Proximal Cities: Does Walkability Drive Informal Settlements?

Valerio Cutini,Francesco Rossini,Antonio Maria Rinaldi,Valerio Di Pinto

doi:10.3390/su12030756

Abstract

The uncontrolled growth of urban areas worldwide is pushing a substantial part of the urban population to the fringes of society, confining them to the unsecure and unhygienic settlements that we call “informal.” These settlements lack in intelligible layout and essential services and infrastructures, thus representing a challenging issue for policy makers and urban designers in the development of renewal programs and strategies. In order to support the facing of these issues through an on-site upgrade approach, this paper argues that walkability deeply affects the functioning of informal settlements, so as to propose that they can be identified as “proximal cities,” which expresses the idea that the vital space in informal settlements has soft boundaries and follows a fuzzy logic. A quantitative analysis, based on a configurational approach, and a qualitative analysis, focused on the morphologic features of the settlements, have been implemented. A comparison of the results shows that this approach is suitable to provide a deeper knowledge on informal settlement and informal society under the assumption of their strict mutual connection. A primal definition of proximal cities, suitable for describing some properties of autopoietic urban systems, emerges from the evidence-based relationships between their spatial and social features. In this respect, a case study has been proposed and discussed.

Highlights

The notion of informal settlements is among the broadest and most ambiguous in the domain of urban studies
In order to support the facing of these issues through an on-site upgrade approach, this paper argues that walkability deeply affects the functioning of informal settlements, so as to propose that they can be identified as “proximal cities,” which expresses the idea that the vital space in informal settlements has soft boundaries and follows a fuzzy logic
This paper aims to foster the comparison between objective, non-discursive, quantitative analysis, qualitative description, and narration of the settlements from dia-chronic and sin-chronic perspectives in order to achieve a primal definition of the proximal city, stressing the notion of walkability in order to unveil the hidden structure of informal settlements

Summary

Introduction

The notion of informal settlements is among the broadest and most ambiguous in the domain of urban studies They are commonly defined as unplanned residential areas where housing neither complies with planning and building regulations nor meet any design rule, lacking basic services, infrastructures and facilities, and causing inhabitants to live in extremely precarious conditions from several perspectives, constantly exposed to disease, deprivation, and violence [1]. Such settlements have generally been growing up in the remains of urban land and increasing their exposition to natural disasters. Researchers in the field have shown that such communities use space atypically if compared to “formal” societies in order to meet their need for mutual cooperation, which has almost been lost in western countries [3]

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