Governing the Informal: Housing Policies Over Informal Settlements in China, India, and Brazil

Abstract

Informal settlements in cities in the global South have been increasingly targeted for redevelopment led by public–private coalitions, especially if they are in central locations. Previous scholarship often characterizes housing policies targeting informal settlements as examples of entrepreneurial governance geared toward recapturing land value by private and public elites. This understanding, however, glosses over the disparate policy choices that local governments use to address informal settlements. This article proposes an analytical framework to explain the variations in policy responses to informal settlements, and it argues that the various policy initiatives are largely shaped by four factors—intergovernmental relations, electoral politics, municipal finance, and the capacity of the civil society. With examples from China, India, and Brazil, this study comparatively examines how these forces have produced distinct informal housing policies, such as urban village removal in Guangzhou, slum rehabilitation in Mumbai, and favela upgrading in Rio de Janeiro.

Keywords:

• Informal settlements
• urban entrepreneurialism
• redevelopment
• urban village
• slum
• favela

Notes

1. Guangzhou’s city government has not released official data on the population of urban villages. The number quoted is from media estimates.

2. Urban restructuring here is understood as changes in urban governance structures and strategies as responses to macrodynamics of transformations in the economy.