Pugh, Cedric. ‘Squatter Settlements: Their Sustainability, Architectural Contributions, and Socio-Economic Roles’, in Cities, Vol. 17, No. 5, 2000, pp. 325-337.
Summary:
As suggested by the title Cedric Pugh focuses on the socio-economic roles, sustainability and architectural contributions of squatter settlements. “30-70% of the housing stock in many cities and towns in developing countries… [comprises squatter settlements due to inadequate] housing finance systems and land development…demographic growth and mass poverty” (p 325). The agendas of many aid agencies and governments tend to be to improve sanitary services, health, poverty, and urban environments with the legitimacy of rights to property and occupancy as the root to many over-arching problems. The improvement or rehabilitation processes reveal the importance of social and power relations in changing people’s attitudes at both community and institutional policy levels.
Notes from the text:
Household income is very important for the notion of ‘self-help’: “as household incomes increase self-build recedes and self-help with its relational contracting with builders increases” (ibid). Households tend to improve their homes incrementally “by replacing inferior with superior materials, adding rooms and workshops, and sometimes personalising their outside space” (ibid).
These household improvements tend to be enhanced by upgrading of services infrastructures and tenure. Sustainable improvements will lead to more sustainable communities with high social and economic values and opportunities.
Health problems are a major problem which tends to lead to undernutrition. It affects people’s ability to work and reduces social opportunities; this is ultimately caused by poverty and living conditions.
There is an inadequate housing supply to meet the demand: “squatter settlements house moderate and middle-income groups, as well as the poor and poorest of the poor… [this reflects] mass poverty, underdeveloped housing finance systems, and inadequacies in land policy and land delivery systems” (p 326).
A settlement’s strength and ability to influence is reflected in the nature of its size, structure and internal organisation of the community. Strong leadership and organisation can lead to negotiation with politicians and governing bodies to bring improvements to their settlements.
Improvements may increase the value of land but it also means that it could also increase the social and economic value of the land (although not always). Consequently, it could mean that not all residents may be able to afford to live on land with increased economic value, if it meant increases in rental values.
Two key theorists are important in the discussion of the paper; Abrams and Turner. Abrams “favoured in situ slum improvement and “instalment construction”…[while Turner believed in] humans’ self-fulfilment..and expressing things of value in their lives” (p 326-327).
Turner noticed that incremental improvements to housing were made according to the affordability of households to do so.
The importance of funding and financial assistance for the implementation of development processes can help materialise the concept of self-help in housing and environmental upgrading.
There were two important international conferences to note; the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro and the 1996 Habitat II meeting by UN Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) Habitat Agenda in Istanbul. Agenda 21 was the focus of discussions comprising a set of guidelines for sustainable urban development which led to the conception of a new approach – the Environmental Planning and Management (EPM). The EPM envisaged the creation of “new institutions and capacities for urban environmental improvement” (p 327).
The World Bank’s response to the needs of policy changes occurred in three marked eras 1972-82, 1983-93, and Post-1993. During the 1972-82 decade the World Bank adapted Tuner’s theory to formulate policies for slum upgrading with core principles based on replicability, cost recovery and affordability. The following decade, 1983-93, saw the World Bank’s housing policies became more programmatic; it acknowledge institutional reform and widening support to project management as wells urban policies and development programmes, the limiting nature of “geographically delineated projects” and utilising alternative methods of implementing housing programmes (p 327-328).
The Post-1993 era comprised World Bank’s housing policy reform to comprise a seven point programme with a strategic plan to gain from economic returns:
- Housing finance systems to be further developed
- Backlogs and inadequacies in infrastructure to be given more significance
- Land management and land policy reforms to maintain development progress
- Regulatory audits recommended to accelerate supplies especially for low-income housing
- Competitive efficiency of the construction industry monitored
- Targeted subsidies appropriate for the poor
- Further attention to internationally loaded reform
The notion of ‘enablement’ is “about the state creating the legal, institutional, economic, financial and social frameworks to enhance economic efficiency and social effectiveness in the development of the housing sector” (p 328).
“An ideal enablement set of principles would bring together technical know-how, a broad participatory approach among residents with wide social inclusion, capability in urban development authorities, and a set of rules whereby each partner would know its responsibilities” (ibid).
A complex process involving a variety of stakeholders encouraged a multidisciplinary approach to development. Collaboration and collective participation was crucial in development processes. Builders, land policies, legal administration systems and housing finance institutions need to collaborate in order to enable pro-poor and egalitarian elements to work. The idea was to review and refresh the Washington Consensus leading to a more holistic policy approach incorporating “cross-sector, society-wide transformations” (p 329).
The requirements of good practice for upgrading squatter settlements should include the value of self-help at both individual and community levels, this value may change according to inflation rates but needs to be regarded with a great deal of importance. It is also important to note that upgrading settlements adds value to the social, economic and health benefits of a community, leading to rehabilitation.
“Rehabilitation is preferred when its standards provide for an extended life…where the existing structure has real value” (p 330).
The characteristics of self-help housing include the value of labour which is considered a saving: “the incremental building and improvement distributes the affordable consumption and saving over time” (ibid). It’s worth noting that informal money lenders tend to be a more flexible and feasible option than private sector financers for the urban poor, often using their savings to fund housing improvements.
McGranahan et al. developed a set of technical-professional forms of evaluations to assess the possible squatter settlement upgrading:
- A “broad spectrum survey” which is essentially a socio-economic demographic survey whereby each household would be examined along with their statements for health and environmental problems within their neighbourhoods
- A “participatory rapid assessment” which comprises the perceptions of residents and stakeholders in regards to the selection and planning of criteria for improvement targets and how they should be implemented
- “contingent valuation analyses” which is basically the value that residents place on issues such as social facilities, upgraded pathways, access roads, sewerage systems, drainage and piped water.
NOTE: is this something we could incorporate in our Bangkok field work?
GIS and digital satellite mappings of fieldwork and surveys is a good way of analysing survey data spatially.
What leads people to improve their homes? What value is placed on the home? “It was the “meaning” residents attached to their feelings that led them to improve design, make plantings, and express the meanings in the interior and external areas” (p 331).
There are a number things that can be done to make a sustainable community: the formation of a neighbourhood group can enable the community to negotiate with local authorities to obtain services to houses, improve their homes through incremental build using own labour at first but then depending on their financial situation contract local builders for long-term security. It ultimately leads to land security and a sense of belonging to a place and community.
Pugh uses the example of two settlements notably San Rafael in the District of San Miguel in Mexico and the Klong Toey settlement in Bangkok. The Klong Toey community organised itself to negotiate for infrastructural improvements. The community “extended self-help from individualised efforts in family housing to collective community self-help in environmental improvements” (p 332). Housing and infrastructural improvements were implemented over a period of time. “Klong Toey…has been community led and improved within the precepts of sustainable development” (ibid).
It is apparent that upgrading squatter settlements have aspects of architectural intuition:
“For Unwin, architecture is about human drive, visions, and interest, and it is mostly about the identification of space” (ibid), a term that relates to “use, occupancy, and meaning of living” (ibid).
“Architecture is also political, revealing beliefs, aspirations, and a view of the world” (ibid).
“Often squatter settlements are localised in relationships to culture, to environmental change, and to the sharing of knowledge about design and construction” (ibid).
An informal shack dwelling is just as architecturally viable as one designed professionally in a civic space. Therefore it becomes clear that “squatter settlement and built form are simultaneously societal, cultural, economic, political, and architectural” (ibid).
Concluding quotes:
“Assisted self-help housing is an important part of overall housing policy in developing countries, but most self-help housing is spontaneous, and not assisted by the state” (p 333).
Change in World Bank policies: “In the context of “learning by doing” the Bank changed its method of provision from geographically delineated projects, first to programmatic approaches mediated through housing finance systems and municipal funds, and subsequently new directions in development policies in 1999” (ibid).
“…in settled squatter areas economic value is added to urban assets and residents add aesthetic and personal expression to their houses and neighbourhoods” (ibid).
Household economics makes a contribution to wider economic activity: “…housing is viewed as the central social and economic asset in the “domestic sector”…in which capital, resources, time and energy are used for things such as housework, cooking, recreation, childrearing, and housing and environmental improvement” (ibid).
“In effect, the domestic, commercial (private), and the public sectors are interdependent and co-ordinate in economic and social development” (ibid).
Self-help “is central in socio-economic, political, environmental and developmental sustainability” (p 334).
A list of seven theoretical guidelines are listed and explained on page 334. “The theoretical guidelines are dependent for their effectiveness on good performances in national and local economies, in progressive social development, in conducive state-market-society relationships, and the leadership and institutional capability” (ibid).
According to Amartya Sen, “poverty is about the deprivation of capability, that development requires the expansion of social opportunity in markets, in state policy, and in households, and that all of this centres upon the freedom of individuals to choose values and lives worth to them” (p 335).
“All of markets, states and households are necessary in socio-economic terms, and the state’s welfare roles extend beyond tax-transfer systems to institutional reform, to social and private property rights, and to qualities of governance” (ibid).
Actors:
Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, UNCHS, Housing Development Finance Corporation, Local Government, Klong Toey community, Port Authority of Thailand
BU3 Field Trip Reading Analyses 