Environment & Urbanization

World leading environmental and urban studies journal

Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work

Author(s): 
Eugenie L Birch, Shahana Chattaraj, Susan M Wachter

Publisher: 
University of Pennsylvania Press

Pages: 
241

Year: 
2016

Considering that over a sixth of the world’s population lives in slums or informal settlements, and that so much urban development is characterized by informality, this book is of primary importance to policymaking and development planning. In Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work, conventional views are challenged; chapters explore the “emergence, functioning and evolution of informal real estate markets in the Global South” and conclude that the common formal–informal distinction is a false dichotomy (pages vii to viii).

Comprised of 11 chapters written by 15 contributors, this book is ordered into three sections and draws significantly upon experiences of India and Brazil. Section One, “Comparative Perspectives”, begins by using comparative analyses in different cities and countries to examine informal real estate markets. It also considers how legal and policy variables shape informal spaces. In Chapter 1, the different development outcomes of the urbanization process in India and China are analysed in relation to their effects on public service provision and forms of informality (page 4).  The second chapter takes a much broader analysis, drawing upon data from 600 cities in over 150 countries, predominantly in Asia and Latin America. These data, from two World Bank international databases, are used to query the bureaucracy of land-use regulation by finding correlates between measures of regulatory constraints and informality. Based on a natural experiment in Buenos Aires, Brazil, Chapter 3 highlights the effects of land titling on poor households (page 48).

Section Two, “Anthropological Perspectives”, contains case studies of informal communities from Brazil and India. These are used to “challenge the broad brushstrokes that are used to portray real estate transactions in informal communities” and to reveal that these transactions have purposeful processes that are, although extralegal, rational and orderly (page 57). In Chapter 4, drawing upon longitudinal research in Rio’s favelas, the comparisons between real estate transactions in the informal sector versus the formal sector are explored. Moving to São Paolo, Chapter 5 examines the impacts of regularization programmes for informal settlements on public land. In Chapter 6, ethnographic research in Dharavi provides insight into the arrangements that operate in the absence of secure property rights within informal housing markets, both within and beyond the slums of Mumbai. Chapter 7 considers the new dynamics of land-based changes taking place in periurban areas, which affect informal land and labour relations. Here the case of a periurban district outside Bangalore is studied (page 108). 

Section Three, “Public Policy Perspectives” looks at public policy and governance. It addresses “how can public and private decision makers design policy and programs so that informal real estate markets evolve to meet current and future urbanisation demands with access to necessary public goods for welfare and continued economic development” (page 123). Chapter 8 describes Mumbai’s slum redevelopment and on-site rehousing strategy to formalize slums, and ends by assessing its future and presenting policy recommendations. Looking at the experience of Latin America, Chapter 9 studies processes of tenure regularization and, among other conclusions, emphasizes that programmes that include upgrading are more effective than those that only provide titling (page 154). Chapter 10 draws upon the experience of Brazil and Colombia to promote the Informal Armatures Approach as an alternative strategy for sustainable urban development. Aiming to synthesize critical issues identified by the book’s previous chapters, Chapter 11 closes by presenting some key lessons on informal real estate markets and policy interventions, and proposes three research questions “to better intervene in informal real estate markets” (page 178).

 

Book note prepared by Hannah Keren Lee

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