INFORMAL LAND MARKET AND URBAN POVERTY

1. UPA Package 3, Module 2 INFORMAL LAND MARKET AND URBAN POVERTY

2. Informal Settlement and Urban Poverty Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon: • Lack of access to employment; • Lack of tenure security ; • Lack of social protection; • Lack of access to health, education and personal security.

3. Informal Settlement and Urban Poverty Poverty can be defined as lack of security and choice: • Lack of adequate housing and services; • Live and work in informal and illegal settlements • Do not have secure tenure in these settlements • Lack of adequate transport infrastructure • Great commuting distance • Lack of access to credit

4. Informal Settlement and Urban Poverty For the urban poor, both two elements are missing in the urban land and housing market Reading: What Is Urban Poverty? --World Bank, 2001

5. World Population Growth Will Be Mainly in Urban

6. Almost All Growth Will Take Place in Cities of Developing Countries

7. Developing Country Rapid Urbanization Leads to an Increase in Informal Settlements • Urban growth in developing countries comes primarily from individuals migrating from the rural areas (Nairobi: 90% of recent arrivals to the slum areas came from rural Kenya). • In the cities of developing countries there is restricted access to formal serviced land by the urban poor (limited formal land market activities, and limited access to credit) • The urban irregular informal land market meets the demand of the urban poor (and is apparently both more profitable and easier to develop) . • The result has been a rapid increase in the informal or slum areas. The formal serviced land market is not responding to the demand.

8. Informal Settlement • Dense settlements comprising communities housed in self-Constructed shelters under conditions of informal or traditional land tenure. • Common features of developing countries and are typically the product of an urgent need for shelter by the urban poor. • A significant problem especially developing countries housing the world's disadvantaged.

9. Informal Settlement • Informal settlements occur when the current land administration and planning fails to address the needs of the whole community. These areas are characterized by rapid, unstructutured and unplanning development. • On a global scale informal settlements are a significant problem especially in third world countries housing the world's disadvantaged. Slums, squatter settlements and illegal settlements are unique characteristics of informal settlements.

10. Informal Settlement Example: Participation in Informal Settlement Nairobi ,Kenya --Dorothy Abonyoof 1999 Coping With Informality And Illegality In Human Settlements In Developing Cities --Leuven and Brussels, 2001 The Improvement of Informal Areas in El-Monira, Egypt --UN HABITAT 1996

11. Informal Settlement Hout Bay Informal Settlement Images– South Africa 1993 1994 Hout Bay derives its name from the Dutch for Bay of Wood, for which it was apparently known in the early settlement days of the Western Cape as a good source of wood for ship building and repairs. The need for labour in the harbour attracted migranting workers who were precluded from ownership or secure leases by group areas legislation. Squatting occurred sporadically by pockets of people for more than fifty years. by the late 1990 more than 2000 people lived in five main informal settlements, the largest being Princess Bush and Sea Products near Hout Bay harbour.

12. Informal Settlement Hout Bay Informal Settlement Images–south Africa 1996 1997

13. Informal Settlement - Slum Slums are legal but overcrowded, under-serviced settlements,they are legal but substandard settlements. Slum dwellers could be either renters of the shelter, or the land or they could be owners of the land and dwelling. Slums are normally found in the centers of cities, although it is not uncommon to find slums, where land is rented, in the urban periphery. Reading Urban Slum Reports: The case of Nairobi, Kenya -- Winnie Mitullah 2003 Slums of The World: The Face Of Urban Poverty In The New Millennium? -- UN HABITAT 2003

14. Informal Settlement - Slum The term slum includes the traditional meaning, that is, housing areas that were once respectable or even desirable, but which have since deteriorated, as the original dwellers have moved to new and better areas of cities. The condition of the old houses has then declined, and the units have beenprogressively subdivided and rented out to lower-income groups.A typical example is the innercity slums of many historical towns and cities in both the industrial and the developing countries.

15. Informal Settlement - Slum

16. Informal Settlement - Slum Hualoujie, Wuhan, China A former residential houses. Once, more then fifty years ago, as the desired houses where located in the busiest area of Wuhan city. It was demolished in May 2003

17. Informal Settlement - Slum

18. Informal Settlement - Slum The term slum has, however, come to include also the vast informal settlements that are quickly becoming the most visual expression of urban poverty. The quality of dwellings in such settlements varies from the simplest shack to permanent structures, while access to water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services and infrastructure tends to be limited. Such settlements are referred to by a wide range of names and include a variety of tenurial arrangements.

19. Informal Settlement - Slum

20. Informal Settlement - Slum Slums of The World: The Face Of Urban Poverty In The New Millennium? Reading: The new paper presents the results of a first global enumeration of slums at the country level by UN habitat in 2003.This document is the culmination of attempts to come to grips with changes in the way we measure slums, starting by providing an agreed universal, definition of this type of settlements and a clear methodological approach. The preliminary estimations presented in this document represent a baseline year level that permits the preparation of quantitative estimates for future trends. By providing the methodology and the quantitative knowledge base, the document strives to enhance the use of information on urban poverty, as a powerful policy-making tool to help induce the desired structural changes for poverty alleviation. -- UN HABITAT 2003

21. Informal Settlement - Squatter Settlements • Squatter settlements are unplanned, often unserviced illegal settlements. • Squatter settlements are often found on marginal or environmentally hazardous lands, such as beside railway tracks, along rivers and canals etc. They are also found on government land or land whose ownership is unclear. • Squatter settlements are spontaneous or organic settlements with little or no planning. • Squatter settlements are substandard housing conditions and Minimum amounts of capital investment because their land tenure is illegal.

22. Informal Settlement - Squatter Settlements Usually, a squatter settlement is highly organized despite being illegal. The occupants have clearly defined behavioral rules, spatial boundaries and methods of solving tenurial disagreements. Illegal housing is sold, land is subdivided and leased, and other transactions are possible as if the land or housing was legal. The settlement is also typically recognized by the public or private landowner, and, if the landowner is private, rents are often transferred. Squatter settlements have gradually become an integral part of the urban fabric. Reading: Defining Squatter Settlements -- Hari Srinivas

23. Informal Settlement - Squatter Settlements A squatter settlement in city periphery, China • A settlement, lacking services, which consists of a collection of small, crude shacks made of discarded materials and serving as habitation for poor people on the outskirts of towns.

24. Informal Settlement - Squatter Settlements A squatter settlement in city periphery, China

25. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago In their early stages squatter settlements are characterized by haphazard settlements patterns, poor quality of housing and an absence of public infrastructure and services such as piped water supply, sewerage, roads and electricity. Over time, people find ways of accessing basic services. In some squatter settlements water is bought through vendors and charges could be as high as ten times the municipal water rates. In other cases squatters have been known to illegally tap into the main water pipe lines to access water.

26. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

27. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

28. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

29. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

30. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

31. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago

32. A Squatter Settlement in E. Santiago Although generally regarded as an important aspect of sanitation, the removal or treatment of solid waste by a household has not been widely collected in surveys. In urban areas this is especially critical and for many observers the condition of solid waste disposal is the first impression of an unacceptable living condition.

33. Informal Settlement - Illegal Subdivisions • Illegal subdivisions are planned and organized. These usually occur in cities where the government owns large tracts of vacant land, with low opportunity cost, in the periphery of the city. • Illegal subdivisions are started by unscrupulous land developers who are often in league with corrupt elected and appointed government officials, including the police. With the protection of these corrupt officials these developers occupy government land, level it and subdivide it, according to government planning regulations, planning space for commercial, residential zones, schools, hospitals, religious institutions, recreation areas, primary, secondary and tertiary roads etc.

34. Informal Settlement - Illegal Subdivisions • These plots are sold, at almost nominal prices, without services to low-income households in desperate need for shelter. The only thing they provide is water through tanker trucks. • Such subdivisions often pay little attention to health and fire safety considerations. As the motive behind their development is maximum profit they often have no provision of public amenities like parks or open spaces. narrow roads contravening planning rules and a lack of coordination of transport access to lands around them can cause traffic congestion.

35. Informal Land Market • Substandard and insecure housing conditions are recognised as a crucial aspect of urban poverty. In most large cities in the developing world, the formal market serves only a minority of the population. It is estimated that between 30 and 70% live in ‘irregular’ settlements and that up to 85% of the new housing stock is produced in an extra-legal manner. • The conventional sequence of Planning-Servicing-Building-Occupation is a key factor in both market and state failures. Each of these steps leads to a steep price increase and speculation, and in effect raw land is turned into a scarce and expensive commodity. The effects to the urban poor is that they have be locked out of formal urban land markets.

36. Informal Land Market When the poor are locked out of the formal land and housing markets they revert to the informal land and housing markets to meet their needs. Why do they work? Reading Learning from informal markets: Innovative approaches to land and housing provision --Erhard Berner2000 Informal land delivery processes in six african cities --Carole Rakodi and Clement Leduka 2003

37. Informal Land Market Invasions: • Homeless urban dwellers who group together to take away a piece of land from speculators or listless governments is certainly appealing. low quality public land, is a common condition for invasions on a massive scale. In these cases the land is uncontested and can be occupied by squatters even without being organized

38. Informal Land Market Squatting in marginal locations: Illegal settlements fill the gaps left by urban development. ‘there is no free squatting’ distinction between non-commercial and commercial articulation of illegal land supply becomes, thus, questionable. Where traditional systems of land allocation exist they are often losing significance or becoming commercialized themselves. Reading Learning from informal markets: Innovative approaches to land and housing provision --Erhard Berner2000

39. Informal Land Market Extra-legal subdivisions: This implies that houses are built without permits and their quality as well as the provision of infrastructure may be below regular standards, which is precisely what makes them affordable for low-income groups. ‘It is their ability to cut corners–and costs–which has helped the commercial subdividers to expand their operations and to provide plots which are more appropriate, affordable and easily available than any other housing option’. The ‘serviced’ land can then be subdivided and sold–what is actually sold is the ‘right to squat’ on a certain plot, and no one mistakes this for a legal title. It is not uncommon that part of the land is set aside for speculation purposes.

40. Informal Land Market Renting and subletting: Recent figures compiled by UNCHS indeed suggest that in most cities, the majority of the population is renting accommodation; It is reasonable to assume that a large proportion of these tenants is poor, and renting because owner occupation is not accessible to them. there is a wide variation of rental sub-markets in terms of accessibility and quality of infrastructure of the location, form and security of tenure, and the quality of housing and facilities. A close relation between land markets and rental accommodation:‘In many cities, the bulk of affordable rental housing is now provided in the homes of low-income homeowners–whether they have legal, semi-legal or no legal tenure of their land and house’.

41. Bring the Poor Into Formal Land Market • The key to sustainable poverty alleviation is not to make the poor dependent on governments or non-governmental organizations but to empower them to increase their security and choices. In other words to enable the poor to operate in formal markets like other citizens. • Experience has shown that bringing the poor into the formal land and housing markets needs a two pronged strategy: increasing the choices available on the supply side and increasing affordability on the demand side.

42. Bring the Poor Into Formal Land Market • Housing opportunities for the urban poor has become an increasingly urgent task for municipalities to tackle. Most of the initiatives to provide low-income groups access to land for housing introduced later are implemented by governments. These include sites-and-services schemes and settlement upgrading. Apart from sites-and-services schemes and settlement upgrading, incremental development is an approach which lets the target group decide when to develop their land. A figure may display the basic difference between these three concepts and conventional housing programmes.

43. Bring the Poor Into Formal Land Market

44. Increasing Supply of Land for the Poor Early attempts: • Governments provides low-income housing focused on the provision of fully serviced public housing units. • Urban migrants and squatter settlements were treated with open hostility.and were often flattened with the help of bulldozers. During the 1960s and 1970s: • Government housing programmes were completely incapable of keeping pace with the enormous demand.

45. Increasing Supply of Land for the Poor After then,Many experts advocated: • Provide security of tenure to low-income groups • Provide some basic infrastructure • Residents would with time gradually improve their housing. • The role of the government in housing - to be an enabler rather than provider.

46. Site-and-Services Schemes • Provide the target group with a plot and basic infrastructure, such as water, roads and sanitation facilities. The beneficiaries either lease or buy the allocated land. they are provided access to a loan with reasonable terms as well as an additional loan for the construction of a house. It is better option than government built housing, often failed to meet the housing needs of the urban poor.

47. Site-and-Services Schemes Some of the problems which have been discussed are: • Location. • Failure to include one or more components. • Selection of eligible households. • Standards. • Administrative delay and shortage of skilled • staff. • Removal of community leaders During the 1970s and 1980s, sites-and-services schemes were implemented in nearly 100 countries mostly on the behest of international agencies like the United Nations and the World Bank.

48. Site-and-Services Schemes Example Case: Sites and Services for low income population on the north zone, Buenos Aires (Award Winning in Best Practices of UN HABITAT 1996) Argentina. This is a project on sites and services for family groups with a low income living in the north area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was carried out by APAC, a civil association with no profit purposes working in habitat themes with marginal populations, themes concerning both land and housing.

49. Site-and-Services Schemes Example Case: The project consists in 173 plots provided with a basic infrastructure such this: - water supply system - electricity supply system - road constructions - open rainwater drainage system - light pillars - streets lighting

50. Settlement Upgrading Settlement upgrading is based on investments already made in the existing housing stock and is therefore less costly to implement. Settlement upgrading provides existing settlement dwellers land tenure as well as some or all of the components indicated in table the fundamental feature being the provision of basic infrastructure.