Informal settlements are typified by:
- Inhabitants lack security of tenure to the land or dwellings they inhabit, with situations ranging from squatting to informal rental housing.
- Neighbourhoods usually lack in, or are cut off from, basic services and municipal infrastructure.
- Housing is unlikely to comply with local planning and building regulations and is often situated in geographically and/or environmentally hazardous areas. [2]
What are informal settlements?
Informal settlements have been the most prevalent single form of new urban development over the past half century, housing around a quarter of the global urban population (UN-Habitat
What are the consequences of poor access to sanitation in informal settlements?
Without considering user needs and behavior, informal settlement residents will continue to suffer the consequences of poor access to sanitation. The mismatch between supply and demand perpetuates vicious cycles where facilities are either not used at all, are vandalized or are used reluctantly.
Why are there so many informal settlements in Brazil?
countries, such as Brazil, are unable to meet more than a reduced part of these needs, so that most of the employment and housing supply are found in the ‘informal’ sector, where around 67% of the urban population in developing countries are currently living and working (Habitat III Issue Papers-Informal Settlements 2015). Informal settlement...
What are the living conditions of informal settlers in slums?
The informal settlers have been enduring a vast array of substandard, overcrowded, and hazardous living conditions. The main objective of this research is to provide some design guidelines for future generation expansion of the slum with minimum interventions of the slum dweller’s way of life.
What are examples of informal settlements?
Common categories or terms associated with informal housing include: slums, shanty towns, squats, homelessness, backyard housing and pavement dwellers.
What are the impacts of informal settlement?
Informal settlements are characterized by a lack of basic services, pollution, overcrowding and poor waste management. These characteristics impact negatively on the environment posing risk and susceptibility to health problems associated with informal settlements.
What are the advantages of informal settlement?
It offers choice, it gives people what they want, it enables individual creativity and it is affordable. It is also simple to build and easy to use. So, a powerful brand — the informal settlement — is in town. And it's reshaping the city.
What are the causes of informal settlement?
According to UN-Habitat (2015:2), informal settlements are caused by a range of interrelated factors, including population growth and rural-urban migration, lack of affordable housing for the urban poor, weak governance (particularly in the areas of policy, planning, land and urban management resulting in land ...
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.
What is meant by informal settlements?
Informal settlements are residential areas that do not comply with local authority requirements for conventional (formal) townships. They are, typically, unauthorised and are invariably located upon land that has not been proclaimed for residential use.
Where are informal settlements found?
Informal settlements often sit on the periphery of urban areas, lacking access to markets and/or resources. For women, for example, this can heighten barriers they face in accessing livelihood opportunities.
What are the possible solutions for informal settlement?
Water and improved sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) are the biggest planning and design concerns of informal settlements and adjacent formal settlements as well. The prioritization of inclusive access to WaSH should be encouraged.
Why do informal settlements exist in South Africa?
Many informal settlements in South Africa are connected to the Apartheid era, when government policies systematically segregated people based on race from housing, education and job opportunities. This in turn led many non-whitecitizens to leave the cities for informal townshipsin surrounding areas.
What is another word for informal settlement?
Shanty town Sometimes called a squatter, informal or spontaneous settlement, shanty towns often lack proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity, hygienic streets, or other basic human necessities.
What is another term for informal settlements?
Informal settlements are more commonly referred to as slums.
What is the biggest informal settlement in South Africa?
SowetoThose living in informal dwellings – defined as a wood and iron structure – have decreased slightly from 16.2% in 1996 to 13.0% in 2016....These are the 20 biggest townships in the country (Stats SA, 2011)#1TownshipSoweto2011 Population1 271 628Neighbouring townJohannesburg19 more columns•Aug 14, 2016
What are the negative effects of informal sector?
While offering the advantage of employment flexibility in some economies, a large informal sector is associated with low productivity, reduced tax revenues, poor governance, excessive regulations, and poverty and income inequality.
Why informal settlements are the most likely to be affected in the cities?
A number of interrelated factors have driven the emergence of informal settlements: population growth; rural-urban migration; lack of affordable housing; weak governance (particularly in policy, planning and urban management); economic vulnerability and low-paid work; marginalisation; and displacement caused by ...
How do informal settlements affect urban areas?
Moreover, informal settlements are space where the neighborhood effects related to poor sanitation, overcrowding, poor housing, physical hazard, pollution, and poverty exposed the dwellers to everyday health risks and keep them in a “risk trap”.
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.
What is informal settlement?
Informal settlements are residential areas where ( UN-Habitat, 2015b; Brown, 2015 ): inhabitants often have no security of tenure for the land or dwellings they inhabit ‒ for example, they may squat or rent informally; neighbourhoods usually lack basic services and city infrastructure; housing may not comply with planning and building regulations, ...
How does informal settlement affect women?
For women, for example, this can heighten barriers they face in accessing livelihood opportunities. Home-based workers also face challenges to entrepreneurial activity ( Chant, 2014 ). Women in informal settlements spend more time and energy accessing basic services than other urban counterparts, limiting their ability and time to earn through paid employment ( UNFPA, 2007 ). In addition, the prevalence of male-biased land tenure policies and restrictions on women’s rights to own property decreases the likelihood of alternative housing options. Poor quality housing, or eviction and homelessness, can also increase the risk of insecurity and sexual violence ( Chant, 2013; McIlwaine, 2013 ).
What are the factors that contribute to the emergence of informal settlements?
A number of interrelated factors have driven the emergence of informal settlements: population growth; rural-urban migration; lack of affordable housing; weak governance (particularly in policy, planning and urban management); economic vulnerability and low-paid work; marginalisation; and displacement caused by conflict, natural disasters and climate change ( UN-Habitat, 2015b ).
What are neighbourhoods lacking?
neighbourhoods usually lack basic services and city infrastructure; housing may not comply with planning and building regulations, and is often situated in geographically and environmentally sensitive areas (see Topic Guide on Provision and Improvement of Housing for the Poor, Patel, 2013). A number of interrelated factors have driven ...
What is UNFPA 2014b?
UNFPA (2014b). Framework of actions for the follow-up to the programme of action of the international conference on population and development beyond 2014. New York: UNFPA.
What are informal settlements?
‘Informal settlement’ refers to a residential area that lacks basic services and infrastructure, where the housing stock may not comply with current planning and building regulations and where inhabitants may have no security of tenure [ 2 ]. Specific and strategic interventions must urgently be developed for informal settlements to upscale the sustainable access and use of basic facilities [ 3 ]. Informal settlements are a result of many factors, which include the political economy, uncoordinated planning, invasion of land by land barons, and inappropriate planning ideologies [ 4 ].They form spontaneously in the absence of planning; their rampant development can lead to the disorderly spread of cities and they are usually characterized by inefficient land use, environmental degradation, poor living conditions, unstable employment, and conflict over land use [ 5, 6, 7 ].
How are informal settlements important?
Like many other developing countries, informal settlements are playing an increasingly important role in providing living and working spaces for the burgeoning urban population of Tanzania. The property and business formalization program launched in 2004 and implemented in 2008 is now the main method to cope with informal development in Tanzania, which proved to be helpful for regulating the real estate market, reducing land conflicts, and promoting economic development of informal settlements [ 61, 62 ]. Many researchers reported that the morphological characteristics of informal settlements may have some important influence on sustainable development [ 15, 37 ], but how to respond is still open for discussion, and little has been done to specifically tackle this problem. According to our findings, the spatial forms of informal settlements in Tanzania do not conform well to the principles of sustainable development in terms of economic, societal, and environmental protection. Through the optimization of the structure and form of the elements of informal settlements, their spatial development can better align with the sustainable development goals, which may further enhance the effectiveness of property and business regularization projects.
What is the average shape of a building in Gungu?
The average shape of buildings was simple and almost rectangular. The length and width ratio of buildings in Gungu was the largest, followed by Buhongwa, then Chamazi. Standard deviation values indicated the degree of variation in building shape, with the largest values found for Gungu, followed by Buhongwa and Chamazi.
What are spatial pattern indices?
A set of spatial pattern indices (MSI, SDI, SEI, and ENN) were used to analyze the morphological characteristics of buildings: shape, size, density, and distribution patterns. The density of buildings is key to identifying informal settlements. A settlement can be characterized by both the building unit density (number of buildings per unit area) and building coverage (the ratio of the total area of buildings to the area of the corresponding administrative region).
What are the characteristics of informal settlements in Tanzania?
Tanzania’s informal settlements have their own unique characteristics in terms of tenure security, structural quality of housing, and inhabitants [ 50, 55 ]. First, anyone who erects a structure in the informal settlement has a perceived security of tenure emanating from three generations. Second, the use of modern building materials has increased tremendously since the early 1990s. Third, informal settlements in Tanzania consist of a wide range of socioeconomic groups [ 56 ].
How many people live in informal settlements in Africa?
More than half (61.7%) of urban residents live in informal settlements in Africa [ 8 ]. The urban population in Africa is forecast to increase from 400 million in 2010 to 1.2 billion by 2050, with significant increases in the number and population of informal settlements [ 9 ]. How to effectively guide informal settlements into a sustainable development process has become a focus of governments and academia. Although conflicts have arisen between what are understood as modernist ideas of how cities should formally appear and a flexible mode of informal development [ 10 ], the ambivalence of government policy toward informal settlements has gradually shifted into a more positive approach [ 11 ]. Many African governments are becoming increasingly aware of the potentially positive contributions of informal settlements, and plans have gradually shifted from the forced removal and relocation model to the securing tenure model [ 12 ]. Land use planning plays a supporting role that enables the property formalization process to be effective [ 13 ], and empowering local government with planning competency is an important method to remove the barriers to planning transformation [ 14 ]. Informal settlements have been widely studied within political, sociological, and economic frameworks, yet the specifics of form are generally seen as contextual or irrelevant, even though their physical morphology may be closely integrated with social networks, domestic economics, and employment [ 15 ]. Accurate, localized, and standardized qualitative and quantitative data on the environmental, physical–spatial, and socioeconomic development characteristics of informal settlements are limited [ 16] but are critical for dealing with their problems [ 15, 17 ].
Did vegetation in Chamazi decrease?
Vegetation coverage in each settlement was found to decline over time. Chamazi had the largest decrease in vegetation cover from 6.5 km 2 in 2005 to 2.5 km 2 in 2013, indicating that the conversion of green space (mainly woodland and cultivated land) was extensive during settlement expansion. The vegetated area in Buhongwa declined from 26% in 2004 to 19% in 2016, suggesting an increase in farmland encroachment. Vegetation coverage (mainly shrubs) in Gungu declined comparatively less than in the other two settlements, but nonetheless declined from 33% in 2000 to 25% in 2013 ( Table 3 ).
Where are informal settlements in South Africa?
This study was conducted from October 2017 to June 2018 in five informal settlements in three municipal jurisdictional areas in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, where there are high levels of unemployment, poor levels of education and income, and lack of, or poor, sanitation facilities. These settlements have high population densities and a mixed population of various racial and ethnic groups ( Table 1 ). Dwellings are located either on private or state-owned land. The municipalities have provided different sanitation technologies in each area.
What are the factors that influence sanitation practices?
Respondents concurred that their sanitation practices have been informed by a range of context-dependent factors ( Figure 2 ). Safety concerns (fear of being robbed, raped or killed) emerge in all study settlements as a prime factor for the adoption of particular sanitation practices. The lack of lighting in and outside the facility and night walking to the facility is a safety concern:
What is the sanitation problem in South Africa?
Access to safe sanitation is a growing challenge in informal settlements where over 65.0% of the residents have inadequate sanitation ( UN-Habitat 2014 ), and this has been identified as one of the biggest social issues of post-apartheid South Africa ( DWS 2016 ). Since access to sanitation (understood in this paper as the ability – and the right – to enter and to use the toilets at the time of need) is recognized as a human right in South Africa, all informal settlements are to be provided with basic infrastructure including water and sanitation facilities free of charge. Municipalities are responsible for the operation and maintenance of the facilities. Available sanitation facilities include communal flush toilets, MobiSan (a mobile communal urine diversion toilet), Kayaloo (a mobile communal full flush toilet) and porta-potties (individual portable toilet). However, most of these facilities are not fully accessible due to various operational issues (e.g. blockage and lack of water for flushing). Recognizing that sanitation is dignity, the Free Basic Sanitation (FBSan) policy that provides the right to limited water and sanitation services at no cost to low-income households ( Mosdell 2006) was introduced in 2001. The FBSan policy is a supply-driven approach with the focus on infrastructure delivery ( Tissington 2011 ), especially in rural and informal settlements. Although being acclaimed worldwide as one of the most progressive policies, the FBSan did not provide specifications regarding the nature of the services to be provided ( Mjoli et al. 2009 ). Municipalities (as service providers) were mandated to decide on the level of service and related allocations based upon their available resources and local circumstances ( DWAF 2008; Mjoli 2010 ). Municipalities focused on the supply of facilities based on either the availability of funds or the availability of the technology without considering site conditions, residents' socio-cultural preferences or sanitation practices and needs ( Lagardien & Muanda 2014 ). Through the FBSan policy, municipalities supplied sanitation facilities to various areas with the greatest need including informal settlements across South Africa. As a result, sanitation backlogs were reduced from 52% in 1994 to 21% in 2010 ( Mjoli et al. 2009; Mjoli 2010; DPME DWA & DHS 2012 ). To date, 76% of South African population living in urban and peri-urban areas has access to basic sanitation ( WHO & UNICEF 2019 ).
What are the two sections of the sanitation report?
Results are presented in two sections: (i) sanitation practices and their extent and (ii) factors informing sanitation practices and impact of residents' practices on the sanitation facilities and sustainability of the service.
What are the safety concerns of sanitation facilities?
Safety concerns (fear of being robbed, raped or even killed) emerge as the most common factor associated with the adoption of alternative and often undesirable, sanitation practices. The poor condition of the facility is being associated with users' fear of contamination. Taing (2015) and Garn et al. (2015) have found that the sustainable use of a sanitation facility is determined by its cleanliness. In our own study, the filthy conditions of many facilities deterred residents from using the facilities. As the WHO (2009) shows, unhygienic sanitation practices lead to disease. There is a vicious cycle as not using the facilities results in unhygienic practices which are being triggered by perceptions of users, in particular by the fear of contamination when accessing a filthy toilet. Safety and health concerns inform user practice most specifically in South Africa where there are high levels of poverty, unemployment and crime ( Stats SA 2019 ). While there were a large number of facilities in each of the settlements, many of these were dysfunctional and unusable. Where facilities are being used, there are particular problems that lead to the damaging of these facilities such as misuse, vandalism, lack of understanding, compliance, or disregard of use patterns or requirements.
Is sanitation a human right in South Africa?
Since access to sanitation (understood in this paper as the ability – and the right – to enter and to use the toilets at the time of need) is recognized as a human right in South Africa, all informal settlements are to be provided with basic infrastructure including water and sanitation facilities free of charge.
Do sanitation technologies match their needs?
Some sanitation technologies (e. g. urine diversion toilet) do not match their needs nor their religious obligations:
