Squatter settlements are areas where residents have no legal rights to the land. A squatter area is composed of numerous buildings that are occupied by people with no legal claim to the land. These residential areas are found in urban localities, and they provide housing to the poorest people in the world.
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These are:
- Informal settlements.
- Low-income settlements.
- Semi-permanent settlements.
- Shanty towns.
- Spontaneous settlements.
- Unauthorized settlements.
- Unplanned settlements.
- Uncontrolled settlements.
What city are squatter settlement most common?
Nouakchott, Mauritania, the fastest growing city in the world, consists almost entirely of squatter settlements and shanty towns. It has been called "the world's largest refugee camp." About 80% of the people in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and about 70% of those in Luanda, Angola, live in these squalid refugee camps.
Where in the world are squatter settlement most common?
Squatter settlements, widespread in urban Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, are a characteristic feature of contemporary urbanization.
What is the difference in a squatter and adverse possession?
Adverse possession is sometimes called squatter’s rights, although squatter’s rights are a colloquial reference to the idea rather than a recorded law. Adverse possession is the legal process whereby a non-owner occupant of a piece of land is able to gain title and ownership of that land after a certain period of time.
Do squatters have legal rights?
Squatters rights refer to laws that allow a squatter to use or inhabit another person’s property in the event that the lawful owner does not evict or take action against the squatter. Typically, squatters rights laws only apply if an individual has been illegitimately occupying a space for a specific period of time.
What is the squatter settlement?
The term squatter settlement is often used as a general term to encompass low-quality housing, occupied by the poor, usually on the periphery of cities in the Global South.
Where are squatter settlements?
Squatter settlements, widespread in urban Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, are a characteristic feature of contemporary urbanization.
Why people live in squatter settlement?
They provide housing for many of the world's poorest people and offer basic shelter. They are often constructed with poor materials initially, including plastic sheeting, corrugated metal, wood and cardboard. These are all materials that are available either freely as waste or cheaply.
What are the main characteristics of a squatter settlement?
Characteristics of squatter settlementshouses built from dried mud as the walls and corrugated iron for the roof.no toilets.no electricity between phone lines.no running water, sewage or electricity in homes.no paved roads or sewers.little space between houses.no infrastructure.extremely high density's.More items...•
What is a real life example of a squatter settlement?
In Bangkok, Thailand, thousands of people live in shacks built over a fetid tidal swamp. In Lima, Peru; Khartoum, Sudan; and Nouakchott, shanty towns have spread onto sandy deserts.
What are the causes and effects of squatter settlements?
Rapid urbanization, poverty and lack of access to land and ownership, in addition to limited or no social housing, have led citizens to build their homes illegally under very poor environmental and social conditions.
What are the effects of squatter settlements?
In terms of environmental challenges in the squatter settlements and slums, air and water pollution, lack of personal hygiene and poor environmental sanitation, and health, noise, and cultural pollution are among the most visible ones. Sprawling, litter, and polluted waterways are most prevalent in most urban slums.
How can squatter settlements improve life?
Improving squatter settlementsSite and service schemes. People pay a small amount of rent for a site and they can borrow money to buy building material. Rent money used to provide basic services.Self-help schemes. Government and local people working together to improve life. ... Local authority schemes.
Are squatter settlements illegal?
In the United States, squatting is illegal and squatters can be evicted for trespassing.
What are the 3 biggest problems of informal settlements?
Informal settlements are characterized by a lack of basic services, pollution, overcrowding and poor waste management.
Where are squatter settlements located in Latin America?
Squatter settlements, called barriadas in Peru, ranchosin Venezuela, callampas in Chile, villas miseriasin Argentina, and by a host of other names in other countries, are an important and permanent part of the urban social system, containing between 10 per cent and 50 per cent of the population of most cities.
What are squatter settlements AP Human Geography?
Squatter. Settlement. An area within a city in a less developed country in which people illegally establish residences on land they do not own or rent and erect homemade structures.
Where are squatter settlements located in Southeast Asia?
Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur integrated all or most squatters into the formal housing of their cities.
Why are there squatters in the Philippines?
History. Squatters build makeshift houses called "barong-barong" on unused land. The occupations increased after World War II as people moved from rural to urban areas. In Davao City, there was a scramble for land previously owned by Japanese people and these occupations were legalized in the 1950s by the government.
Why are squatters important?
Squatter settlements or informal settlements have been a very important part of many cities in the Global South. Shifting government and international agency attitudes toward them since the 1960s have reflected a growing recognition of the capacity of the urban poor to adapt and sometimes to thrive in very difficult circumstances. As the world’s urban population grows , there will be increasing pressure on both land and housing. The shift toward market mechanisms for both land and housing delivery has been beneficial in some cases, but without forms of support and protection, millions of poor households will be excluded and left to fend for themselves in the diminishing number of available spaces in the world’s cities.
What are informal settlements?
Informal settlements, as prevalent neighbourhood types in rapidly transforming cities, possess high-density and heterogeneous morphological patterns. They provide affordable housing and employment opportunities for low-income populations while also supporting cities' operation and development.
What percentage of the population lives in informal settlements in Ahmedabad?
In Ahmedabad, about 40% of the population resides in informal settlements. A substantial number of the urban poor reside in these locations. The two dominant types of informal settlements are slums that have developed out of the illegal occupation of the marginal areas of the city by migrants and squatters, and chawls, which are residential units originally built for workers in the mills and factories. Most slum dwellers tend to settle along the waterways in the city, like Sabarmati River, on vacant land or in low-lying areas ( Bhatt, 2003 ).
What is Figure 19.6?
Figure 19.6. Informal Settlement and available service facilities for forced migrants. (a) Informal settlements in urban agricultural land and along the highways in Khulna. (b) Informal settlements in urban fringe and low-lying areas in Khulna. (c) Sanitation facilities for urban poor and the migrant residents in fringe and urban areas.
What is the clash of rationalities in dealing with informal settlements in the global South?
Our study illustrates a clash of rationalities in dealing with informal settlements in the global South: the neoliberal visioning of a modern, globally competitive, and orderly city, and the right of city authorities and the private sector to “upgrade” the city and the rights of ordinary citizens for access to services, housing, space, and a decent life. Both positions offer promises of a better future but cannot guarantee that experience will be improved for all, particularly the poor. Neither approach provides much clarity about the social and spatial outcomes and the effects of (re)making place on broader political, economic, and social processes of the city.
What are the tenure problems in informal unplanned settlements and shacks?
More important, the tenure problems in informal unplanned settlements and shacks play a direct role in purchasing electrical appliances or other expensive investments in efficiency. Migrant workers continue to play a large role in many countries' urban communities.
What are the challenges of WSUD?
The (re)development and upgrading of informal settlement areas in a water-sensitive manner pose several challenges, such as limited budgets, increasing population, and a National Housing Policy advocating for only basic water supply and sanitation services for these areas. WSUD should no longer be the domain of the upper socioeconomic class as it is equally important to the poor communities in need of quantity and quality water. WSUD not only entails far more than retrofit of urban systems to be more water sensitive but also includes a social dimension to environmentally educate communities. As such, informal settlement development should attempt to “leapfrog” the stages through which the formal settlement areas have developed, thereby avoiding the need to retrofit these areas at some time in the future. Using water-sensitive technologies should also result in a range of secondary benefits for these communities, helping to address some of the misperceptions of authorities regarding the social advantages of WSUD. WSUD approaches should form part of national priorities, recognizing that advocating WSUD principles in policies will be confronted by challenges of density, scale of demand, and political sensitivities concerning the perceived quality of the engineering options it represents. The focus of providing WSUD in South Africa should be framed as a social component and justified in terms of equity and provision of services to all people ( Fisher-Jeffes et al., 2012 ).
What is a squatter settlement?
Definition of a Squatter Settlement: A squatter settlement therefore, can be defined as a residential area which has developed without legal claims to the land and/or permission from the concerned authorities to build; as a result of their illegal or semi-legal status, infrastructure and services are usually inadequate .
What are the characteristics of a squatter settlement?
Legal Characteristics: The key characteristic that delineates a squatter settlement is its lack of ownership of the land parcel on which they have built their house. These could be vacant government or public land, or marginal land parcels like railway setbacks or "undesirable" marshy land.
Why are squatters in cities?
There is no universal "quick-fix" solution that can solve all the problems of squatting in all parts of the developing world. Considering the inevitability of squatting, the need is primarily for a change in attitude towards squatting, squatters and squatter settlements. One such approach that has been receiving considerable attention from various government and public authorities has been the "enabling" approach, where instead of taking a confrontationist attitude, governments have strived to create an enabling environment, under which people, using and generating their own resources, could find unique local solutions for their housing and shelter problems.
What is settlement upgradation?
Settlement upgradation has been an option where a compromise has been reached by the land owner and on a sharing basis, the squatter has been allowed to continue on the land parcel, but with a significant upgradation of the settlement's infrastructure and services , including, in some cases, land leases or ownerships.
What is the purpose of squatting?
Abrams (1964) illustrates the process of squatting as a "conquest" of city areas for the purpose of shelter , defined both by the law of force and the force of law. Turner (1969) takes a positive outlook and portrays squatter settlements as highly successful solutions to housing problems in urban areas of developing countries. Payne (1977) similarly puts the development of squatter settlements in the overall perspective of urban growth in the third world and its inevitability. A vast number of case studies at the Habitat Conference at Vancouver in 1976 highlighted the conditions in squatter settlements, calling for a concerted and committed approach towards solving the problems.
What is a core group squatter?
The core group squatters are a small number of families who, almost overnight, occupy a piece of land and build a rudimentary and temporary shelter. Later, depending on the degree of threat of eviction, this may be upgraded to a permanent and more families may join this group.
Why do people squat?
The key question to be asked here is why do people squat? There are two reasons for this: one is internal to the squatter, and the other is external. Internal reasons include, lack of collateral assets; lack of savings and other financial assets; daily wage/low-income jobs ( which in many cases are semi-permanent or temporary). External reasons include, high cost of land and other housing services; apathy and anti-pathy on the part of the government to assist them; high "acceptable" building standards and rules and regulations; loopsided planning and zoning legislation.
How are squatter settlements formed?
1 Economics. Squatter settlements are most often formed by rises in the numbers of homeless people. The homeless people then seek shelter off the street in abandoned buildings. Some of the buildings may still have power and water, which causes the homeless to flock to the "free" resources.
Why do squatters congregate in settlements?
Additionally, squatters congregate in settlements to protect each other from those who prey on the homeless. Criminals will target homeless because they only carry cash and are reluctant to contact the police. Additionally, many homeless are also weak from poor diets and disease, so they are easier targets for criminals.
What is a squatter?
Squatters are homeless people who illegally occupy buildings to use as permanent shelter. Squatter settlements are formed when large numbers of squatters occupy a building or group of buildings. These settlements occur around the world for a variety of reasons.
Why do artists squat in abandoned factories?
Some artists will squat in abandoned factories for the working room the buildings provide . Some real estate developers will actually encourage the formation of these artist squatters to gentrify an area and attract young urban professionals. When the real estate then becomes more valuable, the artists are forcibly evicted and trendy lofts are installed. Most artist colonies are in Europe where they are semi-tolerated in some municipalities. East Berlin became noted for its artist colonies after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Where do anarchist squatters live?
It is notable that anarchistic squatter settlements only occur in Europe, where anarchism is taken semi-seriously as a political ideology.
Why do untouchables squat?
The untouchables will squat in abandoned buildings for shelter and to protect themselves from attacks. Often the squatter settlements are located near trash dumps, where the untouchables can make money by sifting through the trash for recyclables.
What is a squatter settlement?
Squatter settlements are any collection of buildings where the people have no legal rights to the land they are built upon. The people are living there illegally and do not own the land. They provide housing for many of the world’s poorest people and offer basic shelter.
What are the problems of living in a squatter settlement?
Population density is very high in squatter settlements in Lagos. This is because of the lack of available land to build on. The area known to outsiders as Makoko is actually six distinct “villages” spread across land and water: Oko Agbon, Adogbo, Migbewhe, Yanshiwhe, Sogunro and Apollo. The first four are the floating communities, known as “Makoko on water”; the rest are based on land. In these floating communities, homes are built on stilts on the edge of the Lagos Lagoon. It is estimated that a quarter of a million people live in Makoko.
How many squatter settlements are there in Lagos?
There are 13 squatter settlements in Lagos, These are: The map below shows the location of a number of squatter settlements in Lagos. Squatter settlements are found all over Lagos. They are typically found in areas where more wealthy people do not want to live. This includes marshland and land close to industry.
When did Makoko Floating School open?
Makoko Floating School. Photograph: Andrew Esiebo for the Guardian. Doctors Without Borders opened a floating clinic in January 2011; although very popular when it launched, it stayed open less than a year. Today Makoko continues to be served by a network of informal, unregistered clinics that attend to basic ailments.
Why did the authorities demolish Badia?
However, the authorities want to demolish it to help improve the image of the city. Though residents have nowhere else to live. In recent years the authorities have demolished areas of squatter settlements, like the one in 2012. Badia, a swampland settlement on the edge of the city’s Apapa Port, was one of the worst-hit targets. More than 15,000 people have lost their homes.
Where are floating communities built?
In these floating communities, homes are built on stilts on the edge of the Lagos Lagoon. It is estimated that a quarter of a million people live in Makoko. The homes are built from materials such as wood and metal sheets. They do not have basic facilities or sanitation.
Where are squatters located?
Squatter settlements are not only found in Lagos. They are located in all cities in low-income countries and newly emerging countries all around the world . They can also be called informal settlements, shantytowns, favelas, barrios or slums.
Where did squatters live?
Following the Great Depression, squatters lived in shacks on landfill sites beside the Martin Pena canal in Puerto Rico and were still there in 2010. More recently, cities such as Newark and Oakland have witnessed the creation of tent cities. The Umoja Village shanty town was squatted in 2006 in Miami, Florida.
How many informal settlements are there in Thailand?
Thailand has 5,500 informal settlements, one of the largest being a shanty town in the Khlong Toei District of Bangkok. In China, 171 urban villages were demolished before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. As of 2005, there were 346 shanty towns in Beijing, housing 1.5 million people.
What are shanty towns called?
In Argentina, shanty towns are known as villas miseria. As of 2011, there were 500,000 people living in 864 informal settlements in the metropolitan Buenos Aires area. In Peru they are known as pueblos jóvenes ("young towns"), as campamentos in Chile and as asentamientos in Guatemala.
What is a shanty town?
A shanty town or squatter area is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood. A typical shanty town is squatted and in the beginning lacks adequate infrastructure, including proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity and street drainage.
Where are shanty towns found?
Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, but also in the cities of developed nations, such as Athens, Los Angeles, and Madrid. Cañada Real is considered the largest informal settlement in Europe, and Skid Row is an infamous shanty town in Los Angeles. Shanty towns are usually found on places such as railway sidings, ...
Who started the Orangi?
It was begun by Akhtar Hameed Khan and run by Parveen Rehman until her murder in 2013. Residents laid sewage pipes themselves and almost all of Orangi's 8,000 streets are now connected. In India, an estimated one million people live in Dharavi, a shanty town built on a former mangrove swamp in Mumbai.
Is a shanty town a small settlement?
Development. Shanty towns may be large or small settlements. Above a shanty town in Hong Kong. While most shanty towns begin as precarious establishments haphazardly thrown together without basic social and civil services, over time, some have undergone a certain amount of development.
Squatter Settlements in Developed Countries
- Even though squatter settlements are not common in developed states, there are numerous European cities with shanty towns. The high number of immigrants has resulted in the growth of shanty towns in the cities situated on the entry points of the EU like Patras and Athens. Canada …
Squatter Settlements in Developing Nations
- The largest Asian slum is Orangi in Pakistan. Orangi became quite famous during the 1980s when the locals initiated the Orangi-Pilot Project after being frustrated by lack of development from the government. Slums are known as ‘’bidonvilles’’ in francophone nations like Haiti and Tunisia. Some of the biggest slums in the world are located in Kenya (Mathare and Kibera), South Africa, Brazil…
Disadvantages of Squatter Settlement
- Fire is one of the main dangers in these settlements not only because of no fire station, but the lack of a formal street grid makes it hard for the fire trucks to access the squatter settlements. They are fire hazards primarily due to the flammable materials used to build some of these homes and the high density of buildings. These settlements have high rates of diseases, drug use, suici…
Characteristics of A Squatter Settlement
- Due to its illegal status, squatter settlements lack an adequate supply of various infrastructures. These settlements have poor drainage and roads, sanitation, water supply, market places, and health centers among others. Even though these resources are in some settlements, they are poorly maintained, disorganized, and unreliable. They also lack va...
Squatter Settlements in Developed Countries
- Even though squatter settlements are not common in developed states, there are numerous European cities with shanty towns. The high number of immigrants has resulted in the growth of shanty towns in the cities situated on the entry points of the EU like Patras and Athens. Canada Real, a low-class settlement in Madrid, is considered to be the largest slum in Europe. Squatter s…
Squatter Settlements in Developing Nations
- The largest Asian slum is Orangi in Pakistan. Orangi became quite famous during the 1980s when the locals initiated the Orangi-Pilot Project after being frustrated by lack of development from the government. Slums are known as ‘’bidonvilles’’ in francophone nations like Haiti and Tunisia. Some of the biggest slums in the world are located in Kenya (Mathare and Kibera), South Africa, Brazil…
Disadvantages of Squatter Settlement
- Fire is one of the main dangers in these settlements not only because of no fire station, but the lack of a formal street grid makes it hard for the fire trucks to access the squatter settlements. They are fire hazards primarily due to the flammable materials used to build some of these homes and the high density of buildings. These settlements have high rates of diseases, drug use, suici…