Clandestine urbanization: reconstituting urban space in the margins of the Phoenix metropolitan area

Abstract

This paper illustrates everyday practices of a marginalized population in areas of interrupted urbanization. These practices arise from the coincidence of an urban form produced and reproduced according to a Fordist logic of mass production for mass consumption and a Post-Fordist society with diverse needs. The paper focuses on practices that, while reconstituting needed urban elements, remain nevertheless unsanctioned because of a rigid imaginary of how urban space ought to be lived. These practices exemplify how residents respond to existing material and institutional restrictions by adopting hidden and clandestine forms of urbanization that allow them to reconstitute their urban space. The Phoenix metropolitan region is used to illustrate these responses. The paper concludes with a call for a form of urban planning that is more adaptive and responsive to residents’ needs, aspirations, and desires.

Keywords:

• informality
• urban form
• urban design
• everyday practices
• tactics
• urban planning

Notes

1. A 50% below-county median income was used as the threshold for low-income households.

2. Not their real names.

3. Not her real name.