Slums

Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work shows that unauthorized settlements in rapidly growing cities are not divorced from market forces; rather, they must be understood as complex environments where state policies and market actors play a role.

Large numbers of people in urbanizing regions in the developing world live and work in unplanned settlements that grow through incremental processes of squatting and self-building. Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work shows that unauthorized settlements in rapidly growing cities are not divorced from market forces; rather, they must be understood as complex environments where state policies and market actors still do play a role. In this volume, contributors examine how the form and function of informal real estate markets are shaped by legal systems governing property rights, by national and local policy, and by historical and geographic particularities of specific neighborhoods. Their essays provide detailed portraits of individuals and community organizations, revealing in granular detail the working of informal real estate markets, and they review programs that have been implemented in unconventional settlements to provide lessons about the effectiveness and implementation challenges of different approaches.

Chapters explore the relationships between informality, state policies, and market forces from a range of disciplinary perspectives and on different scales, from an analysis of the relationship between regulations and housing in 600 developing world cities to an ethnographic account of the buying and selling of houses in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. While many of the book's contributors focus on the emerging economies of India and Brazil, the conclusions drawn illustrate dynamics relevant to developing countries throughout the Global South. The diversity of perspectives combines to create a rich understanding of an important, complex, and understudied topic.

Contributors: Arthur Acolin, Sai Balakrishnan, Eugenie L. Birch, José Brakarz, Shahana Chattaraj, Sebastian Galiani, David Gouverneur, Yvonne Mautner, Paavo Monkkonen, Vinit Mukhija, Janice E. Perlman, Lucas Ronconi, Bish Sanyal, Ernesto Schargrodsky, Patrícia Cezário Silva, Susan M. Wachter.

Preface

PART I. COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES
Chapter 1. Urban Governance and Development of Informality in China and India
—Arthur Acolin, Shahana Chattaraj, and Susan M. Wachter
Chapter 2. Comparative Evidence on Urban Land-Use Regulation Bureaucracy in Developing Countries
—Paavo Monkkonen and Lucas Ronconi
Chapter 3. Urban Land Titling: Lessons from a Natural Experiment
—Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky

PART II. ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Chapter 4. The Formalization of Informal Real Estate Transactions in Rio's Favelas
—Janice E. Perlman
Chapter 5. Tenure Regularization Programs in Favelas in Brazil
—Patricia Cezario Silva and Yvonne Mautner
Chapter 6. Property Markets Without Property Rights: Dharavi's Informal Real Estate Market
—Shahana Chattaraj
Chapter 7. Periurban Land Markets in the Bangalore Region
—Sai Balakrishnan

PART III. PUBLIC POLICY PERSPECTIVES
Chapter 8. Rehousing Mumbai: Formulizing Slum Land Markets Through Redevelopment
—Vinit Mukhija
Chapter 9. Tenure Regularization: Process and Experiences in Latin America
—José Brakarz
Chapter 10. Making a Difference in the Predominantly Informal City
—David Gouverneur

Chapter 11. Informal Land Markets: Perspectives for Policy
—Bish Sanyal

Notes
References
List of Contributors
Index