why do squatter settlements develop

What Are the Causes of Squatter Settlements?

1. Economics. Squatter settlements are most often formed by rises in the numbers of homeless people. ...
2. Politics. Anarchists believe that no government is legitimate, nor is any associated national market. ...
3. Artist Colonies. Some artists will squat in abandoned factories for the working room the buildings provide. ...
4. Religion. ...

Full Answer

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.

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 the characteristics of a squatter settlement?

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, ...

Where are squatter settlements located?

Canada Real, a low-class settlement in Madrid, is considered to be the largest slum in Europe. Squatter settlements, commonly known as ‘’bairros de lata’’ in Portugal, are occupied by immigrants from their previous colonies. Various American cities like Oakland and Newark have witnessed the construction of tent cities in the past. Other towns like Colonias near the Mexican border resemble shanty towns.

What are the materials used in squatter houses?

These houses are initially built using poor materials, which are cheap or free, like cardboard, wood, corrugated metal, and plastic sheeting . Squatter settlements are quite common in developing countries with one of the biggest slums in the world found in Pakistan.

What are the disadvantages of squatter settlements?

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.

What is a squatter camp?

A squatter camp in South Africa. 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.

Where are squatters built?

Squatter settlements are built on the periphery of numerous cities in some of the world’s poorest nations, near trash damping sites, lagoons, rivers, and railway road tracks. They can also be constructed on marginal unoccupied pieces of land like marshy or swampy land and steep hillsides.

Where are the slums?

Some of the biggest slums in the world are located in Kenya (Mathare and Kibera), South Africa, Brazil, Philippines, Venezuela, Peru, India, and Jamaica among others.

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 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.

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 did Roberts 1978 and Gilbert and Gugler 1982 explain?

Roberts 1978 and Gilbert and Gugler 1982 explain squatter settlements as an outgrowth of “dependent” patterns of development in peripheral regions. Unequally incorporated into the world capitalist system, their cities were extractive rather than industrial centers.

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 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 causes of squatter settlements?

If not evacuated, squatters use these properties as their permanent shelter. Technically, squatters are trespassers and trespassing is a civil matter and not criminal. Hence, squatting is a breach of civil law but not illegal. Squatting is relatively a modern problem due to various factors that contribute to lack of housing facilities, such as apathy of the ruling government, population boom, lack of land, lack of jobs and others. So what prompts people to occupy a property that is not their own? Following are the causes of squatter settlements: • The chief reason for squatter settlements occurs due to economic reasons . The homeless are naturally inclined to search for shelter and they do so in abandoned properties, even if the property is in a dire state, unsuitable for occupation. • People squat in properties to evade criminal acts performed on homeless people such as theft. Thieves target homeless people on the streets as their only possession is money and if victimized, they are less likely to contact the police as the authorities won’t heed their problems. • At times, squatters are people who have relocated from rural areas to the urban areas in search for better economic opportunities. • High cost of living and lack of proper housing force them to squat. They either relocate to the peripheries of the cities where quality of

What are the factors that lead to squatters?

Feb. 26, 2020. Factors like ambivalence of the ruling government, population explosion, dearth of housing and land has lead to squatter settlements. The reasons for these settlements are manifold.

Characteristics of A Squatter Settlement

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Squatter Settlements in Developed Countries

Squatter Settlements in Developing Nations

Disadvantages of Squatter Settlement