Squatter settlement case studies
- · 16 million people and very densely populated
- · Shortage of funds
- · Very narrow streets
- · Traffic congestion at peak times
- · Limited refuse collection
- · Inadequate housing stock – people living on tops of flats
- · Crumbling sewers dating from 1910
- · Air pollution
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.
Where are squatter settlements?
Squatter settlements, widespread in urban Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, are a characteristic feature of contemporary urbanization.
What are squatter settlements called?
A shanty town, squatter area or hooverville (in the US) is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood.
Why are squatter settlements created?
Squatter housing arises out of a variety of circumstances, including an inadequate supply of old depleted formal housing near the central business district. Squatter housing is attractive to migrants and others in low-income and insecure employment.
Are squatter settlements slums?
While the two terms tend to be used interchangeably, simply put, the definition of slums focus on their environmental and quality of life (QoL) aspects , while that of squatter settlements focus on the legality of the land ownership and other infrastructure provisions.
Are squatter settlements illegal?
In the United States, squatting is illegal and squatters can be evicted for trespassing.
What are three 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 are the problems of living in a squatter settlement?
overcrowded and noisy. houses are made from cardboard, wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and metal from oil drums. lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and open sewers. pollution and disease are common.
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.
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 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 squatter settlements in sociology?
A squatter settlement is a place where the residents don't have legal rights over 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.
What can you say about squatter area?
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 is slum settlement?
The word “slum” is often used to describe informal settlements within cities that have inadequate housing and squalid, miserable living conditions. They are often overcrowded, with many people crammed into very small living spaces.
What is an informal urban settlement?
Informal settlements are: 1. areas where groups of housing units have been constructed on land that the occupants have no legal claim to, or occupy illegally; 2. unplanned settlements and areas where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations (unauthorized housing).
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 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 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 three types of housing conditions?
The three types of housing conditions are used as proxies to classify the urban poor into the least poor (occupying pucca housing), middle poor (occupying semipucca housing), and poorest (occupying kutchha housing).
What are some examples of squatting in Kenya?
For Example, in the water towers of Kenya which are the Cherangani Forests, Mount Kenya’s Forests, Mau Forests and Mount Elgon Forests, there have been a lot of intrusion into them leading the government to move them out by force. This was so evident in the 2011/2012 cases of Mau eviction which still leaves an issue of resettlement in the hands of the government.
What does squatting mean in Kenya?
In Kenya many cases of squatting result from the previous land not being put in place or developed. This is attributed to the existence of an opportunity in the on start of the construction and continuous absence of that person from the land for a long time.
Characteristics of A Squatter Settlement
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…
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 various essential services that a…
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 larges...
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…
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…