative ways, create economic opportunities and provide affordable services, whilst informal shared transport systems can optimize accessibility to opportunities and affordable services.
Informal settlements
Informal settlements take many forms. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has identified the following:
squatter settlements on public and private land,
settlements/camps for refugees and vulnerable people,
illegal subdivisions of private or public land, often on the urban periphery,
overcrowded, dilapidated housing without adequate facilities in urban centres or densely urbanized areas,
Roma settlements and other itinerant groups, which can be either temporary or permanent, and
high-density informal occupations in large cities, linked to economic crises, unemployment, migration, etc.
Examples of these various types can be found both in the more recently built peripheral and suburban areas of cities and in older more established urban areas. Tent cities are a familiar example in some major cities.
These various categories of informality also illustrate that informal settlements are not just for the poor. Informal property sharing and appropriation of public or private space can involve wealthier people and public officials who find their salaries not keeping place with property valuations may be found in informal settlements for want of other alternatives.
Informal economy
Perhaps one of the most visible signs of informality in many cities is through informal markets and street vending. Markets and street vending provide income for many and a low-cost entry to economic opportunity and business. They provide economical goods and services for residents, and a setting for social life and connection, and can provide an attraction drawing others to visit and provide identify for a place.
The negative perception of informal vending is an issue that rises in cities everywhere, but the successful integration of such vendors into urban life can add much to the lived experience of a thriving city. Strategies to support street vending and local markets can make them an integral part of vibrant public spaces. Some neighbourhoods become ‘market districts’ where many forms of economic enterprises, integrated with public spaces, can thrive.
Informal economies provide jobs and income for a significant portion of urban populations, especially in developing cities but also in long-established cities across Europe.. Street vending, informal transportation networks, and home-based businesses offer livelihoods for those excluded from formal employment markets. This economic creativity plays a significant role in addressing unemployment and poverty, especially for women and disadvantaged groups. However, without formal recognition or legal protection, workers in informal sectors risk exploitation, job insecurity, and lack of access to formal social benefits.
Land-use
Re-purposing land, redundant buildings and street facilities offers another visible sign of the informal economy within modern cities. There are numerous examples of buildings being taken over as meeting space, performance spaces or as support facilities for vulnerable people. Gorilla gardening can take over vacant land for community food production. Redundant street features can be used as informal neighbourhood facilities such as libraries or street food shops and spaces for cultural exchange.
Transportation
Cities are also host to a range of informal transport systems which which influence and enable urban mobility both for residents and for goods. They would include informal ride-hailing and ride-share services and and informal carpooling or truck networks, often based on local community WhatsApp groups or Facebook pages. Bicycle couriers and gig cyclists are a familiar sight in many cities delivering documents to businesses and food to residents.
Education
Often left out of the discussion of informality are opportunities for learning outside the formal schooling system provided by community groups and organisations. There is an important role for local communities groups in enabling community understanding of local political processes and encouraging skills for shaping their environment and engaging with formal systems. By facilitating public participation in co-design initiatives and enabling the presentation of community-led ideas and proposals for the local development of more socially inclusive urban spaces.
The formal/informal continuum
The dominant perspective on informality draws a clear distinction between the informal and the formal. Activities are either fully regulated or completely outside regulatory and legal frameworks: if the latter this perspective may seek to criminalize or remove informal unregulated activity. Another perspective looks to adopt an approach which seeks to formalize the informal through ‘soft’ regulation, for example, reforming tenure rules, registration systems or introducing modified safety regulations or job security. A third perspective is to seek to learn from informal activities and consider new ways of doing things in the mainstream.
But it is apparent that many of these informal practices exist in a kind of hybrid form blending formal and informal elements, or are part of a process of transition. This flexibility and flux can be seen in each of the main areas of informality I referred to earlier.
Thus with regard to settlements at the formal end of the continuum are planned neighbourhoods with legal land tenure, which meet local zonal or building codes and have access to public services. At the other end are shanty towns which lack legal recognition, secure tenure, or basic services. In between are several of the settlement patterns in the UNECE list above, where tenure arrangements are being negotiated, or where dilapidated housing is gradually being upgraded or public or private land is being re-purposed for new uses.
With regard to employment at the formal end are those with employment contracts, legal protections and part of the tax system. At the informal end are workers without these protections. But here too are those in an intermediate position such as workers with zero-hours contracts or those with partial protection as part of co-operatives or associations that can offer support.
Transportation similarly offers examples of semi-formal systems, that is services which are tolerated, only loosely regulated or even subsidized without full integration into official systems with fixed routes, schedules and fares.
Communities negotiating systems
The recognition of informality as a transitional process is the key to a perspective about how cities evolve through the interplay between formal and informal systems. Informal actions often emerge when formal infrastructures cannot meet demand or formal processes are too slow to respond to changing social and spatial conditions. Arguably informal systems can be seen as a kind of community-driven informal governance that emerges when formal institutions are slow, underfunded or absent.
Learning from Informality
So how should formal city planners respond to this ‘alternative governance? There are several aspects to the approach cities might take in responding to this challenge.
The fundamental step must be to recognize the legitimacy of informality, and acknowledge the value of the contribution of informal actions and networks as a community-based response to the issues they face which offers insight which more formal approaches might seek to embrace.
This recognition suggests other important strands in city thinking which should be in place, such as
Flexibility and adaptability
Experimentation
Community-led development
Efficiencies in land-use.
Collectively these strands can run counter to a conventional perspective on the role of urban planning. It suggests, first, a recognition of the limits of urban planning. Informality produces land-use and practices which are driven by community perceptions of need in ways which conventional planning processes find it hard to deliver. Urban planning will not usually pick up the subtleties of these practices in their desire to produce master-plans an broad development strategies.
Second it recognizes that cities that cities are always in flux, and flexibility and a preparedness to experiment are vital. There is much to be said for the temporary experimental approach which allows communities to test out ideas and give authentic feedback about how spaces are used, how people move around and their wider lived-experience of their locality. Temporary developments have the advantages of lower resource use if schemes do not work out and as a rapid response to perceived issues.
There are numerous example of the impact of what started as temporary projects. Community groups form, use data and photos from the projects to successfully apply for grants, and pop-up concepts move into brick and mortar and become permanent.
A complex social construction
While informality can reinforce social inequities, it also provides pathways for resilience, economic participation, and community-led urban development. The challenge for urban planners is not to eliminate informality but to integrate its lessons into more flexible, inclusive, equitable urban policies. Recognizing informal systems as vital components of urban life allows cities to create solutions that empower marginalized communities, and ultimately making cities more just and accessible for all. The resulting configuration of cities and neighbourhoods demonstrates the outcome of the inter-relations between the formal and informal social systems. In some places, the outcome is heavily weighted to the formal with a denial of a role for the informal, but in others it is an innovative mix of both.