Review of International Political Economy

Chapters on Asia, 2014

Informal housing communities of semi-autonomous urban migrants emerged rapidly at the margins of Southeast Asian cities and Hong Kong after World War II. Their development constituted an important moment in postwar social history: the dwellers eked out a livelihood on land which initially lay beyond official control, relying on family, kinship and community ties to cope with the challenges of employment, environmental disaster and eviction. What was also historic was the response of the colonial and postcolonial states to the informal housing. Influenced partly by the advice of international experts on the need for controlled development, the region’s governments criminalised the informal housing as illegal, represented their dwellers as socially inert and warned of the dire impact such unplanned settlement, like a contagion, would have on the character and future of the society and nation. To varying degrees, they also undertook to either resettle the dwellers in emergency public housing or reorganise social life in the settlements through aided self-help. In only the former British-ruled city-states of Singapore and Hong Kong did the authorities succeed in transforming the face and character of the city; elsewhere, the pressure of patronage politics and the preference for “prestige projects’ greatly limited the scope of the actual reorganisation. Drawing upon James Scott’s concept of “high modernist’ planning and social governance, this paper examines the origins and development of informal settlements in urban Southeast Asia and Hong Kong and the different outcomes of state efforts to transform their residents into “squatters’, colonial subjects and, finally, model citizens of new nation-states.

2020

This essay focuses on squatters as historical agents in transgressing urban boundaries, thereby contributing to a reshaping of urban environments and public spaces. Bringing together research on informal housing in various urban contexts in both the Global North and South, it examines conceptually how squatters and urban activists have transgressed real property, public-private, socioeconomic and zoning boundaries, and in so doing challenged conventional notions of space and urban authority. Our approach avoids rigid definitions of informality based on illegality in favor of an analysis of boundary shifting as a result of spatial claims that are simultaneously deemed illegal while enjoying varying degrees of legitimacy due to persistence and acceptance. Adopting a historiographic and comparative perspective, the essay shows how such practices have responded to urban planning and development that produced these boundaries in the first place, often creating ever more privatized, gentr...

2010

The principal question this study aims to answer is why and how a left-of-centre government not hobbled by heavy external leverage, with developmental state precedents, potentially positive macroeconomic fundamentals, and well-developed alternative policies for housing and urban reconstruction came to settle on a conservative housing policy founded on ‘precepts of the pre-democratic period’. Arguably, this policy is even more conservative than World Bank strictures and paradigms, whose advice the incoming democratic government ‘normally ignored’ and ‘tacitly rejected’. The study, which spans the period from the early 1990s to 2007, commences from the premise that housing is an expression and component of a society’s wider development agenda and is bound up with daily routines of the ordering and institutionalisation of social existence and social reproduction. It proposes an answer that resides in the mechanics and modalities of post-apartheid state construction and its associated techniques and technologies of societal penetration and regime legitimisation. The vagaries and vicissitudes of post-Cold War statecraft, the weight of history and legacy, strategic blundering, and the absence of a cognitive map and compass to guide post-apartheid statecraft, collectively contribute to past and present defects and deformities of our two decade-old developmentalism, writ large in our human settlements. Alternatives to the technocratic market developmentalism of our current housing praxis spotlight empowering shelter outcomes but were bastardised. This is not unrelated to the toxicity of mixing conservative governmentalities (neoliberal macroeconomic precepts, modernist planning orientations, supply-side citizenship and technocratic projections of state) with ‘ambiguated’ counter-governmentalities (self-empowerment, self-responsibilisation, the aestheticisation of poverty and heroic narratives about the poor). Underscored in the study is the contention that state developmentalism and civil society developmentalism rise and fall together, pivoting on (savvy) reconnection of economics and politics (the vertical axis of governance) and state and society (the horizontal axis). Without robust reconfiguration and recalibration of axes, the revamped or, more appropriately, reconditioned housing policy – Breaking New Ground – struggles to navigate the limitations of the First Decade settlement state shelter delivery regime and the Second Decade’s (weak) developmental state etho-politics. The prospects for success are contingent on structurally rewiring inherited and contemporary contacts and circuits of power, influence and money in order to tilt resource and institutional balances in favour of the poor. Present pasts and present futures, both here and abroad, offer resources for more transformative statecraft and sustainable human settlements, but only if we are prepared to challenge the underlying economic and political interests that to date have, and continue to, preclude such policies. History, experience and contemporary record show there are alternatives – another possible and necessary world – via small and large steps, millimetres and centimetres, trial and error.

Environment and Planning A, 2008

This theme issue on the``Ordinary spaces of modernity'' arose from a conference event that sought to bring together scholars interested in how the contingencies and ambivalences of urban space mattered for how different actors engaged in`improving' or developing others'. Our rationale for this event was motivated in part by a double notion of parochialism. On the one hand, we sought to emphasise the importance of the parochial, of the tensions and ambivalences of municipal officials, and of the role of everyday materialities of construction or infrastructure, for the nature and contestation of improvement and development. On the other hand, we sought to do this by disrupting what has come to be criticised as a certain parochialism in urban studies, and in particular the tendency to make generalisations of`non-Western' urban forms, or to conceptually separate the`Western city' from the`Third World city' (cf Bishop et al, 2003;. We sought papers that illustrated the importance of connections and comparisons temporally, between colonialism and development, and spatially, between`Western' and`Southern' urbanism. We hope that, in tracing a range of contextual tensions and translations, the collection charts a diversity of temporal and spatial continuities and discontinuities. Legg, Perera, and Harris focus on colonial contexts in India, Sri Lanka, and a variety of African contexts, and Gandy, McFarlane, and Robinson are concerned with contemporary urban spaces in India and South Africa.

2000

Black markets and shadow,economies,are coming,into the bright light of research and policy making (not only) in the sector of popular housing. Now termed ‘self-help housing’, squatting in the cities of developing countries is increasingly seen as a solution much,rather than a problem. Based on John Turner’s seminal work, state regulation of the sector and public pro- vision of housing

International Journal of Housing Policy, 2018

The papers in this Special Issue demonstrate three persistent, global challenges to urban housing policy: that it is difficult to mass produce housing well; that community-based upgrading programmes often fail to benefit the worst off; and that ultimately, housing policy is a political problem that often fails to consider the diversity of populations at the expense of the least powerful. Importantly, some of the papers problematise what many consider the two most successful areas of housing policy in these regions: the community-based land sharing programmes for redevelopment in southeast Asia and the finance-driven social housing programmes in Latin America. The collection of scholarship, which spans cases in nine countries and touches on mass housing production programmes, incremental development processes, community-based urban upgrading, the legal structure of condominiums, and land-sharing policies, also highlights challenges to policy learning across contexts. In addition to synthesising the major research findings in the component articles in pairs, this editorial introduction reframes the idea of innovation in housing policy and argues that scholars should expand the topics and focus of housing policy research.

Antipode , 2018

Under the influence of the discourses and practices of global neoliberal urbanism, municipal administrations worldwide aspire to make their cities world class spaces, where informality is an anachronism and poverty can be made history. In this essay, drawing on fieldwork conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, San Francisco (California), and Seattle (Washington), we address the question of how a geographic relational poverty approach can help us understand, or at least expand ways of thinking about these processes by attending to urban informality and the politics of poverty. Informality, a pervasive feature of the global South and North, functions as a survival strategy whereby the monetarily poor can compensate for their lack of income through commoning. Market-driven, state underwritten urban development initiatives for housing those with wealth is limiting the conditions of possibility for the monetarily poor, and informality. This is compounded by emergent political discourses rendering informality as inappropriate, and the monetarily poor as undeserving of a right to the city. Yet long-standing more-than-capitalist and communal informal practices pursued by the urban poor remain effective and necessary survival strategies, supporting residents whose presence is necessary to the city and whose practices challenge capitalist norms. Keywords informality; housing; relational poverty; urban development; housing crisis; 1 2 1 1 2 e.Proofing

Environment & Urbanization, 2020

Incremental housing drives urbanization worldwide, and is recognized as the basis for socially relevant solutions to housing shortages in the global South. However, scholarship on incremental housing continues to focus largely on tenure, building materials and housing conditions at a local level, while incremental housing is embedded in – and dependent on – larger urban and regional systems and flows. We argue that a further reconceptualization of incremental housing is needed that acknowledges the embeddedness of local incremental building practices within broader industries, markets and practices of city-making. Starting from this observation, we suggest an extended framework for understanding the city-wide industries and flows around incremental housing, in relation to five dimensions: 1) land, 2) finance, 3) infrastructure, 4) building materials and 5) labour. Mapping these dynamics is necessary to understand fundamental questions of where, how and why initiatives aimed at improving or developing incremental housing advance or get stuck.

1950 2.1 LOW-INCOME HOUSING POLICY IN LDCs DURING 1950-1970 2.2 AN OVERVIEW OF THE THINKING OF JFC TURNER 2.2.1 The low-income housing views of JFC Turner 2.2.2 An assessment of Turner's ideas 2.3 THE LOW-INCOME HOUSING POLICY OF THE WORLD BANK, 1970s-1990s 2.3.1 Low-income housing policy during the 1970s 2.3.2 Low-income housing policy during the 1980s 2.3.3 Low-income housing policy during the 1990s 2.3.4 An assessment of World Bank low-income housing policy 2.4 WHOLE SECTOR HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AND THE NEED FOR SUSTAINABLE SETTLEMENTS: 1990 ONWARDS 2.4.1 Towards sustainable settlements 2.4.2 The Rio de Janeiro Conference and Local Agenda 21 2.4.3 Habitat II 2.4.4 Assessing the value of the sustainable settlement debate and whole sector housing development for low-income housing policy 2.5 CONCLUSION

The Journal of Law and Social Policy, 2017

Gentrification is often described metaphorically as a form of ‘colonization,’ however in this paper I argue that gentrification comprises one strategy in the continued historical colonization of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian context, and more specifically in the settler city of Toronto. I propose that the colonial relationalities, both symbolic and material that give rise to the settler city, persist as a discipline on poor and Indigenous bodies, spaces and lands, through the capitalist way of life. Colonial relationalities are again heightened through gentrifications role in Toronto’s strivings for global city status in a neo-imperialist global economy. Gentrification is based on moral investments in the capitalist ideology of private property and monetary investments in shifting of property values. Investment in private property is fraught with the ethical contractions of land theft, exploitation, ongoing original accumulation, and displacement, which form the basis of homelessness and Indigenous marginalization in the city. However, gentrification theory and Marxist geography do not fully or consistently account for the implications of colonial history in the current understanding of gentrification. Neil Smith, for instance, relegates Indigenous history and epistemologies to an irrelevant past failing to unsettle or decolonize the notion of gentrification. Other Marxist theorists, who have attempted to connect issues of gentrification and colonization offer a way forward to a decolonized understanding, however, more engaged dialogue with Indigenous scholars and communities are necessary to continue this discussion in a more liberatory direction.

2019

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2008

AbstractThis article proposes a narrative of city contestations beyond policy and programs. It considers why Indian metro elites, large land developers and international donors paradoxically lobby for comprehensive planning when confronting ‘vote bank politics’ by the poor. Poor groups, claiming public services and safeguarding territorial claims, open up political spaces that appropriate institutions and fuel an economy that builds complex alliances. Such spaces, here termed ‘occupancy urbanism’, are materialized by land shaped into multiple de-facto tenures deeply embedded in lower bureaucracy. While engaging the state, these locality politics remain autonomous of it. Such a narrative views city terrains as being constituted by multiple political spaces inscribed by complex local histories. This politics is substantial and poses multiple crises for global capital. Locally embedded institutions subvert high-end infrastructure and mega projects. ‘Occupancy urbanism’ helps poor groups appropriate real estate surpluses via reconstituted land tenure to fuel small businesses whose commodities jeopardize branded chains. Finally, it poses a political consciousness that refuses to be disciplined by NGOs and well-meaning progressive activists and the rhetoric of ‘participatory planning’. This is also a politics that rejects ‘developmentalism’ where ‘poverty’ is ghettoized via programs for ‘basic needs’ allowing the elite ‘globally competitive economic development’.This article proposes a narrative of city contestations beyond policy and programs. It considers why Indian metro elites, large land developers and international donors paradoxically lobby for comprehensive planning when confronting ‘vote bank politics’ by the poor. Poor groups, claiming public services and safeguarding territorial claims, open up political spaces that appropriate institutions and fuel an economy that builds complex alliances. Such spaces, here termed ‘occupancy urbanism’, are materialized by land shaped into multiple de-facto tenures deeply embedded in lower bureaucracy. While engaging the state, these locality politics remain autonomous of it. Such a narrative views city terrains as being constituted by multiple political spaces inscribed by complex local histories. This politics is substantial and poses multiple crises for global capital. Locally embedded institutions subvert high-end infrastructure and mega projects. ‘Occupancy urbanism’ helps poor groups appropriate real estate surpluses via reconstituted land tenure to fuel small businesses whose commodities jeopardize branded chains. Finally, it poses a political consciousness that refuses to be disciplined by NGOs and well-meaning progressive activists and the rhetoric of ‘participatory planning’. This is also a politics that rejects ‘developmentalism’ where ‘poverty’ is ghettoized via programs for ‘basic needs’ allowing the elite ‘globally competitive economic development’.RésuméCet article rend compte des contestations urbaines au-delà de l’action publique et des programmes. Il porte sur les raisons pour lesquelles les élites métropolitaines indiennes, de gros aménageurs fonciers et des donateurs internationaux plaident paradoxalement pour un urbanisme complet lorsque la politique de vote bank se heurtent aux pauvres. Ces groupes, qui réclament des services publics et gardent des revendications territoriales, ouvrent des espaces politiques qui s’approprient des institutions et alimentent une économie aux alliances complexes. Ces espaces, dénommés “urbanisme d’occupation”, sont matérialisés par des terrains formés de multiples occupations de fait, profondément ancrées dans les échelons inférieurs de l’administration. Même si elle implique l’État, la politique de ces localités demeure autonome à son égard. D’après cet exposé, les terrains urbains sont constitués de nombreux espaces politiques aux historiques locaux complexes. Cette politique, non négligeable, est source de problèmes pour le capital mondial. En effet, des institutions ancrées au plan local bouleversent d’énormes projets d’infrastructure haut de gamme. “L’urbanisme d’occupation” aide les groupes pauvres à s’approprier les excédents immobiliers grâce à des modes de jouissance fonciers reconstitués pour stimuler de petites entreprises dont les produits menacent des chaînes de marque. Enfin, elle suscite une conscience politique qui refuse la discipline des ONG ou des partisans progressistes bien intentionnés, de même que la rhétorique de “l’aménagement participatif”. Cette politique rejette aussi un “développementalisme” où la pauvreté est “ghettoïsée” par des programmes en faveur des “besoins fondamentaux” qui permettent aux élites un “développement économique compétitif au plan mondial”.Cet article rend compte des contestations urbaines au-delà de l’action publique et des programmes. Il porte sur les raisons pour lesquelles les élites métropolitaines indiennes, de gros aménageurs fonciers et des donateurs internationaux plaident paradoxalement pour un urbanisme complet lorsque la politique de vote bank se heurtent aux pauvres. Ces groupes, qui réclament des services publics et gardent des revendications territoriales, ouvrent des espaces politiques qui s’approprient des institutions et alimentent une économie aux alliances complexes. Ces espaces, dénommés “urbanisme d’occupation”, sont matérialisés par des terrains formés de multiples occupations de fait, profondément ancrées dans les échelons inférieurs de l’administration. Même si elle implique l’État, la politique de ces localités demeure autonome à son égard. D’après cet exposé, les terrains urbains sont constitués de nombreux espaces politiques aux historiques locaux complexes. Cette politique, non négligeable, est source de problèmes pour le capital mondial. En effet, des institutions ancrées au plan local bouleversent d’énormes projets d’infrastructure haut de gamme. “L’urbanisme d’occupation” aide les groupes pauvres à s’approprier les excédents immobiliers grâce à des modes de jouissance fonciers reconstitués pour stimuler de petites entreprises dont les produits menacent des chaînes de marque. Enfin, elle suscite une conscience politique qui refuse la discipline des ONG ou des partisans progressistes bien intentionnés, de même que la rhétorique de “l’aménagement participatif”. Cette politique rejette aussi un “développementalisme” où la pauvreté est “ghettoïsée” par des programmes en faveur des “besoins fondamentaux” qui permettent aux élites un “développement économique compétitif au plan mondial”.

Advances in electronic government, digital divide, and regional development book series, 2018

This chapter examines the nexus between the housing market and the urban poor. Affordability, tenure security, and good governance were examined. The study has employed questionnaires, focus group discussion, key informant interview, and field observation to collect data. Mixed approaches were used for data analysis. The study has revealed that the poorer segment of the population in the study area has less likely benefited from formal housing schemes. Informal settlement areas seem affordable only to some households who have the economic potential in the early years of land transaction (2003/04-2005/06). Tenure insecurity has reached its climax first with the demolition of about 500 houses in the study kebeles in 2011 and then with the promulgation of the new land lease proclamation No721/2011. Decentralized administration has failed to ensure good governance. Therefore, more attention should be given to revisiting housing development programs and projects, taking preventive measures rather than reactive ones, promoting housing finance, and monitoring the decentralization process.

Journal of Planning Education and Research