Informality through Sustainability: Urban Informality Now

Informality through Sustainability explores the phenomenon of informality within urban settlements and aims to unravel the subtle links between informal settlements and sustainability. Penetrating its global profile and considering urban informality through an understanding of local implications, the authors collectively reveal specific correlations between sites and their local inhabitants. The book opposes simplistic calls to legalise informal settlements or to view them as ‘problems’ to be solved. It comes at a time when common notions of ‘informality’ are being increasingly challenged. In 25 chapters, the book presents contributions from well-known scholars and practitioners whose theoretical or practical work addresses informality and sustainability at various levels, from city planning and urban design to public space and architectural education. Whilst previous studies on informal settlements have mainly focused on cases in developing countries, approaching the topic through social, cultural and material dimensions, the book explores the concept across a range of contexts, including former Communist countries and those in the so-called Global North. Contributions also explore understandings of informality at various scalar levels – region, precinct, neighbourhood and individual building. Thus, this work helps reposition informality as a relational concept at various scales of urbanisation. This book will be of great benefit to planners, architects, researchers and policymakers interested in the interplay between informality and sustainability.

Table of Contents:
Preface David Turnbull Introduction Antonino Di Raimo, Steffen Lehmann and Alessandro Melis Part 1 Part 1. Introduction - What does Informality have to say to Architecture?: Decolonising the Enquire and the Enquirer Antonino Di Raimo 1. Visualizing the Political: Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, in conversation with Kathy Waghorn Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, in conversation with Kathy Waghorn 2. From a Marxist Arcadia to High-tech Favelas: The Latency of Informality in Archizoom and Andrea Branzi Pablo Martínez Capdevila 3. "I’m an imposter" [a Gödel-Cassandra incompleteness] François Roche - New-Territories 4. Informality and Dissent: The Culture of Self-sufficiency of the American Rural Poor David Franco Santa Cruz 5. The Urbanism of Individual Arrangements: Understanding Specific Realities - The Case of Tirana Sotir Dhamo 6. Informality and Temporary Appropriation in Atlanta as a Prototype for Resilient Communities William Carpenter 7. Effected Butterflies: Informal Urban Migration of Monarchs and Humans Across the US-Mexico Border Mitchell Joachim and Nicholas Gervasi 8. Informality and Commons Simone Sfriso, Massimo Lepore, Raul Pantaleo, Barbora Foerster Part 2 Part 2. Introduction - Informality as a Mode of Sustainability Steffen Lehmann 9. The Self-Organising City and Its Modus Operandi: Informal Urbanism and Public Space Steffen Lehmann 10. Housing the Majority, Destroying Agrarian Land: The Irreconcilable Dilemma of Cairo’s Informal areas Charlotte Malterre-Barthes 11. Informality and Mass Housing in Seoul: The Role of Informal Settlements in the Formation of Megaprojects Dario Pedrabissi 12. The Role of Adaptation in Changing the Micro-Morphology of Informal Settlements Paul Jones 13. Urban (in)formality and the New Unsustainable Landscape of the Global South: Case Study of Megacity Dhaka Mohammad S,H, Swapan, Atiq Zaman and Steffen Lehmann 14. Landscape - Infrastructure: Formal - informal Entanglements across Political Ecologies of Resource Use Daniela Perrotti 15. ‘AQUI ESTAMOS Y NO NOS VAMOS’: Contested Ground, Sustainable Informal Settlement and Human Consequence in the Urban Landscape of South Los Angeles Danny H. Ortega 16. The Hill and the Asphalt: a 50-year Perspective on Informality in Rio de Janeiro Janice Perlman Part 3 Part 3. Introduction - Informal Behavior as a Form of Community Resilience Alessandro Melis 17. Informal Microclimates: Study on Self-Built Settlements and Human Comfort in Amman Ata Chokhachian, Daniele Santucci, Thomas Auer 18. Urban Form of Informal Settlements in the Western Balkans Dorina Pojani 19. Understanding Temporary Appropriation and the Streetscape Design: The case of Algiers, Auckland and Mexico City J. Antonio Lara- Hernandez, M. Yazid Khemri and Alessandro Melis 20. Reinventing City Planning in a Context that "Hates" Planning!: A New Role for Architects, City Planners, and Institutions Besnik Aliaj 21. Roman Lessons: What if Informality was not a bug to be Corrected but a Bacterium Capable of Reactivating a Dormant Urban Metabolism? Alessandra Lai and Francesco Careri 22. Informality in Formality: The Case of a Neighbourhood in a Nigerian City Olufunto, Ayoola, Melis 23. Achieving Community Resilience through Informal Urban Practices: The Case of El Houma in Algiers Yazid Khemri and Alessandro Melis 24. Learning Place Attachment from the Informal City Cristina Dreifuss 25. Designing the "Off-Grid" City: Empowering the Transactions of Infrastructure Aseem Inam Index