Urban Planning for City Leaders - Cities Alliance

Urban planning for city leadersMake informal settlementspart of the cityRevise planningapproaches that ignore theinformal sectorImproving informal settlements requiresshifting the approach from seeing themas a liability to seeing them as an asset.Rapid urbanization has overwhelmed manymunicipalities’ ability to provide serviced landto accommodate the influx of newcomers, butignoring this problem will not make it go away.Because informal settlements house a largepool of labour and microbusinesses, citywidestrategies that incorporate informal settlementsinto the formal city could reap importantbenefits for social cohesion, service delivery andemployment creation.Unrealistic regulations lead to informality.Zoning and building standards brought withminimal contextualisation from cities withdifferent socio-economic conditions contributeto market distortions and prevent largesegments of lower income households fromlegally secure land and housing. For example,plans with large plot sizes that are unaffordablefor lower income households, push thesepeople out of formal land and housing markets.This also fuels the demand for precariousdwellings on underserviced subdivisions thatare developed outside planning zones, often inhazardous areas.In Mumbai, India, 50 percent of the populationlive in Dharavi, one ofthe world’s largest slums.Dharavi’s annual economicoutput is estimated ataround USD 800 million andits manufacturing businessesexport goods worldwide. 101Informal development next to planned areas, Santo Domingo,Dominican Republic © UN Photo/M. GuthrieDharavi, Mumbai, India© Flickr/Mark Hillary90