Informal Cities

An empirically rich reconstruction of how informality became an intrinsic part of urban life across three continents. Over a quarter of the world's urban population lives in informal settlements. While informality as a concept has been widely debated, we still know very little about the phenomenon's urban history or how that history has shaped the evolution of world cities. Spotlighting the historical processes that have created and sustained urban informality for more than a century, editors Brodwyn Fischer and Charlotte Vorms and their contributors reveal informality as an intrinsic feature of urbanity, shaping not only cities across the globe but also deeper processes of state formation, socioeconomic stratification, and political struggle. The volume brings together case studies spanning more than a hundred years, drawn from Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, and Mexico), Northern Africa (Morocco and Algeria), and Latin Europe (France, Spain, and Italy). Together, they dispel the notion that informality is either a contemporary crisis or a predicament unique to the Global South. Topics range from the origins of informal settlement to their relationship with the law; from grassroots efforts to legitimize shantytown communities to mass social movements to entrench them; from the role that shantytown removal campaigns played in shoring up fascism or colonialism to ways that informality perpetuated racial and ethnic inequalities. Informal Cities is an indispensable guide to the complex and fraught terrain of urban informality in its many historical guises.