ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the contexts of spatial illegality and auto-construction, focusing on the determination of legitimate urban residence. It then shows how such illegality endangers secure tenure and hinders access to water in urban areas and lays out the Intent to Reside Framework. Residence is a key vector in determining what happens to individual households within a basti, and not just to the basti itself. This becomes starkly clear often when any attempt is made to intervene into an auto-constructed landscape, say to try to develop/redevelop them or offer some form of tenure legalisation. This moment is a double-edged sword for settlements, as multiple lines of exclusions and inclusions emerge. The intent to reside (ITR) approach works on embracing universal (or quasi-universal) entitlements through evidence of an intention to reside in the city that includes residents at an early stage of this residence.
