The Routledge handbook on informal urbanization

Edited by Roberto Rocco and Jan van Ballegooijen

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AESOP 2019 Round Table

ROUND TABLE AESOP 2019, 9-13 JULY, VENICE https://www.aesop2019.eu

THE POLITICAL MEANING OF INFORMAL URBANISATION: LAUNCHING OF THE HANDBOOK AND DISCUSSION

Organised by Roberto Rocco and Jan van Ballegooijen (TU Delft)

This round table will be held during the Annual Congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning that will take place in Venice from 9 to 13 July (the exact date of the round table is not yet known). 

This is a double event. It is the launching of the recently published book “The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanisation”, edited by the organizers of the round table. The round table also aims to discuss the book’s premises in the light of its findings. 

Authors of the book and other participants are invited to discuss the question: how does informal urbanisation in the Global South help citizens achieve their right to the city and their right to rights? How do planning systems around the world respond to informal urbanization and to the struggle of citizens? The book in question displays an array of 25 global cases in which this question is addressed. Additionally, this round table wishes to explore how, in light of accelerated and largely unplanned urbanisation processes, have governments, markets and citizens in the Global South used/use informal urbanisation as a tool to achieve their goals and how planning systems have reacted/ dealt with this process. Contributions from the general audience are most welcome. 

Participants are invited to submit an abstract detailing a possible topic for discussion (not mandatory). Abstracts should be 300-500 words long and address the main question of this round table. 

The results of this round table will be published in a report and a possible special issue of Planning Practice and Research https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cppr20

Reference: Rocco, R., & Van Ballegooijen, J. (2018). The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization. (R. Rocco & J. Van Ballegooijen, Eds.). London ; New York: Routledge.

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Informal Urbanisation

Cabucu, City of Sao Paulo

Why a book on the politics of informal urbanisation?

Many countries in the Global South are relatively young democracies. The resilience and legitimacy of their political systems depends largely on their ability to politically integrate and represent millions of citizens who are currently ‘excluded’ from formal social, political and economic structures. Exclusion from those formal structures has deep-reaching consequences and is reflected on the built environment as well, as many of the so-called excluded live in informal settlements.

Democracy’s success depends not only on the ability of formal institutions to respond to the legitimate demands and rights of its citizens, but it also depends on how these citizens are able to penetrate the political realm in order to claim their rights. In this sense, informal urbanisation is not a solution for lack of housing in developing countries, but a step for the formulation of legitimate demands and to the inclusion of citizens in the realm of politics. By this token, processes of informal urbanisation must lead to an affirmation of civil rights, to the reinforcement of the rule of law, to the inclusion of citizens in formal institutions and processes and must therefore result in the formalisation of the built environment.

The main aim of this book is to investigate the mutual relationship between formal democratic institutions and processes of informal urbanization in different socio-political and cultural settings. It tries to find a middle ground between two opposing perspectives on the political meaning of urban informality. The first, the ‘emancipatory perspective’, frames urban informality as a practice that fosters autonomy, entrepreneurship and social mobility. The other perspective, more critical, sees informality predominantly as a result of political exclusion, inequality and poverty. Is urban informality indeed merely the result of a democratic deficit caused by governing autocratic elites and ineffective bureaucracies? Or do we see urban informality as a fertile breeding ground for bottom-up democracy and more political participation?

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  • Summary of the project
  • The Project
  • Expectations from editors
  • The Book
  • Index
  • Abstracts
  • Contributing authors
  • References
  • AESOP 2019 Round Table
  • Who we are
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