Large Informal Settlement Research Articles

Investigating climate change adaptation strategies among informal residents in Kumasi, Ghana, through the lenses of the social action and control theories

The urban poor in informal settlements in Ghana remain exposed and vulnerable to climate--induced hazards. Their exclusion from official adaptation interventions, undeniably calls for social mechanisms to enable them to adapt to climate change hazards such as heatwaves and floods. Individuals may contribute to exacerbating climate-induced hazards or employ adaptation measures as a common practice or due to their connectedness to a group, as hypothesised by the social action and social control theories, respectively. There is, however, no known study on the empirical and theoretical contributions of these theories to influencing climate change adaptation efforts in urban Africa. At best, studies have looked at the importance of individual and community skills, and assets to adapting to climate change hazards. Underpinned by the social action and social control theories, 367 household interviews, four focus group discussions and seven relevant agency interviews in two of Kumasi’s largest informal settlements – Aboabo and Asawase - were conducted to explore how elements of the theories shape hazard reduction and adaptation efforts, and discuss the barriers to building adaptation to climate impacts. We found that most households employed several adaptation measures because they saw other residents do the same which was confirmed by the Chi-square test statistic (χ2=4.968, p<0.000) and as hypothesised by the social action theory. Similarly, as hypothesised by the social control theory, we also found differences in the adaptation measures employed by households belonging to identified environment-related groups (χ2=21.465, p<0.001). This was, largely, because among other activities, the education and training exercises undertaken by the groups influenced the knowledge levels of members about climate change hazards and adaptation measures. The groups offer emotional, monetary, material, and practical support to cope within the short-term; first to the members, and the general residents, who are hit by disasters. Generally, adopted measures to reduce adverse impacts and build adaptation were unsustainable. This study is among few studies that demonstrate the contribution of social action and social control theories to managing and adapting climate change and its associated impacts in African cities.

Sanitary conditions of the third largest informal settlement in Brazil

Abstract Large Brazilian cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, suffer serious environmental problems caused by informal settlements (IS), such as advances in the degradation of surface waters involving anthropic pressures resulting from uncontrolled urban growth, lack of sanitation or disasters related to climate events, creating a gap in relevant information about environmental health in urban IS. Therefore, it is essential to assess the health conditions of IS and the local population's perception of their living conditions. This study aimed to evaluate, by online form and public data, the sanitary conditions of the third largest IS in Brazil, the Rio das Pedras community, which was located on the banks of the Jacarepaguá Lagoon complex. The analysis revealed that 35% of respondents reported releasing domestic sewage directly into the river near their homes. Furthermore, 83% of the participants reported that they disposed of urban solid waste inappropriately. About 21% of residents reported falling ill due to direct contact with unsafe water after flood events. Public managers, concerned with advancing sustainability agendas and mitigating the risks to environmental health related to the lack of adequate sanitation services, should invest in actions that reflect the perception of the local population, proposing more appropriate socio-environmental solutions.

Sanitation-related violence against women in informal settlements in Kenya: a quantitative analysis.

Approximately 3.6 billion people around the world do not have access to safe sanitation options. Those lacking access are not only at risk of diarrheal disease, other tropical diseases, and parasitic infections, they are at greater risk of experiencing violence, particularly women and girls. The burden of lack of access to safe sanitation is disproportionately experienced by women in informal settlements in lower- and middle-income countries, where violence rates tend to be higher and access to sanitation lower. Women lacking access to safe toilets often have to walk long distances to access a facility or open site or use shared toilet facilities, which increase their vulnerability to violence. We explore the prevalence and multilevel factors associated with women's experiences, observations, and exposure to stories about past-year sanitation-related violence in a probability sample of 550 women in a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya using chi-square tests and multivariate logistic regressions. Findings suggest that social/community engagement and social/cultural beliefs are important considerations for hearing about and observing sanitation-related violence, but less so experiences of sanitation-related violence. Alternatively, individual-level and technological factors may be critical factors in actual experiences of violence. Sanitation-related violence and creating an environment of safety in which women can take care of their sanitation-related needs in ways that also protect them, their families, and their communities is critical for meeting sanitation-related development agendas and goals such as Sustainable Development Goal 6.2 to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030.

Live-Work Interior Quality for Older People in Low-Income Housing in Bangkok

This study explores to determine the live-work housing needs of low-income older people in informal settlements, the ways of life of whom contemporary housing provision often fails to consider. A questionnaire survey was conducted in three communities in Klong Toey, the largest informal settlement in Bangkok, to understand households’ satisfaction levels and expectations regarding the interior quality of their live-work housing. Older people’s specific interior spaces and housing requirements and expectations vary depending on the nature of their livelihood activities that can be categorised into three main groups, namely service, cook, and stock. The findings suggest a strong relationship between housing domains and the overall satisfaction of older people. There is a strong relationship between overall housing satisfaction and comfort in interior living spaces, as well as safety for domestic working spaces. Design, Health, Comfort, and Adaptability are important domains for live-work environments that ensure housing meets older people’s expectations. Therefore, housing design and improvements should embrace the live-work concept to maintain a sustainable and healthy ageing environment.

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

Community-Driven Family Planning in Urban Slums: Results from Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Pakistan's contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) has remained static (less than 1% annual increase since 2006) due to several demand and supply issues. The Akhter Hameed Khan Foundation implemented a community-driven, demand-generation intervention with complementary supply side family planning (FP) services in a large urban informal settlement in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The intervention recruited local women as outreach workers called Aapis (sisters), who conducted household outreach and provided counseling, contraceptives, and referrals. Program data were used to guide in-program corrections, identify the most willing to use married women of reproductive age (MWRA), and target specific geographic locations. The evaluation compared results from two surveys. The baseline survey included 1485 MWRA while the endline included 1560 MWRA that were sampled using the same methodology. A logit model was used with survey weights and clustered standard errors, to estimate the odds of using a contraceptive method. CPR in Dhok Hassu increased from 33% at the baseline to 44% at endline. Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) usage increased from 1% at baseline to 4% at endline. Increase in CPR is correlated with increasing number of children and education of MWRA and is the highest between the ages of 25 and 39 and for working women. Qualitative evaluation of the intervention provided lessons about in-program corrections using data and empowerment of the female outreach workers and MWRA. The Aapis Initiative is a unique community-based demand-supply side intervention that successfully increased modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) by economically engaging the women from within the community as outreach workers and enabling healthcare providers to establish a sustainable ecosystem for increasing knowledge and access to family planning services.

Combined Districting and Main Line Routing—A Method to Implement a Basic Drinking Water Supply Infrastructure in Informal Settlements

The upgrading of large informal settlement areas takes place in sections for technical, economic and social reasons. On one hand, planning is faced with the challenge of taking individual structural and social conditions into account when dividing up the districts. On the other hand, the routing of the mains of a pipe-based infrastructure (water supply) must be selected in the context of the entire area under consideration and integrated into a superordinate network layout. In this paper, a method that combines these contrasting approaches is presented. Potential district boundaries are identified based on existing infrastructure and development patterns, as well as considering the routing requirements of a piped drinking water supply. Thereby, social factors can be considered in the decision-making process. Subsequently, an area subdivision is performed by a recursive partitioning algorithm. The choice and combination of different compactness measures influence the shape of the districts and, thus, the spatial organization. The geodetic height is integrated into the algorithm via an admissibility condition, so that the subsequent development of a district can take place via one pressure zone. By means of variations in the input parameters of the zoning, different planning levels can be generated, which finally lead successively to the upgrading of an informal settlement area.

Household Solid Waste Management in Inaccessible Neighbourhoods

This research examines challenges in collecting household solid waste in highly populated inaccessible neighbourhoods. The main question of the study is: to what extent does the built environment affect waste management processes? To answer this question, two major aspects were analyzed: traditional planning theories, relating to environmental and sustainable planning models, and the behavioural studies and their role in waste management. Based on these two aspects, further analysis was conducted on the interrelated impacts, both of which being discussed from two points of view; the first is the impact of urban texture, and the second is the sociocultural impact. The area under study is one of the oldest and largest informal settlements in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Results revealed that both the community and the government agencies must share the service areas. In addition, the municipality has to provide access to underserved people. This study is important since it brings valuable contribution to the scarce literature on the relationship between solid waste management and informal inaccessible settlements in Jordan and within the region.

The Inclusion of the Environmental Dimension of Sustainability in Studying Informal Settlements Using the INDI System

The phenomenon of informal settlements is considered one of the most common global issues that have negative effects on several life aspects. All Algerian cities face this problem, including the city of Bousaada and the neighborhood of Sidi Slimane, which is considered one of the largest informal settlements in the city. Although the neighborhood has benefited from the Vulnerable Housing Absorption Program funded by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the latter did not achieve the set goals. Therefore, it has become necessary to think about the use of modern and effective criteria for assessing the environmental dimension of sustainability, such as the INDI system of impact indicators built into EcoQuartierGrid2011 in order to contribute to the development of these neighborhoods, to ensure a better quality of life for the residents, and achieve sustainable development in light of the environmental dimension. On this basis, the present study aims to use the INDI system to integrate the environmental dimension of sustainability in informal settlements and to investigate the environmental shortcomings that the neighborhood Sidi Slimane suffers from in order to suggest possible solutions to develop it and improve the quality of life for the residents. In pursuance of this aim, the approach of the current research is descriptive-analytical in order to design an approach that deals with the criteria of the INDI System in environmental studies. The research concludes that both INDI and EcoquatierGrid 2011 will help improve the quality of life of the population for millions of individuals and residents in Algeria and in developing countries that suffer from the problem of informal housing. A guideline based on INDI and EcoquatierGrid 2011 indicators is recommended and incorporated into environmental studies as a reference. The novelty of the current research lies in finding practical and technical solutions to the problem of squatter housing through the use of the INDI indicator system and its integration with EcoQuartierGrid2011 based on 40 topics and 318 indicators covering the economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

Trapped or not trapped? An empirical investigation into the lived experiences of the urban poor in Harare’s selected informal settlements

ABSTRACT The role of informal settlements in human development remains contested in urban studies literature. For instance, some existing studies view urban informal settlements as hotspots of social unrest, squalor and precarious residential environments (poverty traps); while others perceive them as places where the poor become resourceful, ingenious, and develop necessary skills to navigate urban life (pathways out of poverty). The absence of systematic evidence on the nexus between informal settlements and human progress hinder sound urban policy practices. This paper examines the role of informal settlements in human development focusing on Hopley, Hatcliffe Extension and Epworth Ward 7–Harare’s three largest informal settlements. The study combines surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions with selected residents from the three neighborhoods. The study reveals that despite feeling ‘trapped’ in conditions of precarious, overcrowded, and insecure housing, coupled with discursive territorial stigmatization, some informal settlement residents are hopeful that their settlements will eventually improve. The ambivalence of Harare’s urban policy toward informal settlements must be replaced by a more positive approach to improve the livelihoods of people living in these neighborhoods.

Property rights, public health, and planning for informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

ABSTRACT The Kenyan legal framework accords robust safeguards to private property rights. It is only in few cases that these rights may be limited. In Kenya, many informal settlements are on private land, which can limit the ability of residents to access life-saving basic services. Here, we explore how a public health emergency in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s largest informal settlements, gave rise to a redefinition of private property, security of tenure and delivery of water and sanitation. We suggest that “everyday emergency” of public health threats in informal settlements offers an opportunity to ensure that property and planning norms deliver rights to both secure tenure and human health. Ultimately, we explore the place of public health in (re)negotiating for land rights in Nairobi, particularly to ensure that the urban poor can express their rights to health and well-being and assess what this portends for planners in their quest to upgrade informal settlements.

Exploring Non-partner Violence in Informal Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

Violence against women is a serious public health and human rights concern and can take many forms. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the subject of the majority of research focused on violence against women around the world; yet the health consequences of non-partner violence (NPV) can be just as serious. There is a critical gap in literature focused on NPV and the co-occurrence of NPV and IPV in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in informal settlements. The unique historical, political, social, geo-spatial, physical, and built environment in informal settlements-often characterized as places with high rates of crime and violence-may be important in understanding NPV and co-occurrence of NPV and IPV in these communities, but more research is needed. The purpose of this study was to explore NPV in a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya including its relationship to IPV, correlates, and common perpetrators of NPV in this setting. Data from 552 household-level surveys collected from women in a large informal settlement in Nairobi in 2018 were used in this study. Descriptive statistics and penalized maximum likelihood logistic regressions were used to examine the association between IPV and NPV, correlates, and perpetrators of NPV. Findings showed a strong, positive association between past-year IPV and NPV-highlighting a critical area for future study in IPV, NPV, and poly-victimization research. Results corroborated some findings from existing NPV research, but yielded important new information about correlates and perpetrators of NPV in informal settlements. NPV and poly-victimization have serious health consequences for women in any context, but women in informal settlements also face a number of structural economic, social, political, and environmental challenges that affect their health and wellbeing and may exacerbate the health consequences of violence perpetrated against them. Thus, more research into NPV and poly-victimization in informal settlements is critical.

Towards Dismantling Patriarchy in the Kibera Slum, Kenya: Narrative Accounts of Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

AbstractKibera is the largest informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, and Africa’s largest urban informal settlement. It is a community plagued by poverty and unemployment. In response to the social disorganization common to informal settlements, criminal activity is rampant, particularly in assault and sexual violence cases. Patriarchal beliefs fuel power imbalances which consequently perpetuate violence. Kenyan societies tend to be traditionally patriarchal and characterized by male privilege and female subservience. This article explores the narrative accounts of female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) to overcome patriarchy in Kibera, Kenya. Through a qualitative inquiry, 32 female victims of IPV were interviewed, and the data obtained were thematically analysed. The findings established that patriarchy is sustained in Kibera through control, dominance and violence. Additionally, salient partakers in advancing patriarchy are family structures and authorities. Moreover, strategies to dismantle patriarchy and IPV are proposed through these narrative accounts.

To leave or not to leave? An analysis of individual and neighbourhood characteristics shaping place attachment in Harare's selected informal settlements

Place attachment is one of the important characteristics of sustainable neighbourhoods. The dynamics of place attachment in deprived neighbourhoods remain under‐researched, especially in Global South contexts. This paper examines how individual socio‐demographic and neighbourhood characteristics influence place attachment in Harare's selected informal settlements, namely Hopley, Hatcliffe Extension, and Epworth Ward 7. These neighbourhoods were purposefully selected as Harare's largest informal settlements. The paper uses survey data collected from randomly sampled participants from the three neighbourhoods. These data were analyzed using binary logistic regression. Based on multivariate analysis, long‐time residents were 2.35 times more likely (OR = 2.35, p &lt; 0.01) to report high place attachment, when compared to newcomers. When compared to renters, owner‐occupiers (OR = 2.91, p &lt; 0.001) had higher odds of reporting high place attachment. Participants with savings were more likely (OR = 1.80, p &lt; 0.05) to report high place attachment when compared with those who do not have savings. Neighbourhood reputation and neighbourhood safety positively influence place attachment in Harare's selected informal settlements. Surprisingly, those living in Epworth Ward 7 (OR = 0.48, p &lt; 0.05) were less likely to report high place attachment. Nonetheless, this study demonstrates that residents of deprived neighbourhoods can develop high place attachment with their residential environments.

Impact of Covid-19 on the Wellbeing of School Going Children in Kibra Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

The scourge of Covid-19 has led to loss of livelihoods and disruption of social life and economic activities globally. Government containment measures, like travel restrictions and lockdowns have adversely affected urban communities, particularly those living in slum areas. The study examined how the pandemic has impacted on the wellbeing of school going children in Kibra, the largest informal settlement in East Africa. It interrogated how the closure of schools has disrupted their normal life, including learning, diet, care and protection by caregivers. The effect of the pandemic on parents was also interrogated for the same purpose. The research collected both quantitative and qualitative data. Semi-structured questionnaire was administered among 52 parents and 132 school going children randomly selected from both primary and secondary schools. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data while thematic analysis was employed to analyse qualitative data. Results from the study showed that school closure due to restrictions imposed following the threat of COVID-19 revealed unprecedented threats and vulnerabilities among children, including physical and emotional abuse, sexual harassment, neglect, and lack of proper diet, attributed to lack of income among parents. The study recommends increased government action in designing intervention policy measures to remedy the situation.

Antibiotic ‘entanglements’: health, labour and everyday life in an urban informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda

ABSTRACT Antibiotics are a routine part of everyday life in many contexts, contributing to the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our ethnographic research documents the ways that antibiotics have become a key part of everyday life for precariously employed urban day-wage workers living in a large informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda. We found that for many people, their daily work and ongoing health was entangled with antibiotic use; that is, people showed us how their antibiotic use cannot be separated from the realities of living in a politically, economically and environmentally degraded ‘informal’ landscape. Thinking through entanglement as itself a politics, we show how limited political power, inability to demand change, and inequitable access to good health care, are associated with high rates of infection and disease, precarious work, and polluted environments. Antibiotics, we argue, have become a way to negotiate the inequalities written into these informal urban landscapes; their use entangled with ongoing relations with labour, environment and bodily suffering. Through this approach, we show how antimicrobials are used in society, with an attention to how vulnerabilities, risks, and forms of abandonment and exclusion shape their everyday use. Antibiotic use is entangled with everyday life in informal settlements, and the politics that produce ‘informality’. In Kampala today, the entanglement of antibiotics with life in informal settlements reveals how forms of urban segregation, life in ‘slums’ and their everyday acceptance, shape the pathways and uses of antimicrobials.

Can economic development policy trigger gentrification? Assessing and anatomising the mechanisms of state-led gentrification

This paper aims to bridge universality – as gentrification stands as a global threat to vulnerable communities – and local circumstances and geographies, by investigating structural factors, such as deindustrialisation and land rent gaps, as well as local political economies and socio-spatial structures, which are all common in the Global South. We conducted research in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to investigate whether a neoliberal economic development policy acted as a trigger for gentrification, relying on mixed methods research to analyse evidence of economic restructuring, land rent creation, changes in resident profiles and major urban development trends in the region. Findings indicate evidence of economic restructuring and that the policy triggered higher land values. However, we did not observe evidence of gentrification in the area and attribute this to a still-relevant manufacturing sector, the extensive presence of large informal settlements, the growing numbers of suburban gated communities, the low proportion of renters, and the fact that local elites are moving southwards while the policy took place in the northern peripheries of the metropolis. Federal policies such as minimum wage increases and housing programs partially contradicted neoliberal state policies. This case study offers a lens to investigate gentrification in different latitudes and illustrates how social policies may prevent gentrification processes.

Re-thinking housing through assemblages: Lessons from a Deleuzean visit to an informal settlement in Dhaka

A spectre haunts how we think about housing—describing it in binaries, in oppositions, in ‘essentialised’ identities (formal/informal, north/south, social/spatial, product/process). What does a more nuanced understanding of assemblages—drawn from the original work of Deleuze and Guattari—have to offer housing studies to move beyond such dichotomies? This paper outlines a conceptual framework where housing is re-thought as an unfolding of socio-material processual-relations and desires forming a field of intensities. This theoretical framework is used to think through empirical findings from a six-month socio-spatial ethnography conducted in Karail, the largest informal settlement in Dhaka that houses 300,000 people. The findings, seen through assemblages, allow identifying, firstly, the interconnections between different actors across different binaries that make it work and secondly, the different modes of settlement’s production itself. Lastly, the paper recasts the settlement as a manifestation of a landscape of intersecting desires in an effort to speak of housing in a new language transcending the stifling dichotomy of top-down/bottom-up.

Laboratory experiment of fire spread between two informal settlement dwellings

Fire spread between informal settlement dwellings (ISD) is a primary concern for large scale informal settlements conflagrations. Globally, approximately one billion people live in informal settlements and are exposed to these fires. This paper presents a fire spread experiment between two dwellings, built with ISO 9705 dimension as an approximation of an ISD and separated by 1 m. The fire development and fire spread mechanisms within and between the ISDs were investigated and benchmarked against an independent single dwelling experiment with identical boundary conditions. Parameters, such as mass loss rate of fuel, total heat release rate, gas temperatures, wall and roof temperatures, and gas velocity at the openings were measured, as well as external incident heat fluxes. A comparison between the single and double dwelling experimental results are made. It was established that the existence of the adjacent dwelling, which changes the dynamics of initial burning stage of the wood cribs in dwelling, delayed the flashover of the burning dwelling by more than 150 s (Dwelling 1). The fire spread from dwelling to dwelling that is perpendicular to the plane of the openings is hypothetically concerned with wall collapse or large flame ejections from the burning cardboard linings, rather than the radiation from the heated metal wall, with recorded fluxes of 35, 20, and 5 kW/m2, respectively. Due to the very thin-walls with high conductivity and natural leakage in ISDs, current theories for temperatures, heat release rates, flame shapes, and flashover conditions, based on thermally thick-walled dwellings, do not replicate the data well. A new fire spread model between dwellings, based on accumulated energy, is proposed in this work and conservatively under-predicts the time to ignition by 9 % for this experiment.

Neighborhood Cohesion, Perceptions of Disorder, and the Geography of Women's Fear of Crime in Informal Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

Fear of crime is more pervasive and harder to address than crime itself and can cause physical and psychological health complications, particularly for women. Fear of crime is not always grounded in direct exposure to crime. Instead, it may be more directly linked to social cohesion and/or perceptions of neighborhood disorder, but little is known about these associations in informal settlements. This paper sought to explore these relationships in Mathare-a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Using responses from surveys with 550 women in Mathare, we conducted regression, mediation, and moderated mediation analyses to investigate relationships between neighborhood disorder, fear of crime, and neighborhood cohesion and explore how these associations vary across geographic spaces (villages). Findings suggest that women's perceptions of neighborhood disorder are associated with fear of crime; neighborhood cohesion partially mediates the relationship between perceptions of neighborhood disorder and fear of crime; women's fear of crime varies by village; and the mediating role of neighborhood cohesion also varies by village. Efforts to build and strengthen social cohesion in informal settlements may help to reduce women's fear of crime, but more research is needed to explore under what conditions and in what spaces interventions are the most effective.