Informal Housing

Bibliographic Data

ID23645309
AuthorsNgaka Ben Mosiane (corresponding author)
Year2019
Pages1-10
Publication date2019-04-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueThe Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0536
OpenAlexW4231258875
ISBN9781118568446
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited7

Although informal housing is not a solution to housing problems, it is one option through which low income people in African cities and those of the Global South in general create a sense of belonging for themselves and produce their own urbanisms. A review of the existing literature on urban informal housing in Africa shows that the themes of public housing and self‐help housing and the norms and standards for land subdivisions and building construction have constituted this research topic from the 1960s. Additional themes are land and the characteristics of land markets, environmental interactions and change, household savings and community banks, and rental housing. A key feature across these elements of the housing research tradition is that housing interventions by the state and international development institutions have reached only a limited number of intended beneficiaries. Recently, informal housing has come to take center stage in urban studies. It is part of the theory of informality, which is used not only to deepen understandings of the dominant logics of the market, but also to call attention to the ethic of collective commitment to social development. It is also used to reflect on Africa's own experimentation with city‐making.

Business · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Informal sector · Political science · Public housing · Rental housing · Renting · Sociology · State (computer science) · Subdivision · Land Rights and Reforms · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance

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