ABSTRACT
The informal city consists of squatter settlements, clandestine subdivisions, invaded residential and commercial buildings, provisional housing for refugees or migrant workers, and often degraded “social housing” complexes. These communities account for some 40 percent of the total urban popula-
tion of the South, including 41 percent in Mumbai and 47 percent in Nairobi. Residents typically lack basic urban services (water and sanitation, electricity, paved roadways) and security of tenure, including official title to homes or land and freedom from eviction. Even where informal communities have urban infrastructure and de facto rights to use the land, they remain stigmatized spaces, while the low-cost labor of their residents helps sustain life’s daydream for the privileged in the formal city.2
