Shanty town
An informal settlement, also marginal settlement or inaccurate slum is a settlement, often near or within a city, which is composed mainly or exclusively of makeshift accommodation. In everyday language, the term slum is needed, but traditionally run-down neighborhood of the core city are referred to with this word, while new informal settlements, unplanned " district " are completely in the suburbs.
In most countries, settlements are only referred to as informal, if the land is not released. Sometimes it is also a distinction between informal and irregular settlements, in the informal settlements not a legal land ownership on the part of the inhabitants consists in the irregular settlements, however, the ownership is disputed. However, there are often regular neighborhood in which prevail equally poor infrastructural conditions as in the actual informal settlements. These are in the vernacular often referred to with the same term, as in the case of Villa Miseria in Argentina.
Informal settlements in different countries have different characteristics and its own name: In Argentina they are called Villa Miseria in Brazil Favela, & Youth in Peru Pueblos and Asentamientos Humanos (see also Barriadas ) in Chile Poblaciones in Ecuador Invasiones and Turkey Gecekondu. Other names are Bidonville in Francophone Africa, katchi abadi in Pakistan and Shantytown in the English-speaking world.
Characteristics
Informal settlements exist in many cities in developing countries, they are also in some developed countries. For example, estimated that in the metropolitan area of Madrid lived 5,000 people (about 0.1 % of the population ) living in informal settlements in 2006. Also, in some German cities - Berlin about - there is with the Mobile Home Place this cost settlement option. In developing countries, however, these figures are much higher. To live in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires ( Argentina) about 1.1 million people (9 % of the population ) living in informal settlements, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil ), about 19% and in some African cities, over 50%.
Most informal settlements have only between 10 and 1000 inhabitants, but there are also settlements in some large cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Comas about, a poor suburb of Lima, has nearly half a million inhabitants. However, such large informal settlements usually develop already a heterogeneous structure and are slowly added to a city 's or a group of neighborhoods with different socio - economic strata, which also entails a fundamental relations be legalized step by step. A particularly good example is El Alto in Bolivia, which has evolved from an informal settlement of La Paz at an independent suburb with its own town.
Development
In most cases, informal settlements in developing countries develop according to the following pattern: A few families build spontaneously provisional, constructed from wood, cardboard and corrugated iron dwellings on a site, which belongs to the state or to an owner who does not use the site. Also derelict buildings, derelict abandoned buildings and even railroad cars parked in dilapidated train stations can develop into informal settlements follow the same pattern. Especially in the case of unused state campuses these residents are lack of control options often tolerated for months. Gradually, the new settlement gets around and is populated by more and more families, the population density increases. At the same time usually the buildings improved, so that the cores of the settlements usually now have brick houses and some even paved roads, which is also the fact that there are often government projects that specifically improve the infrastructure in such settlements, such as in the case the Brazilian Favela Bairro project and the Argentine Promeba.
Contrary to a popular belief informal settlements rarely have a higher crime rate than other neighborhoods. Nevertheless, some of the larger settlements, particularly in emerging markets such as Brazil often a place where criminals unseen " submerge " can, which is why drug trafficking and arms trafficking often concentrate in such settlements. Partial form there mafia -like structures of power out, which can be controlled either by the police or other government organizations efficiently as the residents are under the pressure of an illegal organization. Through the construction of cultural centers, community halls, the foundation of dance and music groups, sports and other things, the state therefore often tried to contact with the population in other ways and overturn this way the organizations, but this also does not always succeed.