Tag Archives: formal

Young Cities

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Informality is NOT exclusively a term for slums and poor cities. Although we have discussed informality within the context of the Global South, I believe that we need to remember that informality occurs within cities in Western Europe and the US. Architects have even shed light on this condition in what we may call cities of the Global North. For example, Rem Koolhaas describes in “Delirious New York” behavioral attributes within one of the most regulated cities in the world. Informality is a condition of human behavior and multitude of personalities colliding within a cluster of space. I believe that if the term “Informality” is going to be used specifically towards cities of the Global South, its definition must be detailed more towards slums or a new and more appropriate term must take its place.

Informal, by definition, means, not according to the prescribed, official, or customary way or manner. I believe that as many authors have mentioned, slums exude informality. I also believe that formal cities also exude informality. Not necessarily to the same amount but it is not strictly a quality of slums. There is a clear distinction between what these authors are calling the informal city and the formal city but I don’t believe that it is simply as black and white as formal verse informal. There must be something else that causes this disparity of formality.

Looking back through the histories of formal cities, there was a time when informality had a stronger presence within that society. For example, looking at Italian cities like Florence, before a ruling merchant controlled the entirety of Florence; the city was broken up into hundreds of tower houses that demarcated neighborhoods of powerful families. This same condition is seen in the favelas of Rio De Janiero as described by Daniela Fabricius in “Resisting Representation”. She explains, “If favelas are islands and the city is the sea, then that sea is filled with currents, routes tides…and pirates” (5). Although Florence is considered a formal city today, it was far from formal when it was still a young settlement.

Even age might not be the most appropriate term to explain what occurs in cities of the global south; but, I believe that it is getting at something beyond simply the formal verses the informal. There are slums and favelas which are now receiving infrastructure which made them, by definition, slums for not having them. I am starting to believe that it is just a matter of time before cities of the global south step towards the global north.

Urban Acupuncture

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“I began to wonder about the morality of a world that denies people jobs in their home areas and denies them homes in the areas where they have gone to get jobs.” (Neuwirth 12) As Robert Neuwirth does so in Shadow Cities, it is easy to ‘wonder about the morality’ of dozens of situations that we see in today’s world. Unfortunately, as cliche as it may sound, the world is an unforgiving place. While it is easy to wonder about humanity, it is more important to do something about it. When reading about the ‘slums’ across the world, I couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t a greater resistance against the creation of areas like Sultanbeyli. Similar to the January 2005 movement in Mumbai, where about 300,000 people were pushed out of the city, without a care as to where the evicted people would go. The sense to resist against these kinds of settlements would be based on the definition and notions towards a slum as being “laden with emotional values: decay, dirt, and disease.” (Neuwirth 16) This would be one way of looking at things.

The fact of the matter is that we are way passed that point. As John Beardsley explains, the “mass country-to-city migrations of the mid 20th century” is one of the underlying reasons as to the growing populations of cities, the lack of preparation by the government, and thus the result of what we know today as the ‘slums’. (Beardsley 55) One can question the morality of the way of life in slums and feel a sense of inhumanity, or, on the other side of the scale, have a sense of repulsion toward these places. However, the infrastructure of such places have been under construction for decades, and are a seemingly permanent way of life. The reality is that it works. The ‘informal sector exists. And it exists with a very strong foundation. In “the 1980s crisis … informal sector employment grew two to five times faster than formal sector jobs … in majority of Third World cities.” (Davis 178) This, to me, is an incredible statistic. It is not only incredible in the sense that a naturally growing informal sector can be so ‘successful’, but it is also incredible in the sense that these ‘slums’ are there. They are very much there and they are staying. Reading that fact, and recognizing the entrepreneurial aspect of the informal sector, it all of a sudden seems shameful to refer to these settlements as slums.

With the realization that these ‘slums’ are here to stay, what begins to interest me at this early point of this topic is the idea of the connection between these formal and informal cities; what Urban Think Tank refers to as the Urban Acupuncture. (Neuwirth 58) I currently live in Istanbul, and on a personal and emotional level, I might have a completely different response towards the ‘slums’, or the gecekondu, and the consequences these kinds of communities and the people living in them might bring to the city. However, on a macro scale, and on an objective level, there is no way of doing what Mumbai did in 2005 and kicking thousands of people out. There needs to be a some sort of realization and stances toward the urban acupuncture; whether this is blurring the boundary between the formal and the informal, or taking the existing boundaries and making them even taller.

Bibliography

Neuwirth, Robert. Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.

Beardsley, John. “A Billion Slum Dwellers and Counting.” Harvard Design Magazine Dec.-Jan. 2007/2008: 54-59. Print.

Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. London: Verso, 2006. Print.