How do we prepare for the Informal World?

Introduction

The world took 1800 years to reach its first billion population 130 years to reach the second billion, while it took just 60 years to cross the five billion mark. At the onset of the present millennium, for the first time in human history, more than 50 per cent of world’s population was living in urban areas(UN). According to United Nations, cities in developing countries are growing by over one million people a week. The world bank estimates that they were 500 million poor dwellers in the year 2000 based on its “one dollar a day” income based poverty line; worldwide 30 per cent of people lived in urban areas.

Over the centuries, the concept, size. Population, needs as well as literary depictions of cities have undergone a remarkable change in most part of the world. Cities are acquiring an economic, cultural as well as literary identity of their own; independent of the identity of the country in which they are located.Economists and policy-makers now acknowledge cities as “engines of growth”, an indicator of development and major contributor of national economy; it is apparent that it is accompanied by growing disparities as well. In the context of many Asian countries, building of cities and its economy led to the growth of informal cities, which cater to day to day services required for a planned city. Cities attract large number of workforce for its development without creating any facilities for them, hence emerge informal settlements of workers and service providers.

The term “informal city” is a polite expression, often used to describe a substantial section of the city population living in slums, unauthorised colonies and urban villages, mostly in sub human conditions. In case of India, it covers as high as forty per cent of urban population. Importantly, the democratic socio-political structure in the post independence period allowed the poor to gain entry into the urban centres but they became some kind of “illegal settlers”. The political space provided through the competitive politics of election enabled them to secure a foothold but either in urban fringe or low valued land within the city. Importantly the building of cities, running its economy and maintaining its services requires labour. This ensued entry to the poor but they could live there only as temporary squatters or slum dwellers, under perpetual threat of eviction.

Neverthless, there is substantial lack of knowledge on concept of informality. In first place informal systems are strengthened by the public sector’s neglect of socio-spatial exlusion in cities. At the same time the incorporation of informal structures in the formal urban development framework can erase the unique qualities and opportunities which informality brings to urban life.

The case under study is the national capital Delhi which grew under the protective umbrella of the State, as noted above, at least during the first couple of decades after Independence. An analysis of the data over the past few decades suggests that the Delhi urban agglomeration and its surrounding towns and villages have experienced rapid population growth. This is primarily due to its strong economic base, which has grown even stronger over the years due to the rapid growth of industries and commercial activities.

The central city, however, has succeeded, although partially, in diverting population growth to geographic or socio-economic “periphery” of the metropolis. Large sections of poor migrants have been absorbed either in the hinterland or in the marginal areas within the agglomeration viz. sides of railway tracks, around factory sites, swampy lands etc, wherein the quality of life is low. Using instruments such as master plans, environmental legislations, slum clearance/rehabilitation projects etc, the state has off and on pushed out informal settlements to the“periphery”.

Micro-level surveys reveal that low-income groups residing in outlying towns and villages or in marginal areas in central city are paying heavy environmental costs. The peripheries have reported serious problems of physical congestion and economic deprivation that have been accentuated over the years. There seems to be a process of institutionalisation of socio-economic segmentation and unequal sharing of developmental benefits within the agglomeration.

Despite this hostile market scenario and a passive state policy, a small section of the poor have discovered ingenious ways of finding a shelter in and around the central city through establishment of linkages with slumlords, government functionaries and politicians. A few among the new migrants, too, have been able to gain a foothold here. This, however, has been possible generally in informal settlements, located in marginal lands, as noted above. The governmental programmes of in situ upgradation, in operation in an ad-hoc manner and for short durations, have directed and indirectly supported the initiative or entrepreneurship of these people to hold on to their plots.

Understandably, these poor people have come to enjoy a sense of perceived security, due to no major relocation or eviction, taking place during two decades after 1977. This has given a boost to the growth of slum population in certain areas within the city. Relaxed attitude of the officials towards wide-scale violation in the Master Plan and bye-laws has also facilitated the process. These people have, indeed, benefited from the employment and income opportunities in the central city. They have had access to a few of the basic services, due to their proximity to formal colonies or extension of the services through the latter. Many among them have improved their quality of life by making investments in housing and basic amenities.

The scene, however, has changed during the past decade. The exhaustion of political space, which enabled the poor to hold on to their land, is evident from the large scale relocation or removal of slum dwellers from central parts of Delhi. Interestingly, this has happened without any violent resistance from slum dwellers. This does not mean that the relocation have been welcomed by them (who suffered immensely by loosing their proximity to sources of livelihood), but that their political will to resist has been broken. Measures of globalisation have led to massive capital inflow in industries and infrastructure. Unfortunately, betterment of socio-economic conditions of the poor or providing access to basic amenities has not figured importantly as a key concern.

There have been orders from the High Court and the Supreme Court leading to eviction of slum colonies and industries. These in turn have shattered the “perceived security” of tenure of both slum dwellers as well as informal entrepreneurs. There is a growing realisation that social and political connections, informal assurances, host of semi-legal documents, etc are not of much use in the event of a Court order. In fact, many of the industrial units had to close down or move to neighbouring towns or villages, despite their having formal or informal “approvals” from the different departments of the local government and paying certain “fees” thereof. Importantly, it is the small entrepreneurs who lost out on account of this since the large entrepreneurs mostly benefited substantially by using their factory plot for speculative purposes. This environmental activism has thus led to large scale joblessness among the urban poor in Delhi.

Undoubtedly, all these have improved the quality of the environment in several high income residential areas. Nonetheless, the impact on the peripheral areas, where the dislocated industries and slums have been relocated, has been extremely negative. Importantly, environmental monitoring in these areas is extremely relaxed and amenable to manipulation as there is neither a strong local body nor public awareness. All these have led to an accentuation of core-periphery differential in terms of economic and social wellbeing and quality of micro-environment.

 The story of demographic and economic growth in the national capital city through the past five decades has the moral that the slum dwellers can improve micro-environment throughtheir own initiatives and resources, if certain minimal support from public agencies, along with some kind of security of tenure, is granted to them. Unfortunately, this perspective does not seem have many takers in the present globalising policy environment, manifest in recent spurts of eviction in the national capital (as also other metropolises in the country).

Case Studies

Intervention in Savda Ghevra,  Delhi by Julia King and CURE

In underdeveloped settlements, a lack of sanitation is a major problem. Intervention in slum settlement in outskirts of Delhi which goes beyond the delivery of sanitation project( pipe work). The project uses infrastructure as a strategy for creating improvements; a tool to transform the settlement promoting self sufficiency and social capital in a slum resettlement colony in the outskirts of Delhi, India.

Initiative by British architect Julia King and NGO ‘Cure’ to uplift the quality of living in the peripheral settlements of Delhi by providing the whole slum settlement with adequate sewage system. Pursuing a PhD-by-practice via the  Architecture of rapid change and scarce resources (ARCSR) in the slums of India, Ms. King realized very quickly that the last thing these communities needed was architecture or rather, what is traditionally considered “architecture.” After all, community-members were already experts in constructing homes and buildings all on their own. Instead, she put her architectural know-how towards designing and implementing what was truly needed: sewage systems.

Speaking to ArchDaily she said ”from personal experience: none of my formal training or professional practice gave me the skills required to work in such contested spaces. Walking around a slum is a humbling experience. They are very complex and rapidly shifting environments.” Having said this and working within the site she realized that sanitation is not only about the issue of infrastructure its also the issue about woman’s integrity. Due to lack of basic sanitation infrastructure many of the poor dwellers  defecate in open fields.

When asked about her inspiration she says “I could have ended up building a library or a bus stand but what was most needed was sewerage – to do what the community couldn’t do themselves so they could get on with what they do very well, which is making towns-through-houses. So in this sense I never decided to become ‘potty-girl’ – that happened by accident. And now I find that I stumbled into one of the biggest issues facing India today. And now sanitation for me isn’t just about shit, but it is a woman’s issues and something I have become really passionate about. So I think my inspiration comes from exposure to people and their hopes/aspirations.I look for inspiration (or opportunities) from people and places rather than looking for people and places to host my ideas”

Intervention In Mongolpuri, Delhi by  Marco Ferrario (MHS City Lab, New Delhi)

MHS conceptualized DHS (Design Home Solutions) as a service for urban households engaging in self-construction. Through DHS, these families can access construction Finance  and technical design assistance. A significant proportion of housing supply in India (even as much as 70% in some cities) is being built by homeowners with the help of a local mason or builder. While this meets the need of housing, the self-construction practice is often unsafe, with weak structure and poor light and ventilation. In addition, due to informality of income sources and weak property titles, households borrow from informal sources at interest rates usually higher than 60% per year. In this context, the goal of DHS was to catalyse this informal supply of housing while improving quality of construction.

DHS is designed as a housing finance product bundled with a technical assistance (TA) service package. The TA is comprised of customized architectural and engineering solutions, including pre-construction advice and monitoring during edification. The long-term aim of DHS is to influence building practices in self-construction through training of local technical professionals (LTAs), bringing awareness of safety in construction and improving quality of life for families. A technical assistance fee payable to the LTA would ensure operational viability, key for the scalability of the solution.

Marco Ferrario founder of mHS City Lab, New Delhi talks about  affordable housing he says “rather than doing a new model to build affordable housing, work with a developer etc we should figure out the way to capitalise and do better use of what we have” he adds “ there is certain pattern to the development of these settlements start and we look towards it as a opportunity to add new units and lets built them better than what they are”.

DHS was piloted in Mangolpuri, a resettlement colony in northwest Delhi in partnership with BSFL, the microfinance arm of BASIX India. A Survey of 1,500 households indicated areas of concern, aspirations for better living conditions, and a demand for finance for home improvements. While safety was of concern, it had implications for cost and floor area. Adding floors in order to expand space for the family and home businesses, as well as for additional income from rent was the main priority for families in Mangolpuri.

MHS has also been involved in assessing demand and supply of low cost housing in India. The study's objective was to assess the demand and supply of self-constructed incremental housing in India for households earning below Rs 15,000 per month and to evaluate the feasibility of providing technical design assistance. The study analysed the current state of housing in four different tiered cities (Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Dehradun) and developed a typology framework based on three parameters: title/tenure, land-use, and right to sell. The typologies served to further disaggregate the simplistic characterization currently adopted of slum vs. non-slum that does not capture the diversity of locations/neighbourhoods in a city. The research involved interacting with civil society organizations and financing institutions to understand the different legal statuses and rights of low-income/informal neighbourhoods.

Study shows that 40% of population lies in the income group of 0-15,000rs per month in all the four major cities. Households earning less than Rs 15,000 a month rent or own housing produced through self-construction: To target this income segment, innovative financing/mortgage models are required to reach the market. The poorer households (earning Rs 5,000 per month) live in cheap private rentals in settlements with the weakest property rights and do not usually invest in home upgrades. Self Construction hovers around 50% across all four cities. Self construction is the largest supplier of housing, even in the city like Delhi, over 55% of housing stock has been built through ownerled, incremental self construction practices. Though the practice is common in informally planned neighbourhoods or low-income areas such as slum resettlement colonies or unauthorized colonies. However in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, even residents of formal neighbourhoods are engaged in selfconstruction practices.

Biggest problem being lack of access, knowledge and consequent implementation of the IS codes (Indian Standard Codes) and NBC (national building codes) leads to construction of unsafe structures and poor quality houses. Other than this no approval system for the target income groups. Urban Local Body (ULB) has no process, capacity or interest in adapting the approval system for low income settlements because of high implementation costs.

For all these problems in place the National Housing Bank, under the direction of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), has issued guidelines to financial companies to ensure financing of safe and quality structures. However, the technical assistance piece still must be facilitated. In parallel, creating awareness on the risks and problems of self-construction and bringing knowledge to masons and contractors through training camps would ensure compliance. The study proposed alternative mechanisms for delivery of assistance and conceptualized a large-scale pilot to test the delivery mechanisms.

Conclusion

 There is a growing attention for informal settlements and economies as important urban phenomena worth the attention of urban planners, designers and policy makers. We are witnessing a big raise in studies and projects on informality by architects and urbanists. There is a general belief that the informal structures possess an untapped potential to contribute to urban development.

In the next century the world’s population will be overwhelmingly urban – and about a third of the population will be living in slums. Considering how large this population is – and how much need there is for quality design. What we are seeing particularly in India and China is mass peri-urbanization characterised by an unplanned shift from agricultural to mixed urban land uses, scattered urban development, misuse of natural resources, environmental degradation, and inadequate provision of infrastructure services. Furthermore, the distinction between urban and rural misses the crucial point: the distinction between those settlements with access to infrastructure and the benefits of education, healthcare, jobs and housing (that what is needed to fulfill one’s capacity) and those without. We need to start talking about ‘connected’ and ‘disconnected’ populations.

As such, with most of the world ‘disconnected’ (rural and urban), there is a serious need for good quality design. India’s peri-urbanization is at the same time its greatest challenge but also its greatest opportunity. If done right this can result in positive development lifting millions out of poverty, and if done wrong these disconnected spaces will be source of conflict.

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8. www.julia-king.com

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