GCSE Geography | Informal Settlements (Urbanisation 3)

Urban growth causes all sorts of issues in LICs and NEEs. The main one is the growth of informal settlements. (such as those found in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, pictured below). Informal settlements are any form of housing or shelter which is illegal or falls outside of government control or regulation.

Previously these have been referred to as slums or shanty towns - these terms are seen as patronising and promoting stereotypes, and portraying just negative aspects of life, so therefore are generally not used in the classroom now. They are also likely to be called squatter settlements in your text books as this term was listed in the GCSE specifications when they were written, however, this term is also problematic as it implies that people don’t have the right to live somewhere. This is not always true as in many informal settlements people actually rent or own their properties, or the land they have built on.

Location

Informal settlements are often found on the periphery of a city sometimes along railway tracks or waterways and sometimes near waste sites. They are often built on land that is not particularly suitable for building homes, such as the favelas in Rio de Janeiro (in the photo below), where thousands of homes are built on steep hillsides around the end of the city which are really vulnerable to landslides.

However, they can also pop up in areas across the city where they are gaps in land use, for example, in Mumbai there are many informal settlements close to the CBD. Those settlements close to a CBD are more likely to be chosen for improvement schemes as the government will view them as an eyesore and a waste of economically valuable land, whereas those on the edge are often forgotten about due to being 'out of site, out of mind'.

Housing

Most informal settlements are unplanned so the houses tend to be built haphazardly without any organised plan, leading to narrow, winding pathways and congested areas. Housing in these settlements is typically characterised by poorly constructed, makeshift structures made from readily available materials such cardboard, wood scraps, corrugated metal, and plastic sheeting - this results in flimsy and unstable structures, which make residents vulnerable to extreme weather. They are usually overcrowded and cramped which can make residents feel unsafe and also enables diseases to spread rapidly. You can see this in the image below which shows houses in Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Services

Informal settlements often lack planning and basic services such as clean water, safe electricity, sanitation and waste disposal. Informal settlements are mainly inhabitants by migrants moving in from rural areas they grow rapidly, it is hard for local authorities to know exactly how many people live in them, and therefore how many people they need to provide services for. It is also difficult to add in services once people have moved in. The overcrowded nature also means that emergency services and waste disposal trucks find it very hard to get in along the very narrow streets, so waste tends to say in the streets and ends up in waterways, meaning that diseases can spread easily.

There can also be a lack of access to vital services like education and health care, and the crime rate is high in some informal settlements.

Informal economy

One of the reasons that services are lacking in informal settlements is that the majority of residents will work in informal jobs - these jobs are unregulated so the workers have no employment rights such as sick pay or pensions, and they are more likely to have low wages, poor working conditions, and exploitation. Workers in the informal sector don't pay tax - this means that there is less money going to the local government to spend on vital services that would improve the quality of life of residents. These settlements are also full of informal enterprises, often one-person cottage industries, although there are larger businesses operating.

Examples include handicraft production such as embroidery, making clothes, jewellery or soaps, leatherwork, recycling of materials like plastic and metal found in landfill by ragpickers (like the photo of Delhi below), small-scale food production, tailoring, shoe repair, and the production of small household goods such as baskets or mats. All of these can be done within the home using basic tools and readily available materials, allowing residents to generate income within their limited space and resources.