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.