518 research outputs found
Informality Process Strategies J Samper 2018 Does Effective Planning Exist Lepratti Alfaro D'alencon sytagma.pdf
No full textThe large number of new informal settlements make it increasingly evident that new tools and strategies are needed to intervene in these places to create better conditions for those living in them. I argue that two important research efforts are necessary: first,better understanding the process in which urban informality flourishes, and second,presenting strategies to be applied alongside this urban process. The work of InformalSettlements Research (ISR) focuses on engaging with those two scales of inquiry through research mapping projects of informality and engagement with communities in informal settlements, applying the expertise of residents to academic planning and architectural studios. </div
Eroded resilience, Informal settlements predictable urban growth implications for self-governance in the context of urban violence in Medellin, Colombia.
No full textScholars have vastly explored incremental growth of informal settlements as one of their defining features. Most of this work has focused on the family unit scale, concentrating on housing asset growth as related to the family historical narrative, legal status, social image, and financing. However, little has been explored about how this relates to the neighborhood scale and, more importantly, how the type of density growth impacts urban form, governance structures, and community social ties, which are essential elements for the development of resilient communities. Using semistructured interviews and historical mappings of informal settlements in Medellin, Colombia from the past four decades, this research maps the relationship between the urban growth of informal settlements and their impact on social networks. This research presents urban informality growth as following predictable patterns. It demonstrates that the exponential density growth found in these settlements, as they moved through the distinct phases of the predictive model, played a significant role in the fragmentation of social ties and co-optation by non-state Armed Actors, what I call eroded resilience. This finding raises important questions about the role of exponential density growth in connection with existing governance structures, not only in the context of urban informality but also in the context of global population growth
Testing the Informal Development Stages Framework Globally: Exploring Self-Build Densification and Growth in Informal Settlements
No full textThis article challenges the narrow definition of informal settlements as solely lacking a formal framework, which overlooks the dynamic city-making and urban design processes within these areas. Communities’ self-building processes and areas’ constant growth are indeed informal settlements’ most salient morphological features. The study builds upon the informal development stages (IDS) framework and explores how it applies globally. The research follows a sample of fifty informal settlements with a high change coefficient from the Atlas of Informality (AoI) across five world regions to explore how change and urban densification across IDS can be mapped in such areas using human visual interpretation of Earth observation (EO). The research finds evidence of IDS framework fitment across regions, with critical morphological differences. Additionally, the study finds that settlements can pass through all IDS phases faster than anticipated. The study identifies IDS as a guiding principle for urban design, presenting opportunities for policy and action. The study suggests that integrating IDS with predictive morphological tools can create valuable data to refine identification models further. Finally, the article concludes that an IDS approach can anticipate development and integrate into an urban design evolutionary process that adapts to the deprived areas’ current and future needs
Urban Upgrading in a Context of Violence: Perceptions of Security and Physical Space in the Case of the Favela-Bairro in Rio de Janeiro
No full textSuburban Planning Politics: How Urban Design and Local Governance Can Build a Healthy Future in the Denver Metro Suburbs
No full textThis dissertation investigates the politics of health in relation to the built environment and the suburban development processes in the Denver Metropolitan Area (DMA). Focusing on suburban communities such as Arvada, Broomfield, and Centennial, this study explores how urban planning processes reflect individual, group, and community values around public health, sustainability, and growth. By examining these understudied suburban areas, the research offers a new perspective on how smaller urban environments shape public health outcomes through planning and development practices. This study bridges the gap between bureaucratic planning procedures and the long-term public health effects that emerge from these processes. It identifies how urban planning decisions influence the social experience of place and residents’ well-being, often in ways not directly addressed by policymakers. Through a mixed-methods urban ethnographic approach, the research incorporates interviews with local leaders, visual sociological methods, content analysis of primary documents such as comprehensive plans, and thematic review of public hearings on local development projects. This approach captures the complexities of suburban development politics and its relationship to public health. The research highlights several key findings. First, city comprehensive plans in the DMA demonstrate limited integration of public health considerations, with plans often over-emphasizing car-centric designs while promoting integrated land-use strategies that encourage walkability, bikeability, and public transit use. Second, the results reveal a tension between the region’s goal of environmental stewardship and local development, which suburban cities attempt to balance while managing fiscal sustainability concerns. Additionally, the current planning practices have significant procedural issues with entrenched social inequalities that ultimately continue a status quo of restricting flexibility in land-use, reinforcing historical patterns of unequal access to urban resources such as parks, healthy food stores, and affordable housing and transportation. Planning commissions, composed of residents with varying levels of expertise, play a pivotal role in mediating between developers, professional planners, policymakers, and community members. However, they often face limitations stemming from outdated zoning or building codes and procedural constraints, which hinder their ability to significantly influence healthier development patterns. The dissertation identifies the need for improved public engagement strategies, including more deliberative planning commission hearings and simplified evaluation criteria for proposed developments. To promote healthier suburban environments in the DMA, this research points towards several different research and policy directions. Prioritizing environmental stewardship to slow unsustainable growth, refining comprehensive plans and zoning laws to enable mixed-use development, and expanding the sociological lens beyond major urban areas are a few key steps. Additionally, fostering citizen-driven, localized planning with clear evaluation metrics can strengthen public participation and ensure that diverse community needs are being addressed. This dissertation contributes to the urban sociology scholarship by showcasing the political and social dynamics that shape suburban development. By focusing on smaller cities, it challenges traditional urban sociological theories that have primarily studied major metropolitan areas and urban cores, offering practical insights for fostering healthier, more equitable suburban communities.</p
Suburban Planning Politics: How Urban Design and Local Governance Can Build a Healthy Future in the Denver Metro Suburbs
No full textThis dissertation investigates the politics of health in relation to the built environment and the suburban development processes in the Denver Metropolitan Area (DMA). Focusing on suburban communities such as Arvada, Broomfield, and Centennial, this study explores how urban planning processes reflect individual, group, and community values around public health, sustainability, and growth. By examining these understudied suburban areas, the research offers a new perspective on how smaller urban environments shape public health outcomes through planning and development practices. This study bridges the gap between bureaucratic planning procedures and the long-term public health effects that emerge from these processes. It identifies how urban planning decisions influence the social experience of place and residents’ well-being, often in ways not directly addressed by policymakers. Through a mixed-methods urban ethnographic approach, the research incorporates interviews with local leaders, visual sociological methods, content analysis of primary documents such as comprehensive plans, and thematic review of public hearings on local development projects. This approach captures the complexities of suburban development politics and its relationship to public health. The research highlights several key findings. First, city comprehensive plans in the DMA demonstrate limited integration of public health considerations, with plans often over-emphasizing car-centric designs while promoting integrated land-use strategies that encourage walkability, bikeability, and public transit use. Second, the results reveal a tension between the region’s goal of environmental stewardship and local development, which suburban cities attempt to balance while managing fiscal sustainability concerns. Additionally, the current planning practices have significant procedural issues with entrenched social inequalities that ultimately continue a status quo of restricting flexibility in land-use, reinforcing historical patterns of unequal access to urban resources such as parks, healthy food stores, and affordable housing and transportation. Planning commissions, composed of residents with varying levels of expertise, play a pivotal role in mediating between developers, professional planners, policymakers, and community members. However, they often face limitations stemming from outdated zoning or building codes and procedural constraints, which hinder their ability to significantly influence healthier development patterns. The dissertation identifies the need for improved public engagement strategies, including more deliberative planning commission hearings and simplified evaluation criteria for proposed developments. To promote healthier suburban environments in the DMA, this research points towards several different research and policy directions. Prioritizing environmental stewardship to slow unsustainable growth, refining comprehensive plans and zoning laws to enable mixed-use development, and expanding the sociological lens beyond major urban areas are a few key steps. Additionally, fostering citizen-driven, localized planning with clear evaluation metrics can strengthen public participation and ensure that diverse community needs are being addressed. This dissertation contributes to the urban sociology scholarship by showcasing the political and social dynamics that shape suburban development. By focusing on smaller cities, it challenges traditional urban sociological theories that have primarily studied major metropolitan areas and urban cores, offering practical insights for fostering healthier, more equitable suburban communities.</p
Drawing outside the lines : participatory design in unincorporated communities
No full textThesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 2015.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-152).Design is both a mode of communication and a collaborative process. It is a powerful tool with which to convey ideas about the built environment and unlock creativity. Yet urban planning has not harnessed design's potential to engage communities in participatory processes. Urban design has been guarded as an exclusive realm for experts rather than a shared process that utilizes the knowledge of both professionals and community members. Urban planning has long struggled to successfully involve the public in its processes, and this thesis argues that participatory design is the key to meaningful community engagement in planning. Participatory design is particularly important when planning in marginalized communities. It provides participants with a sense of ownership over their communities and exposes the manifestation of oppression in the built environment. Using Paolo Freire's idea of "consciencizacion," this thesis tests participatory design's ability to allow both designers and community members to gain critical consciousness and work towards social change together. The research for this project focuses on marginalized unincorporated communities that have been systematically excluded from city annexation practices because of their racial and socioeconomic makeup. These communities have been left under the jurisdiction of counties, lacking infrastructure, adequate emergency services, public open spaces, and sufficient political representation. This thesis also explores the impact of participatory design processes on teenagers in unincorporated communities who often bear the brunt of their communities' oppression, and are rarely consulted in planning decisions. My research concentrates on a participatory design process I conducted with high school students in a predominantly Latino unincorporated community outside of Santa Rosa, California. This community suffered a tragedy in 2013, when a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed by a Sonoma County Sheriff in a vacant lot along Moorland Avenue. The incident spurred community protests and organizing for change, and led to my involvement with the neighborhood. My work with the Santa Rosa teenagers revealed the importance of design in participatory processes. The physical act of designing unlocked students' creativity, built their capacity to think spatially and feasibly, and showed them the power of young people's voices in creating neighborhood change.by Lillian Ring Jacobson.M.C.P
A Global Estimate of the Size and Location of Informal Settlements
No full textSlums are a structural feature of urbanization, and shifting urbanization trends underline their significance for the cities of tomorrow. Despite their importance, data and knowledge on slums are very limited. In consideration of the current data landscape, it is not possible to answer one of the most essential questions: Where are slums located? The goal of this study is to provide a more nuanced understanding of the geography of slums and their growth trajectories. The methods rely on the combination of different datasets (city-level slum maps, world cities, global human settlements layer, Atlas of Informality). Slum data from city-level maps form the backbone of this research and are made compatible by differentiating between the municipal area, the urbanized area, and the area beyond. This study quantifies the location of slums in 30 cities, and our findings show that only half of all slums are located within the administrative borders of cities. Spatial growth has also shifted outwards. However, this phenomenon is very different in different regions of the world; the municipality captures less than half of all slums in Africa and the Middle East but almost two-thirds of all slums in cities of South Asia. These insights are used to estimate land requirements within the Sustainable Development Goals time frame. In 2015, almost one billion slum residents occupied a land area as large as twice the size of the country of Portugal. The estimated 380 million residents to be added up to 2030 will need land equivalent to the size of the country of Egypt. This land will be added to cities mainly outside their administrative borders. Insights are provided on how this land demand differs within cities and between world regions. Such novel insights are highly relevant to the policy actions needed to achieve Target 11.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (“by 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services, and upgrade slums”) as interventions targeted at slums or informal settlements are strongly linked to political and administrative boundaries. More research is needed to draw attention to the urban expansion of cities and the role of slums and informal settlements
The Paradox of Informal Settlements Revealed in an ATLAS of Informality: Findings from Mapping Growth in the Most Common Yet Unmapped Forms of Urbanization
No full textInformal settlements are the most common form of urbanization on the planet, accounting for one-third of the total urban form. It is expected that by the mid twenty-first century, up to three billion people will live in informal urban environments. However, we lack a consistent mapping method to pinpoint where that informality is located or how it expands. This paper presents the findings from a collection of standardized measurements of 260 informal settlements across the world. The main research goal is to identify a standard global sample of informal neighborhoods. It then focuses on mapping urban growth with remote sensing and direct mapping tools. The third stage classifies settlements based on how adjacency features such as development, topography, or bodies of water relate to their growth. The survey of growth corroborates the idea of informality as expanding geography, although at different rates than previously cited in the literature. We found peri-urban location to be a suitable estimator of informal settlement growth. This finding validates the comparison of multiple settlements to understand rates of change of urban informality worldwide. The findings here are vital to resolve important questions about the role of informal urban development in the context of accelerated global population growth
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