Melanie Lombard

Informality, the Commons and the Paradoxes for Planning: Concepts and Debates for Informality and Planning Self-Made Cities: Ordinary Informality? The Reordering of a Romany Neighbourhood The Land Formalisation Process and the Peri-Urban Zone of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Street Vendors and Planning in Indonesian Cities Informal Urbanism in the USA: New Challenges for Theory and Practice Engaging with Citizenship and Urban Struggle Through an Informality Lens

Land formalisation Formalising landholding through the issue of legal land titles has proved to be a seductive proposition for a number of governments in the global south during the first decade of the 21 century. Much of this thinking, and indeed policy development, has been based on Hernando De Soto’s conceptualisation of dead capital, perhaps most accessibly captured in The Mystery of Capital (De Soto, 2001). The argument has been very persuasive in some influential quarters, and not least in the World Bank, where land titling is seen particularly as having the potential to promote increased private investment within the poor countries of the global south (Keivani, Mattingly and Majedi, 2008).

Struggling, Suffering, Hoping, Waiting: Perceptions of Temporality in Two Informal Neighbourhoods in Mexico

Human geographys longstanding preoccupation with the intersection of time and space resonates with accounts of urban informal settlements which have indirectly highlighted change over time as a key characteristic; recent postcolonial urban research explores the implications of multiple and dynamic temporalities for marginalised groups in cities of the Global South. Drawing on these debates, this paper applies an explicit focus on the temporal dimension of space in the context of urban informal settlements. Despite decades of research into the marginalised, self-built neighbourhoods which house many urban poor residents in Global Southern cities, these settlements continue to be portrayed in terms of a reductive and simplistic formal/informal dualism, meaning they are often treated as outside ‘normal’ urban considerations. Based on research in two informal settlements in Xalapa, Mexico, this paper explores residents perceptions of change over time in order to reveal the multiple temporalities that exist within the city and across these neighbourhoods, offering alternatives to dominant marginalising discourses through the construction of identity over time, and time-bound tactics of resistance. These narratives are contextualised by constraints expressed in diverging or ambivalent accounts; but they suggest going beyond dualistic or nostalgic discourses to frame these neighbourhoods as places in the city.

Urban land conflict in the Global South: Towards an analytical framework

In cities of the Global South, access to land is a pressing concern. Typically neither states nor markets provide suitable land for all users, especially low-income households. In the context of urban growth and inequality, acute competition for land and the regulatory failures of states often result in conflict, which is sometimes violent, affecting urban authorities and residents. Conflicts are often mentioned in analyses of urban land, but rarely examined in depth. This paper develops a framework for land conflict analysis, drawing on relevant literature and the papers in this special issue. In order to explore the drivers, dynamics and outcomes of urban land conflicts, diverse disciplinary perspectives are discussed, including environmental security, political ecology, legal anthropology, land governance, conflict analysis and management, and urban conflict and violence. The papers focus on conflicts in the peri-urban areas of Xalapa, Mexico, and Juba, South Sudan, and during informal settlement upgrading in eThekwini (Durban), South Africa, and Nairobi. A second paper on South Africa examines how current tenure law reflects the characteristics and outcomes of previous conflicts. We suggest that an analytical framework needs, first, to consider definitional categories, including the material and emotional dimensions of access to land, conflict and violence, and tenure. Second, it needs to identify and examine the interests and behaviour of the many actors involved in urban land conflicts. And third, it needs to analyse the interactions and relationships between those involved at different levels, from the individual/household, through the local to the citywide, national and international.

Land conflict in peri-urban areas: Exploring the effects of land reform on informal settlement in Mexico

Peri-urban areas are often subject to intensive construction, through both formal and informal processes. As land transitions from rural to urban status, different land tenure and administration systems may come into conflict, leading to disputes, contestation and, in some cases, violence. However, little is known about the precise causes of peri-urban land conflict. In Mexico, peri-urban growth has historically proceeded peacefully, owing to the control exerted by a corporatist system of government, and the political use of land tenure regularisation. However, the effects of land reforms on transactions at the peri-urban fringe, in the context of wider processes of liberalisation, may be increasing vulnerability to conflict over land. This paper explores these issues through a case study of an irregular settlement on the peri-urban fringe of the provincial Mexican city of Xalapa, where contestations over informally developed land have escalated into violent encounters between groups of settlers and the state. The findings show that vulnerability to conflict in peri-urban areas can be attributed to the interaction of macro-level processes with local-level factors, including diverse claims, overlapping legal and governance frameworks and, critically, local power relations.