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 typically located?
Squatter settlements are found in various locations, but are usually built on the edges of cities in the world's poorest countries or LEDC. They are also built on marginal land, which is land which has less value and is not occupied by legal land uses and buildings.
Which countries have squatter settlements?
In developing countries and least developed countries, shanty towns often begin as squatted settlements. In African cities such as Lagos much of the population lives in slums. There are pavement dwellers in India and in Hong Kong as well as rooftop slums....2.1 Liberia.2.2 South Africa.2.3 Sudan.2.4 Zimbabwe.
What is an example of squatter settlement?
Therefore, a residential area occupied by squatters becomes a squatter settlement. But the narrow generalization, especially of settlement type is evident: everything from a brick-and-concrete multistoried house to a "occupied" cardboard carton become "squatter settlements".
Why are squatter settlements made?
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.
What are the 5 largest slums in the world?
5 Largest Slums in the WorldKhayeltisha, Cape Town, South Africa. Khayeltisha's population is projected to be around 400,000, with a striking 40 percent of its residents under 19 years old. ... Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. ... Dharavi, Mumbai, India. ... Orangi Town, Karachi, Pakistan. ... Neza-Chalco-Itza, Mexico City, Mexico.
Is squatting legal in the US?
In the United States, squatting is illegal and squatters can be evicted for trespassing. Real estate managers recommend that vacant properties be protected by erecting "no trespassing" signs, regular checks, tenant screening, and quickly finding new tenants.
Where are most informal settlements?
Informal settlements often sit on the periphery of urban areas, lacking access to markets and/or resources.
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.
Why are squatter settlements more prevalent in developing countries?
The growth of informal settlements is spontaneous response to the rapid urbanization. An unprecedented rate of urbanization and increasing poverty has resulted in uncontrolled proliferation of squatter settlements and slums.
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.
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.
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 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 are squatter settlements?
Squatter settlements, widespread in urban Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, are a characteristic feature of contemporary urbanization. Also known as shantytowns, slums, favelas in Brazil, and bustees in South Asia, they involve the extralegal occupation and settlement of public or private land, often by migrants from rural areas. Unplanned and typically located on peripheral or marginal land, squatter settlements have poor infrastructure and inadequate public services, including water, health, and sanitation. Houses tend to be auto-constructed and built incrementally. Residents of squatter settlements generally lack legally recognized rights to the land they occupy, and may lead precarious lives. The majority work in the informal economy, in insecure, low-wage jobs or are self-employed. State policies in many countries, seeking to curb a migrant influx to big cities, criminalize land encroachment but fail to address the housing needs of the urban poor. Squatter settlements may be demolished in slum clearance programs. Nonetheless, many such settlements endure and grow, over time acquiring public services and rights. Well-known slums like Mumbai’s Dharavi, Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, and Nairobi’s Kibera are populous, established, and diverse cities within cities. They are both celebrated and deplored in popular and academic accounts, as symbols of human resilience and entrepreneurship, or products of uneven development and global and national inequities. Early literature on squatter settlements located their growth in the distorted urbanization of what was known as the Third World, divorced from industrial modernization. Squatters were considered economically marginal, akin to peasants rather than “modern” urban citizens. Ethnographic and empirical research complicated these perspectives, providing insight into the lived experience and social, economic, and political organization of squatter settlements. Slums began to be viewed as solutions to challenges of housing, livelihoods, and economic growth. “Self-build” housing was celebrated, as was small-scale entrepreneurship. In-situ improvement and tenure legalization became preferred policy approaches. Later, critical urban theorists rejected notions of “underdevelopment” and development and argued that informal processes such as squatting were integral to urbanization in the Global South. As the world urbanizes, with population growth concentrated in developing world cities, slums have reemerged as sites for social-scientific inquiry. Debates about their relationship to growth and development, their viability as communities and living environments, and about policy approaches and outcomes continue to animate the literature. These debates reflect the fact that squatter settlements across the world, and even within cities, are heterogeneous and dynamic, within varied histories and trajectories.
What is squatters considered?
Squatters were considered economically marginal, akin to peasants rather than “modern” urban citizens. Ethnographic and empirical research complicated these perspectives, providing insight into the lived experience and social, economic, and political organization of squatter settlements.
What did Mangin argue about the Latin American squatter settlements?
Mangin 1967 challenges these perspectives arguing that Latin American squatter settlements were unique sociopolitical formations that contribute to urbanization and development. Gilbert and Crankshaw 1999 suggests that Latin American urbanization offers lessons for South Africa.
What is the Third World Urbanization?
Wide-ranging account of Third World urbanization in the context of a “world” system of uneven capitalist development, with a wealthy First World core and “dependent” peripheries. Squatter settlements emerge in this context, in countries where industrial growth is retarded, and jobs limited. Chapters discuss regional disparities, rural-urban migration, labor markets and informal employment, squatting as a popular housing strategy, planning, and policy solutions.
What were informal workers and squatters?
Unlike the industrial working class in Western cities, squatters and informal workers were assumed to be economically and politically marginal. Their settlements, unsanctioned, self-developed, and makeshift, were distinct from industrial-era slums and poor urban neighborhoods in Western cities.
What are the problems of squatters?
Unplanned and typically located on peripheral or marginal land, squatter settlements have poor infrastructure and inadequate public services, including water, health, and sanitation. Houses tend to be auto-constructed and built incrementally.
Who said squatters are builders and planners of cities?
Hardoy and Satterthwaite 1989 argues that squatters are builders and planners of cities. The pivotal book de Soto 2000 proposes that squatters and small entrepreneurs hold the key to economic development, if given legal property rights that will enable them to “capitalize” land and housing and grow their enterprises.
What are some examples of unauthorized settlements?
These popular but unauthorized settlements usually lack sewers, clean water supplies, electricity, and roads. Often the land on which they are built was not previously used because it is unsafe or unsuitable for habitation. In Bhopal, India , and Mexico City, for example, squatter settlements were built next to deadly industrial sites. In such cities as Rio de Janiero, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia; Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Caracas, Venezuela, they are perched on landslide-prone hills. 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. In Manila in the Phillipines, 20,000 people live in huts built on towering mounds of garbage amidst burning industrial waste in city dumps.
How many people live in slums?
The United Nations estimates that at least one billion people — 20% of the world's population — live in crowded, unsanitary slums of the central cities and in the vast shanty towns and squatter settlements that ring the outskirts of most Third World cities. Around 100 million people have no home at all. In Bombay, India, for example, it is thought that half a million people sleep on the streets, sidewalks, and traffic circles because they can find no other place to live. In S ã o Paulo, Brazil, at least three million "street kids" who have run away from home or have been abandoned by their parents live however and wherever they can. This is surely a symptom of a tragic failure of social systems.
What are shanty towns called?
Called barriads, barrios, favelas , or turgios in Latin America, bidonvillas in Africa, or bustees in India, shanty towns surround every megacity of the developing world. They are not an exclusive feature of poor countries, however. Some 200,000 immigrants live in the colonias along the southern Rio Grande in Texas. Only 2% have access to adequate sanitation . Most live in conditions as poor as those of any city of a developing nation. Smaller enclaves of the poor and dispossessed can be found in most American cities.
Where do most people live in refugee camps?
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. Two-thirds of the population of Calcutta live in shanty towns or squatter settlements and nearly half of the 19.4 million people in Mexico City, Mexico , live in uncontrolled, unauthorized shanty towns and squatter settlements. Many governments try to clean out illegal settlements by bulldozing the huts and sending riot police to drive out the settlers, but the people either move back or relocate to another shanty town elsewhere.
What are the informal markets in shanty towns?
A striking aspect of most shanty towns is the number of people selling goods and services of all types on the streets or from small stands in informal markets. Food vendors push carts through crowded streets; children dart between cars selling papers or cigarettes; curb-side mechanics make repairs using primitive tools and ingenuity. Nearly everything city residents need is available on the streets. These individual entrepreneurs are part of the informal economy: small-scale family businesses in temporary locations outside the control of normal regulatory agencies. In many developing countries, this informal sector accounts for 60 – 80% of the economy.
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.
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?
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.
Where are artists' colonies located?
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 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, ...
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.
Do shanty towns exist in Europe?
There are also colonias near the border with Mexico. Although shanty towns are now generally less common in developed countries in Europe, they still exist. The growing influx of migrants has fuelled shantytowns in cities commonly used as a point of entry into the European Union, including Athens and Patras in Greece.
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…