An Overlooked Phenomenon? Reflecting on Elite Housing Informality and its Potential Sustainability Implications

Abstract

Urban informality is one of the most hotly debated concepts in the fields of geography and urban studies. However, one narrative that has assumed hegemony and dominated conventional scholarship is the view that it is peculiar to the urban poor or subaltern group. In this paper, I contend that little to no empirical attention has been paid to an essential piece of the conceptual mosaic of informality. I reflect on housing informality by elites or upper-income urbanites and highlight its associated Janus-faced governance approach. I argue that the deliberate disregard and legitimization of elite informal developments pose crucial sustainability implications.

Introduction

Over the past few years, the global discourse on urban informality has been expanding rapidly. A cursory search in research repositories and databases such as Web of Science and Scopus retrieves thousands of publications (some examples of recent thought-provoking studies include Amoako et al. 2023; Azunre et al. 2021, 2022; Banks, Lombard, and Mitlin 2020; Chiodelli 2019; Chiodelli, Caramaschi, and Grazioli 2023; Cobbinah 2023; Finn and Cobbinah 2023; Moyo and Gumbo 2018; Potts 2023; Sharp 2021; Streule et al. 2020; Swapan and Khan 2021). The spiraling amount of scholarly works illustrates the rapidity with which the concept has grown. Importantly, this has helped shape and frame mainstream urban thinking, policy, and practice (Cobbinah 2023).

While informality has a diverse and rich body of literature, I maintain that some aspects of the discourse have been systematically overlooked and not given critical empirical attention. About two decades ago, critical postcolonial scholars, such as Roy (2005), hinted at an emerging and “quiet” form of informality lurking in the background. Roy and many others noted that informality was not a practice confined to the “subaltern” class or the urban poor. Quite surprisingly, recent studies continue to correlate informality (specifically housing informality) with poverty. Put differently, many past and current scholarly works territorialize informality and thus equate it to the living quarters of the urban poor or marginalized urbanites. Consequently, the terms informal settlement, informal urbanism, and informal urbanization are synonymized with slums and the practices of the urban poor (see some examples, Amoako and Boamah 2017; Azunre et al. 2022; Basile 2022; Deuskar 2019; Huchzermeyer 2011; Quaye et al. 2022; Stiphany, Ward, and Perez 2022; Zapata Campos et al. 2022). In this article, I argue that this creates a conceptual blind spot that restrains critical engagements with the phenomenological variety and plurality of housing informality.

Before going on, I want to emphasize that my goal is not to berate or undermine the quality or usefulness of the afore-cited studies. On the contrary, these studies are crucial to unpacking the complex arena of informality by the poor. The crux of my argument revolves around the apparent skewness in the discourse where scholars and practitioners seemingly miss the widespread informal practices perpetuated rather “boldly” and openly by elites and high-income households. Some scholars (Roy 2005; Roy and AlSayyad 2004) refer to this practice as “elite informality.” Others (Moatasim 2019) call it “entitled urbanism.” To the best of my knowledge, only a handful of studies in recent years (see e.g., Martínez 2021; Martínez and Chiodelli 2021; Moatasim 2019; Pow 2017) have empirically explored this phenomenon.

The failure to touch on this dynamic has led to the sustained conceptualization of the entirety of informality as hidden, underground, filthy, illegal ¹ , and, therefore, an aberration and a crime. This notion is colonial-rooted and emanates from the developed or Western world (Olajide 2023). Some widely known earlier works that typify this notion are Hall and Pfeiffer's (2000) book entitled Urban Future 21: A Global Agenda for twenty-first Century Cities, Davis’ (2006) book titled Planet of Slums and Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. These works described informality as a practice of the poor and antithetical to the modern city. La Porta and Shleifer (2014) note that the narratives in these works were “parasitic,” while Roy (2011) suggests they were “dystopian and apocalyptic.”

Lately, such discourses have taken on a whole new dimension and intensity. In a recent paper (see Azunre and Boateng 2023), it is shown that dystopian conceptions of informality in Africa and Ghana have centered on the urban poor and have been evoked to symbolically legitimize and justify the violent evictions of marginalized neighborhoods and economic sites. For instance, in the Old Fadama community in Accra, Ghana, the state and city authorities constantly weaponize languages and rhetorics of “filth,” “crime,” and “national security threat” to give false clarity to violent evictions as inevitable or natural solutions to poor informal communities.

Against this wider background, in this contribution, I put into sharper focus the Janus-faced mode of governing informality that depicts double standards. While the informal actions of the poor are criminalized, the informal activities of the rich are not. Yiftachel (2009) calls this the “blackening” and “whitening” of gray spaces. However, this whitening of upper-class gray spaces is not without ripple effects. Urban planning scholars and practitioners must be cognizant of the sustainability implications.

Centering Housing Informality: A Brief Overview of the Literature

Urban informality is a prevalent multidisciplinary concept discussed in academic and political arenas. It has become so ubiquitous that its application now cuts across multiple academic disciplines such as geography, economics, sociology, and anthropology (Finn 2023). Earlier scholarly works (e.g., Boeke 1953; Geertz 1963; Lewis 1954) provided a solid foundation for the later explicit theorization of informality. However, I agree with Finn (2023) that the historical ontology and instantiation of the term predates the 1950s and 1960s, and even colonization.

Nevertheless, intense critical debates have emerged about its interpretation and utility. More recently, there have been resounding calls for more historicized explanations of informality (Potts 2023). Despite the wealth of literature, informality has gradually become so fragmented that, to paraphrase Purcell (2014, 1), albeit extrapolating from a different context, it “seems to be at the same time everything and nothing.” This has led several scholars to describe it as challenging to grasp because of its nature and putative “lack” of form (Finn and Cobbinah 2023). Others have been sterner by suggesting it is a “chaotic” concept (Roy 2015, 818).

Generally speaking, informality is a shorthand that describes a multiplicity of urban realities pertaining to governance, the state, the economy, transportation, and land management. However, much of the academic debate on informality has been anchored on two domains: (1) economic informality and (2) housing informality. Keith Hart is the progenitor of economic informality with his research on Ghana's urban economy in the post-independence period. Hart (1973, 68) broached the concept of an “informal sector” by designating it as a “world of economic activities outside the organised labour force.” Around this time, the International Labour Organization (ILO) corroborated Hart's original conceptualization in their study of Kenyan workers (see ILO 1972). Concepts such as informal employment and informal economy were later introduced to facilitate statistical enumerations. Overall, economic informality tends to encapsulate activities, enterprises, and employees that operate outside the legal framework of countries and are often omitted from official statistics (Chen 2012).

The second central domain of informality is housing informality. This is where the arguments of this article lie. The genesis of the concept of housing informality can be traced to the works of the renowned scholars Charles Abrams, William Mangin, and John F.C. Turner. They wrote extensively about the self-help and ingenious strategies of poor people to incrementally build their housing (see Abrams 1964; Mangin 1967; Turner and Fichter 1972). Consequently, the terms slums, informal settlements, squatter settlements (barriadas in the case of Turner's work in Peru), and inner-city settlements are commonly used to refer to the by-product of housing informality. Such communities are created through microspatial developments outside the remit of formal planning regulations, such as building standard regulations, land use maps, and zoning laws (Khan, Lintelo, and Macgregor 2023; Mahabir et al. 2016). As I noted above, empirical research that looks at housing informality has continued to correlate it primarily with the practices of the urban poor. Contrarily, other groups (e.g., powerful elite actors and middle-class households) also engage in informal housing practices, which appear to have received little or no critical attention and exploration.

Elite Housing Informality and Informality Beyond Poverty

I concur with Roy (2005) that there is an apparent paradox on which the informality scholarship sits: Even though, according to UN-Habitat (2020), 96% of the global urban population growth by 2050 is expected to take place in the developing world (e.g., Africa), many of the theories of how cities should function remain rooted in the developed world. Thus, there is a clarion call to dislocate and relocate urban theory production (Palat Narayanan 2022). This will help unpack the pluralities of urban informality and identify the productive sustainability roles of informality by the poor. This “southern turn” has been supported by several postcolonial scholars such as Jennifer Robinson and the late Vanessa Watson (see e.g., de Satgé and Watson 2018; Robinson 2002; Watson 2009). The project of relocating theory production has stimulated interesting perspectives about urban informality. They provide the much-needed theoretical framework and anchors to support my position that informality transcends the poor.

One crucial perspective that helps move the discourse of informality beyond its static conceptualization as being correlated to poverty is to view it as a mode of urbanization (Porter 2011; Roy 2005). Viewing it as a mode of urbanization will lead to its reading as an organizing logic, a system of norms that governs the process of urban transformation itself (AlSayyad 2004). This logic “…operates through the constant negotiability of value and the unmapping of space” (Alsayyad and Roy 2004, 5). Therefore, informality is not constrained as only a “way of life” but is seen relationally to “all” forms of urban development that shape and construct those ways of life (Porter 2011). In other words, it encompasses several actors and stakeholders, not only the urban poor, engaging in transforming urban and periurban spaces.

Seen this way, informality can also be articulated as a “site of critical analysis” (Banks, Lombard, and Mitlin 2020). Informality ought to be analyzed through the political economy lens of winners and losers of urban development, and how advantage/disadvantage is conferred. Banks, Lombard, and Mitlin (2020) state that informality is much more than the absence of rules or regulations. As mentioned earlier, several scholars tend to reduce informality to the actions of the urban poor or the subaltern because of their conspicuous socioenvironmental challenges. However, reading it as a site of critical analysis and as a mode of urbanization reveals the powerful groups and actors involved in shaping urban experiences and realities.

Urban informality continues to be practiced and perpetuated by elites, mafia-like groups, and politicians. For instance, there is an emerging empirical body of literature on elite informality, where affluent urbanites engage in “informal” housing constructions (see Martínez 2021; Martínez and Chiodelli 2021; Moatasim 2019; Pow 2017). A compelling example is Bogota, Colombia, where upper-income residents have constructed their homes in the protected forest area of the eastern hills (Martínez and Chiodelli 2021). Moatasim (2019) similarly reports on the complex politics and history of an elite informal neighborhood in Islamabad, Pakistan. Some years ago, Weinstein (2008, 23) detailed how various shopping centers and malls in Mumbai, India, were “built illegally…by the city's largest and most notorious mafia organization, on land belonging to the state government's public works department.” Even in Global North countries like Italy, this form of informality is prevalent (see Chiodelli 2019). Yet, this is not a new phenomenon. Roy's (2005) seminal study alluded to informal gated communities that splinter the urban landscapes or create what is referred to as “hermetically sealed secessionary spaces” (Graham and Marvin 2001, 222).

A noteworthy point is the Janus-faced governance approach to informality. Elite housing informality receives a different narrative and attitude than housing informality by the poor. The state “bends the rules” and creates “spaces of exception,” allowing politico-bureaucratic elites to operate. This “whitening” of elite informality further entrenches the privileged status of housing developers and super-rich inhabitants and augments inequalities. This resonates with Roy's (2005, 147) argument of “informality as a state of exception.” The state plays a vital role in defining informality. In other words, informality is not a force outside of the state.

On the contrary, state powers often determine what is informal and what is not (Roy 2009). The state usually legitimizes high-end informality, and they enjoy premium infrastructure and guaranteed security of tenure. This is facilitated through corruption and the payment of bribes to officials to look the other way. The real estate industry is one of the most pivotal agents in elite urbanism. The privileged regulatory regimes they enjoy are mostly justified via what David Harvey (1982) calls spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal fixes: Capturing and grounding highly mobile capital in physical space.

Concluding Thoughts

In this article, I drew on some previous critical studies on informality to argue that conventional scholarship continues to portray informality as a practice limited to a particular socioeconomic group (i.e., the urban poor). I note that this is very reductive and flawed. Instead, I raised two key arguments. First is the need to critically expand our understanding of (housing) informality to involve high-class households. Second is the Janus-faced mode of governing informality in general.

A crucial implication of my arguments rests on the need to center the sustainability implications of informal practices, whether perpetuated by the poor or elites. As noted earlier, informality is a state construct and is sometimes directly produced by the state due to its actions and inactions. As a consequence, urban planning is implicated in this enterprise. Urban planning has long adopted a colonial mode of governing informal housing by the poor, where their houses are bulldozed and demolished. However, as noted above, elite housing informality is tolerated and sometimes encouraged or supported. This regulatory bias challenges the long-standing dichotomic interpretation of formality equals legality and informality equals illegality.

However, several elite informal practices could be detrimental to the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of cities. Take the development of elite gated communities in the forest reserves of Bogota, Colombia, for instance. These areas, now invaded and succeeded by the rich, were initially playing crucial economic functions such as the provision of timber, food, and bioproducts, as well as ecological functions such as carbon storage, nutrient cycling, water and air purification, and maintenance of wildlife habitat. The actions of upper-income urbanites have drastically diminished these functions.

Even though elite informal practices appear to be a product of the failures of planning institutions, planners need to serve as a solution. In the spirit of equality and social justice, progressive policies and regulations must be devised and enforced to prevent elite capture and commodification of spaces that play crucial sustainability roles. Also, as advocated by several scholars such as Cobbinah (2023), albeit on a different subject, there needs to be a rethink of the training and education of planners regarding the tolerance and exceptional treatment of elite informal practices. At the heart of this is resolving the issue of corruption and bribery, which is rampant in several African countries. Researchers also need to expand their empirical explorations to take stock of elite informal practices, unpack their grounded realities, and analyze their detrimental implications rather than remain fixated on informality by the poor. I will take this up in a forthcoming paper.