) Formality : Tensions , Conflicts And Breakups In The Struggle To Belong ” Informality , Culture , and Informal Urban Development : a Comparative Study between Cairo and Istanbul (original) (raw)
Related papers
RC21: Resourceful cities
In Cairo and in Istanbul, as in many other cities of the global south, informal settlements are the product of a process of rapid uncontrolled urbanization, containing “inequality” in dealing with its citizens, and accompanied by the failing of government’s role in providing appropriate housing. Self-help/built settlements have been the alternative by the rural-urban migrants and urban poor to fulfill their need for housing. In cities such as Istanbul and Cairo, which have a pioneering role for the country in the global competition, informal areas have been largely ignored by neo-liberal state regimes (Sims, 2011). It is not a mere coincidence that in both cities almost 60-70% of their inhabitants live in such informal settlements. Rapoport has discussed in his different writings that culture and space correlate in urban form (1977, 1990). It is striking, how many similarities can be found in the formation of informal settlement of Istanbul and Cairo while studying the relation between culture and the urban development patterns. Yet, urban mismanagement in these cities affects daily life significantly in a negative way; new definitions of urban poverty arise, new ways of inequalities come to forth, and new traps of discrimination reveal. Lifestyle influences the organization of the city through whatever variables (ethnic, religion, class, and income) so that the city is a collection of different groups, and subcultures. Urban informality turned to be a “new” way of life (Al Sayyad, 2004). Comparing and exploring the relation between the development of informal settlements and culture is the aim of this research. This demands a critical reflection to the understanding of various disciplines such as cultural anthropology and urban sociology. Theories about informality and imperfection are to be criticized by trying to develop a new way of looking at informal settlements. Arguing that informality is not a choice. We believe that crossing through theories could benefit the understanding of informality and imperfection, not only in Cairo and Istanbul, but also in many other cities. The main research question will be: how the urban development of informal areas could be considered as the outcome of the interaction between cultural factors and the urban context within the struggle of global competition? Based on selected case study areas in Cairo and Istanbul, a comparative and qualitative exploratory fieldwork research using grounded theory will be presented: our observations will be introduced via photos, videosin addition to quotes from semi-structured interviews. This research concludes that “informality” is an outcome of interrelated cultural factors, which share in the urbanization of Cairo and Istanbul through interacting with the urban context of the area, including the “formal” system.
Informality, Culture, and Informal Urban Development: a Comparative Study between Cairo and Istanbul
In Cairo and in Istanbul, as in many other cities of the global south, informal settlements are the product of a process of rapid uncontrolled urbanization, containing “inequality” in dealing with its citizens, and accompanied by the failing of government’s role in providing appropriate housing. Self-help/built settlements have been the alternative by the rural-urban migrants and urban poor to fulfill their need for housing. In cities such as Istanbul and Cairo, which have a pioneering role for the country in the global competition, informal areas have been largely ignored by neo-liberal state regimes (Sims, 2011). It is not a mere coincidence that in both cities almost 60-70% of their inhabitants live in such informal settlements. Rapoport has discussed in his different writings that culture and space correlate in urban form (1977, 1990). It is striking, how many similarities can be found in the formation of informal settlement of Istanbul and Cairo while studying the relation between culture and the urban development patterns. Yet, urban mismanagement in these cities affects daily life significantly in a negative way; new definitions of urban poverty arise, new ways of inequalities come to forth, and new traps of discrimination reveal. Lifestyle influences the organization of the city through whatever variables (ethnic, religion, class, and income) so that the city is a collection of different groups, and subcultures. Urban informality turned to be a “new” way of life (Al Sayyad, 2004). Comparing and exploring the relation between the development of informal settlements and culture is the aim of this research. This demands a critical reflection to the understanding of various disciplines such as cultural anthropology and urban sociology. Theories about informality and imperfection are to be criticized by trying to develop a new way of looking at informal settlements. Arguing that informality is not a choice. We believe that crossing through theories could benefit the understanding of informality and imperfection, not only in Cairo and Istanbul, but also in many other cities. The main research question will be: how the urban development of informal areas could be considered as the outcome of the interaction between cultural factors and the urban context within the struggle of global competition? Based on selected case study areas in Cairo and Istanbul, a comparative and qualitative exploratory fieldwork research using grounded theory will be presented: our observations will be introduced via photos, videosin addition to quotes from semi-structured interviews. This research concludes that “informality” is an outcome of interrelated cultural factors, which share in the urbanization of Cairo and Istanbul through interacting with the urban context of the area, including the “formal” system
Berkeley Planning Journal
The phenomenon of urban informality has coincided with rapid urbanization in Turkey from the 1950s onward. By the urban transformation act that was presented in 2012, formal developments and activities have increased in informal areas. Although recent activities are legal/formal, they have caused the reproduction of informality in these areas. With focusing on this spontaneous collaboration of formal and informal activities, this article seeks to understand the new urban fabric that was created by formal and informal builders who are both rule-breakers and rule-makers. The research was carried out in the Güzeltepe neighborhood, a complex neighborhood with a mix of squatter houses and renewal areas. The field study was conducted from 2014 to 2017 with site visits, photo analysis, and archival research. We will reveal and discuss legalization and upgrading processes, and the effects of this transformation. We will then analyze how informality operates as a logic of urban life.
Spatial Relations of Informal Practices in Cairo
2013
The re-appropriation of public space by Cairo residents after the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 offers an opportunity to rethink the role of public space and its informal dimension as a space of belonging and contestation. Most of the scholarly works on urban informality focus on the lack of regulations in urban planning, on informal settlements or informal economy; this article discusses informality in the way it affects people daily life through forms of informal practices. By studying the spatial nature of daily informal practices, investigating how they interact with the physical form of the street and examining the complex relations between formal and informal, this paper suggests looking at informality from the perspective of people's everyday life. In attempting so, the work shows the importance of informal practices for the city functioning: they are not only a vital element for Cairo streetscape's vivacity, but a system of sustainable living for many communities. Moreover, in explaining that it argues that formality and informality no longer exist as opposite categories in two separate territories but instead they are involved in the same process of space production, which creates both spaces of dialogue and negotiation and spaces of conflict and contestation.
Cairo’s Informal Areas Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials
2009
The PDP (GIZ) has released the publication “Cairo’s Informal Areas Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials. Facts. Voices. Visions.” Published in July 2009, the book provides a comprehensive look at development in the informal areas of Greater Cairo, Egypt. It combines academic and journalistic articles, interviews and speeches as well as photographs by photojournalist Claudia Wiens depicting the daily lives of residents. Cairo’s Informal Areas aims to provide a better understanding of the residents of the informal settlements and stimulate further dialogue on urban development in those areas. It does this by presenting the perspectives of the various stakeholders involved in the process: residents of the informal settlements, governors, ministers, academics, consultants, and development Cairo’s Informal Areas also encourages decision-makers, investors, planners and academics to see the advantage of coordinated implementation that takes the needs of residents into consideration instead of top-down, separate planning efforts.
Cairo's Urban Code: Informality as a New Way of Life in the City
This Dissertation’s main focus surfaced when I became more exposed to Architecture and learned more about how cities function and grow. It has made me question the existence of these spreading settlements that are deemed by the government and the upper class of Egyptians, as ‘informal’ in the sense of lack of safety and basic services and infrastructure. I started questioning everything; while being an Egyptian citizen for all my life and living in Africa’s largest city. Growing up in the middle of the busy city of Greater Cairo, I began to realise how often one sees an informal settlement when in commute; these micro cities and societies that have been operating and existing in-between neighbourhoods and blocks for more than 50 years, started to become visible to me. I live in a neighbourhood that is considered formal, safe, and registered on the grid, but just 100 meters away, there’s a group of informal settlements that coexist. Over the summer of 2017, I spent some time visiting some of these settlements and studied the culture and the self-supporting community system that exists within. While these informal micro-cities lie on the country’s grid, they act as their own, almost separate, organism that operates within the cracks and crevices of the city. I also got a chance to relate to the people living there and create a bridge of communication between both informal and formal communities which allowed me to pick a more concentrated topic within the wider scope. The intention is to broaden the limited view of squatter settlements and informal communities around the world. The use of the term ‘informal city’ is the way of summarizing a lifestyle that has become a global phenomenon in recent years and explaining why architects should understand this particular urban practice. Informality is not a school of thought; there is a whole spectrum of views, based upon a narrative about the city between architects and non-architects and between ‘First’ and ‘Third’ world countries. The premise is that informal cities will serve as a base and of reference for evaluating the fundamental problems of cities today.
Juxtaposing the empirical findings of a qualitative research study of an urban transformation project in the Kadifekale squatter district of Izmir with the changed nature of urban politics in a neoliberal context, this article aims to trace the manifestations of the regime of informality in Turkey. Ethnographic consideration of the motives behind these projects, the way they have been carried out and their consequences for the lives of the inhabitants points to an extended space for informal politics tactically manoeuvred by state officials of various ranks. Particularly during the last two decades, neoliberal urban policies have triggered an intensification of power discrepancies in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions and a fragmentation of community structure in the localities — mainly along socioeconomic divides. This research reveals a transition from positive/passive to negative/active uses of informality in the disposition of the state towards the urban poor when the fast and efficient conduct of urban transformation projects is in question. The characteristics of the locality as a landslide zone, the already fragmented socioeconomic structure in the neighbourhood and the dense presence of Kurdish immigrants facilitate the putting into practice of informal strategies. The immigrants who cannot define a place for themselves in the simultaneously formal and informal context of the project have been seriously disadvantaged.