Growth and resilience of informal settlements: toward informal contractual frameworks as alternatives for enhancing low-income housing

Abstract

ABSTRACTFormal housing provision is a pressing concern evident in the burgeoning informal settlements scenario that characterize most global south cities. Several studies establish the observed resilience of the informal housing sector to be reinforced by administrative, technical, fiscal, and contractual contexts which shape the governance of housing. This research examined the resilience from the perspective of contractual context of informal housing system as alternative frameworks for enhancing low-income housing. The methods used were literature reviews and interviews with respondents from two informal settlements in Lusaka, Zambia. The study demonstrates contractual practices which shape the general context of housing governance to be reinforcing factors of the informal housing resilience. It indicates mortgage, land, labor arrangements, and rental housing access policies present serious impediments. But the informal housing sector, where social support networks and local credit practices are dominant features of contractual arrangements, provides affordable, simple, flexible, accessible, and convenient means for acquiring land, contracting labor, finances, and leases. Accordingly, the study shows enhancement of housing that adequately cater for different needs, uses, and income abilities that require adaptation, and institutionalizing of social-cultural contractual arrangements that do not involve tightly prescribed contracts, which impact on affordability for majority builders and renters.