Abstract
This study examines the phenomenon of informal urbanization in the municipalities of Soacha (Colombia) and Monterrey (México) through a comparative methodological approach, building on Dovey’s morphogenic logic and field data, which enable the analysis of the spatial and morphological dynamics structuring informal settlements. The study also examines the provision of basic services and housing materiality, underscoring the challenges posed by insufficient infrastructure and precarious materials. Through a comparative approach, the research seeks to characterize the growth patterns and challenges associated with informal urbanization in these areas, highlighting both the similarities and contextual particularities of each case. The findings suggest that while informality is driven by similar socioeconomic factors, the geographic and political contexts of Soacha and Monterrey shape distinct urban forms and challenges. Through a situated approach, our work foregrounds the importance of supplementing morphogenetic approaches with outreach to community and territories, to deepen the understanding of informal urbanization that resists dichotomic approaches and recognizes its different gradients.
Keywords
Introduction
Urban informality is a defining characteristic of Latin American cities, where a significant portion of the population resides in settlements that have emerged beyond formal planning and regulatory frameworks (Fernandes, 2011; UN-Habitat, 2003). While traditionally viewed as a binary condition—either formal or informal—(de Soto, 2000), recent debates emphasize informality as a spectrum of urban practices shaped by geographic, socioeconomic, and political factors (Lombard, 2014; Roy, 2009; Yiftachel, 2009). More than the absence of legality or regulation, urban informality constitutes a mode of urbanization that structures the production of space itself (Roy, 2005). It refers to the ways in which people access land, housing, services, and livelihoods when state regulation is absent, insufficient, or selectively enforced.
In Latin America, such settlements typically display gradients of urbanization, evolving over time as dwellings, infrastructure, and services are progressively consolidated. This perspective highlights that informality includes not only material conditions but also everyday negotiations, adaptive governance, and blurred boundaries between the formal and the informal (Fernandes, 2011; Lombard, 2014; Roy, 2005). Beyond physical and infrastructural dimensions, informality is also a dynamic social process: communities evolve through changing forms of organization, education, and collective agency, reinforcing that informality is not merely a spatial condition but a broader mode of urban life (Bolívar, 2011; Bolívar & Pedrazzini, 2008).
This study examines informal urbanization in Soacha, Colombia, and Monterrey, México—two cities where informality has evolved under distinct spatial and governance conditions. Colombia and México provide differentiated contexts for comparison due to their processes of rapid urbanization, socio-spatial inequalities, and varied policy approaches. As informal settlements continue to expand, reflecting persistent housing deficits and exclusion from formal land markets, this comparative perspective aims to highlight how informality is not a uniform process but rather a dynamic phenomenon shaped by local constraints and governance structures. Building upon Kim Dovey et al.’s (2020, 2023) analytical framework of urban morphogenesis (2020, 2023), which conceives informal settlements as assemblages shaped by dynamic, incremental, and self-organized processes, this research explores how multiple spatial and morphological variables interact in their evolution. Informality is examined not only through discrete elements—such as topography, land occupation, service provision, plotting, housing materiality, urban morphology, and consolidation levels—but also through their interdependencies within broader assemblages of governance, infrastructure, and everyday practices. Morphological analysis, in this sense, enables a comparative reading of how these settlements adapt, consolidate, and transform under shifting conditions of power, regulation, and lived experience. Applying these variables to Monterrey and Soacha reveals significant differences in the organization and trajectory of informal settlements. In Monterrey, relatively structured land plots and flatter terrain contribute to a more organized yet still informal urban development. In contrast, Soacha’s steep topography results in a fragmented settlement pattern. Our study aims to show how these differences underscore that informality exists along a continuum rather than as a fixed category, challenging rigid classifications.
Soacha exemplifies informal urbanization driven by internal displacement, land occupations, and fragmented development. Its proximity to Bogotá, coupled with its role as a primary reception area for displaced populations, has made it a critical site for understanding how migration pressures, weak land management, and peripheral governance arrangements shape urban growth. Many settlements emerge on unstable terrain, creating challenges for infrastructure provision and long-term consolidation. Irregular subdivisions and incremental self-construction characterize urban fabric, with community organizations playing a key role in negotiating access to services and political recognition. Monterrey, by contrast, reflects a model where informality is linked to irregular land markets and liminal institutional practices rather than large-scale land invasions. Here, rapid industrial growth, speculative housing markets, and the influence of parastatal agencies have interacted with governance gaps to produce extensive peri-urban sprawl, making it a strategic case for examining how market-driven expansion fosters informality in the absence of coordinated planning. In both cases, recent global urban dynamics, namely financialization of housing (Aalbers, 2017; Rolnik, 2019), speculative development (Valenzuela-Aguilera et al., 2025), and shifting governance regimes (Davis, 2020), have shaped the conditions for informal expansion, linking these local processes to broader transformations in the political economy of cities.
By comparing these cases, the study advances discussions on the development and understanding of urban informality and its role in shaping urban expansion. This research underscores the complexity of informal urbanization, demonstrating that access to services, land tenure security, and housing conditions vary even within informal settlements and are dynamic and incremental processes. Recognizing informality as a continuum allows for more nuanced and effective policy responses that integrate these areas into the broader urban fabric while addressing the structural inequalities that sustain them. By incorporating perspectives from political economy, cultural studies, and urban sociology, the analysis offers a more holistic view of the social, economic, and cultural forces driving informal urban development today.
This article is structured as follows. The next section outlines the theoretical framework, engaging with debates on urban informality, spatial marginalization, and self-produced housing. The subsequent section presents the research methodology, detailing the qualitative approach used to examine urban informality in four settlements: Brisas de las Arenas and Villa Mercedes in Soacha, Colombia, and JOMAMA and Valle de San Bernabé in Monterrey, México. The empirical analysis then explores the spatial, morphological, and urban infrastructure dimensions of informality in these settlements. Finally, the discussion and conclusion reflect on how urban informality remains a critical and unresolved issue in the Global South to this day, requiring its recognition as a structural urban condition shaped by those who inhabit and produce it. This calls for abandoning assumptions about automatic consolidation over time and instead adopting nuanced, gradient-based analyses to inform more inclusive public policies.
Urban Informality in Latin America
The persistence, expansion, and increasing complexity of urban informality in recent decades justifies the renewed interest of academia, research centers, public policy, and society in general in understanding and addressing this phenomenon. Urban informality should not be conceived as a static category but as a set of processes that exhibit regularities and multiple transformations over time and space. By 2025, the literature has extensively documented various dimensions of informal urbanization worldwide, reflecting a prolific academic production (Caldeira, 2016; McFarlane, 2012, 2019; Perlman, 2010; Roy, 2005; Yiftachel, 2009). One of the primary debates surrounding informality lies in its connection to the precarious living conditions for low-income populations. Although this issue has persisted, it has acquired new manifestations in the context of globalization and the financialization of housing. Scholars argue that informality is not merely the absence of formal structures but a system of urban production that follows its own logic and governance mechanisms (Roy, 2005; Roy and Alsayyad, 2004).
The conventional debate on informality—rooted in theories of marginality and dependency (Germani, 1973; Nun, 1969; Quijano, 1970), self-help housing approaches (Turner, 1972, 1976), and later regularization and upgrading policies (Hardoy & Satterthwaite, 1989; de Soto, 2000)—tended to conceptualize informal settlements as a transitional stage. Across these perspectives, informal urbanization was generally interpreted as a progressive and largely linear process in which settlements would gradually consolidate, obtain legal recognition, and integrate into the formal city.
Recent scholarships have challenged this conventional understanding by showing that informal urbanization does not follow a uniform or linear trajectory. Instead, consolidation depends on shifting legal conditions, selective state interventions, and uneven forms of infrastructural incorporation (Banks et al., 2020; Caldeira, 2016; Dovey et al., 2020; McFarlane, 2019). These contributions emphasize that the evolution of informal settlements is contingent, adaptive, and shaped by differentiated socio-spatial dynamics rather than by an expected sequence of upgrading and formalization.
Adding to this critique, it has been essential to emphasize that urban informality is not homogeneous nor a dichotomic condition. Banks et al. (2020, p. 225) underscore this by drawing attention to alternative frameworks such as Roy’s (2005) “subaltern urbanism,” Yiftachel’s (2009) “gray spaces,” Benjamin’s (2008) “occupancy urbanism,” and Simone’s (2004) notion of “fluidity,” all of which challenge binary readings of informality. Against this backdrop, our study demonstrates empirically the presence of gradients of informality, capturing the multiple, overlapping, and uneven configurations of legality, service provision, tenure security, social agency, and state recognition that characterize the settlements examined. Recognizing these gradients helps clarify how tensions between the state and society revolve around the interpretation of informality, the approaches taken to address it, and, crucially, the strategies proposed to mitigate spatial inequalities. Such inequalities are intensified by the absence of socio-spatial justice, which constrains the full exercise of the Right to the City (Harvey, 2012; Lefebvre, 1968/1996) and the right to territory as a fundamental dimension of urban citizenship.
In Latin America, transformations in the informal production of the city can be analyzed in relation to changes in the economic model and urban policies. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) model, promoted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) under the leadership of Raúl Prebisch in 1950, fostered an urban development model based on large-scale housing projects financed by the state. During this period, urban planning was influenced by modernist urbanism and the conception of housing as a mass-consumption good promoted by the state (Fernandes, 2011). Housing policies in many countries of the region aimed to consolidate national public housing systems that, while providing large-scale housing solutions, also contributed to spatial segregation by locating these developments on the outskirts of cities (Ward, 2012).
From the 1980s onward, with the advance of neoliberalism and the reconfiguration of urban policies within globalization, a shift occurred toward strategies based on the facilitation and targeting of public resources. This transformation was strongly influenced by the recommendations of multilateral financial organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which promoted the reduction of the state’s role in housing provision and the introduction of market mechanisms to regulate access to urban land (Gilbert, 2002; Rolnik, 2019). This period also saw the rise of large-scale privatization efforts, often accompanied by deregulation and the commodification of housing, which exacerbated spatial inequalities in urban development (Peck & Tickell, 2002; Smith, 2002). As a result, informal settlements expanded even further, and the responsibility for housing access shifted to individuals, who turned to self-construction and informal strategies to secure a place in the city.
From a theoretical perspective, debates on informality and housing in Latin America have been shaped by two major currents. On one hand, theories of marginality and dependency dominated the discussion in the 1960s and 1970s. José Nun (1969, 2001), Gino Germani (1973), and Aníbal Quijano (1967, 1970) developed the concept of marginality to explain the exclusion of large urban populations from the formal labor market and institutional frameworks. These theories argued that informal settlements resulted from the structural inability of the economy to integrate all segments of the population. Quijano’s (1970) dependency theory further explored how informality was embedded in global economic structures that perpetuated inequality between the Global North and South.
At the same time, debates on self-help housing gained prominence, particularly through the work of John Turner (1972, 1976). Turner advocated for recognizing the value of informal settlements as solutions produced by the urban poor themselves and argued that state interventions should focus on providing infrastructure and tenure security rather than mass relocation or public housing projects. His ideas, widely disseminated through institutions such as the World Bank, influenced the shift from state-led housing provision to policies centered on land tenure regularization. However, critics such as Emilio Pradilla (1982) and Rod Burgess (1978) argued that self-help housing policies merely shifted the burden of housing provision onto the poor while leaving the underlying structural inequalities intact. From a neo-Marxist perspective, Lucio Kowarick (1975) criticized tenure regularization policies, asserting that they failed to alter exploitative urban conditions and only served to reinforce land speculation. More recent critiques have further questioned the romanticization of self-help housing, arguing that it often ignores gendered and labor inequalities within informal settlements (Moser, 2009; Varley, 2010). By the late 1980s and early 1990s, theoretical discussions gave way to a focus on national and international policies for intervening in informal settlements—an approach that persists today. Scholars such as Patrick McAuslan (1987) examined urban land policies, while Hardoy and Satterthwaite (1989) explored the legal and illegal dimensions of informal urbanization. During the 1990s, debates centered on settlement regularization policies, with notable contributions from Kosta Mathey (1991), who compiled works by Hans Harm, Ronaldo Ramírez, Jorge Fiori, and Julio Calderón, among others, questioning whether self-help housing alone could address urban poverty.
One significant case was the work of economist Hernando de Soto (2000) in Peru, who advocated for the formalization of property rights through individual land titles. He argued that legal ownership would enable low-income residents to access credit and integrate into the formal economy. His ideas influenced global policies on informal settlement regularization, particularly through the World Bank’s housing strategies. However, these claims faced strong criticism from scholars such as Edésio Fernandes (2002) and Alan Gilbert (2007), who pointed out that property titles alone do not guarantee socio-spatial integration or improved living conditions for the urban poor. Studies have shown that titling programs often fail to account for the complexity of land tenure arrangements and can even lead to new forms of displacement (Durand-Lasserve & Selod, 2009).
Building on these critiques, Fernandes (2011) further emphasizes that the lack of full legal security of land tenure does not necessarily impede the consolidation and upgrading of informal settlements. Rather, he argues that effective improvements depend largely on the actions of public authorities, since individuals and communities have limited capacity to resolve tenure insecurity on their own. Discussions on informal settlements are far from being exhausted. Recent research highlights the ongoing expansion and transformation of informal settlements in the context of capitalist urbanization. Scholars such as Mike Davis (2004) and David Harvey (2005) have examined the ways in which global economic forces shape informal urbanization, linking it to processes of dispossession and spatial inequality.
It is essential to clarify that de Soto’s (2000) approach reflects a linear and progress-oriented understanding of informal urbanization, assuming that the formalization of land tenure enables poor households to access credit, integrate into formal markets, and thereby overcome poverty. However, extensive research has demonstrated that the acquisition of individual titles does not automatically translate into improved socioeconomic conditions or greater access to financial markets (Fernandes, 2002; Gilbert, 2002, 2007; Payne et al., 2009). These critiques highlight that titling programs often overlook the diversity and complexity of existing tenure arrangements and fail to address the structural factors that perpetuate inequality. In contrast to linear and developmentalist interpretations, recent scholarship conceptualizes consolidation as a heterogeneous, politically mediated and non-linear process shaped by state selectivity, socio-spatial inequalities and differentiated trajectories of recognition (Dovey et al., 2020; Roy, 2005).
Among the most recent approaches, morphological analyses of informal settlements have gained prominence, leveraging technological advancements, and high-resolution satellite imagery. Studies such as those by Dovey et al. (2020) and Samper and Liao (2023) explore the morphogenesis of informal settlements, examining patterns of self-built densification and spatial growth. Similarly, Alegría and Dovey (2022) analyze the morphogenesis of contemporary informal settlements in Chile, while McCartney and Krishnamurthy (2018) advocate for strengthening morphological studies of informal urbanization. Other contributions, such as those by Muñoz and Ramos (2024) on urban fragmentation of informal settlements in Latin American, and Alzamil (2018) in Indonesia, underscore the value of morphological approaches in understanding informal urban expansion. These studies highlight the complexity of informal settlements as a significant urban issue. They emphasize the need to understand the morphological processes that shape these areas while considering their socioeconomic, political, cultural, and geographical contexts.
While several of these morphogenic studies make global comparisons, they predominantly focus on mapping analyses (Dovey et al., 2020; Samper & Liao, 2023) or documentary research (Muñoz & Ramos, 2025). Comparisons within Latin America—specifically in Chile, Colombia, México, and Perú—highlight shared colonial urban configurations, as discussed by Muñoz and Ramos (2024), but their research is limited by the lack of in-depth qualitative methods, such as interviews. This reliance on direct observation dictated by safety concerns restricts the ability to obtain richer narratives that highlight the foundation of the community, their life stories, and inhabitants’ relationships. Furthermore, research focusing on in-depth qualitative studies of settlements typically examines locations within a single country. For instance, Alzamil (2018) analyzed three settlements in North Jakarta, whereas Kamalipour (2023) explored the formation of public space in Medellín. This approach is rarely applied to cross-country comparisons. In addition, studies utilizing Google Earth are constrained to analyzing settlements post-2000 due to data availability from that period onwards (Alegría & Dovey, 2022; Dovey et al., 2020; Muñoz & Ramos, 2024).
In essence, while there is growing scholarly attention toward the morphogenesis of informal settlements, the field still needs more in-depth and refined methodologies and broader comparative analyses across diverse global contexts to understand the complex dynamics of these evolving urban spaces fully. Therefore, we conducted an in-depth morphogenic analysis using a mixed-method approach which enabled us to investigate specific variables that previous cartographic and morphogenetic techniques have struggled to explore. Such challenges often stemmed from insufficient fieldwork and a scarcity of statistical data regarding irregular settlements. Key information we focused on included the nature of land tenure, access to basic services such as water and electricity, relevant policies affecting these communities, and the dynamics and processes within the local population.
Building on the extensive debates surrounding urban informality, this study seeks to advance the understanding of informal urbanization by examining the cases of Soacha, Colombia, and Monterrey, México. Using a comparative methodological approach, it applies the analytical framework proposed by Dovey et al. (2020, 2023) to explore key spatial and morphological variables, including topography, land occupation, service provision, plotting, housing materiality, urban morphology, and levels of consolidation or densification. This work extends current debates on urban informality in two key ways. Empirically, it offers a comparative analysis of Soacha and Monterrey to illuminate how distinct socio-spatial configurations shape informal urbanization in Latin America. Analytically, it advances the notion of gradients of informality as a lens to capture the heterogeneous, overlapping, and evolving conditions—legal, infrastructural, territorial, social, and political—that structure the trajectories of informal settlements. This is operationalized through the spatial and morphological variables examined in this study, enabling a systematic comparison of how informality unfolds across both contexts.
The following section outlines the methodological framework employed to systematically analyze these dynamics across both municipalities.
Method
This research adopts a qualitative and comparative approach to analyze urban informality in two distinct urban contexts: Soacha, Colombia, and Monterrey, México. In line with Gilbert’s (2020, p. 32) call for a “legitimate comparison,” drawing on Abu-Lughod’s framework, we begin by identifying common features in both urban areas: marked social inequality, fragmented urban development, and significant processes of informal urbanization. Informal settlements in Soacha and Monterrey have largely emerged through self-construction and irregular land occupation in peripheral areas with limited infrastructure, environmental risks, and precarious access to basic services. The two cities were purposively selected in a non-probabilistic and intentional manner (Nascimento Neto & Salinas Arreortua, 2020) because they provide analytically comparable yet contextually contrasting cases: Soacha represents displacement-driven informal growth in a rapidly expanding metropolitan periphery in Bogotá, while Monterrey similarly exemplifies market-driven informal expansion linked to speculative development and peri-urban sprawl. Both are embedded in the broader Latin American context, where similar political economy and urban development frameworks shape the emergence of informality, allowing for analytical generalization rather than statistical inference (Aalbers, 2017; Stake, 2005; Yin, 2005).
In addition to their analytical relevance, the two cases were also selected because of the research trajectories and collaborative networks already established in these territories. In both Monterrey and Soacha, sustained engagement through academic projects, partnerships with civil society organizations, and alliances with community actors have provided privileged access to local knowledge and facilitated comparative insights. At the same time, the scarcity of systematic and reliable official data on informal settlements in both contexts makes it necessary to rely on fieldwork, satellite imagery, and cartographic reconstruction. Although the study does not include residents’ perspectives systematically, participant engagement in the field helped address key information gaps left by official data sources. Consequently, these methodological choices not only address data gaps but also underscore the importance of collaborative and field-based research as a means of making visible processes that remain unregistered in official records.
Soacha, part of the Bogotá Metropolitan Region, has become a receiving territory for internally displaced populations. Monterrey, as an industrial and economic hub in northern México, has seen informal urbanization tied more closely to economic migration, and speculative urban expansion. Both cities illustrate how informal urbanization emerges and consolidates under conditions of accelerated population growth, insufficient formal housing supply, and limited state capacity to regulate land development at the urban fringes. The settlements were selected based on three dimensions of comparability: (1) their predominantly informal character, both in terms of land acquisition and self-construction of housing and infrastructure; (2) their location on the urban periphery, often in environmentally vulnerable areas with limited access to services; and (3) their capacity to illustrate broader processes of informal urbanization in their respective metropolitan contexts.
The methodology is grounded in fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, spatial observation, and secondary data analysis, allowing us to capture the complex socio-spatial dynamics and material conditions shaping informal urbanization in both cases. Fieldwork was conducted in selected settlements in each city, chosen for their relevance in illustrating different forms and trajectories of informal urbanization. In Monterrey, seven semi-structured interviews were carried out with residents, community leaders, and local actors involved in processes of land occupation and housing development. Three interviews were conducted in Valles de San Bernabé, lasting between an hour and an hour and a half each, and four in JOMAMA, which were conducted in community spaces. While we acknowledge that residents lived experiences are essential in understanding urban informality, this comparative study prioritizes the analysis of processes that shape informal urbanization, alongside their spatial, morphological, and infrastructural manifestations. Focusing on physical characteristics of the built environment and settlement patterns, the research examines key drivers of informality across both cities, offering a systematic and comparable understanding of informal urban dynamics.
In the case of Soacha, a comparable methodological approach was employed, involving field visits that facilitated direct engagement with local stakeholders and in-depth observation of the urban environment. This research process has evolved over the long term in collaboration with the Master’s in Habitat program at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), within the Faculty of Arts—Architecture and Urbanism Area, where numerous master’s theses have been developed focusing on the Soacha territory. Furthermore, the Universidad al Barrio (translated as “University to the Neighborhood”) program has been active in these areas for more than 5 years, contributing to the establishment of sustained relationships between academic staff and community members. The research design included thematic and problem-oriented focus groups: approximately 10 focus groups were conducted in Brisas de las Arenas, and three in Villa Mercedes, all carried out with informed consent.
The comparative analysis is structured around a set of spatial, material, and socio-urban variables that outline a research methodology for understanding the generative processes of informal settlements through a morphogenic lens (see Table 1 in results section). This research builds on Dovey et al. (2023) morphogenic logic—which conceptualizes informal settlements as morphogenetic assemblages shaped by incremental, adaptive, and self-organized processes and makes them analyzable through their spatial morphologies. The study also incorporates variables from Alegría and Dovey (2022) and McCartney and Krishnamurthy (2018), while also adding new parameters based on field data. Dovey et al. (2023) original variables of topography, plotting, building net coverage, access network, and grid formation remain central to the analysis. As Dovey et al. (2023) states, the significance of informal settlements morphology lies less in its visual form than in the ways it enables—or constrains—everyday functioning.
Variable Comparison Summary of Selected Case Studies.
Source. Author’s own elaboration based on Dovey et al. (2020, 2023), with additional contributions.
Topography concerns how a site influences its occupation patterns, accessibility, and exposure to environmental risks, particularly relevant in Soacha’s steep slopes and Monterrey’s peri-urban areas prone to flooding. Dovey et al. (2023) distinguishes between escarpments, flatlands, and water-based sites. Informal settlements on escarpments or wetlands necessitate infrastructure development, whereas flat sites often have pre-existing infrastructure. Escarpments (slopes >25%) are difficult to access and prone to landslides, requiring terracing, while flatlands are more likely to have private ownership.
Plotting refers to intersecting modes of territorialization, including incremental building (no plot), semi-regular building (aligned buildings), incremental plotting (ad hoc enclosure), and semi-regular plotting (back-to-back plots). Building Net Coverage is the percentage of land occupied by building footprints, analyzing how family needs and economic strategies drive vertical expansion, densification, and plot subdivisions over time. Access Network describes the logic of street and land formation and access, including extending an existing road to produce newly accessible land, branching an existing road to further access land on one or both sides (fish-bone formation), bridging between existing roads to increase connectivity, or deleting connections to bring public space into productive use. Grid formation can be described as incremental gridding produced from the incremental process of access networks forming blocks, extended gridding where parallel streets are extended without laterals, or semi-organized gridding where lanes are preconceived in advance of development. Both access network and grid formation emerge as critical variables for understanding how these settlements connect to the wider city.
The study expands this framework by including land tenure to capture the diverse forms of legal and extra-legal arrangements that shape residents’ security of tenure and prospects for regularization (collective ownership, private ownership, squatting on private/public land, and pirate sale; Alegría & Dovey, 2022). Building typology is documented through the specific observation of roofs, walls, and floors, providing insight into levels of consolidation, exposure to climatic conditions, and socioeconomic vulnerabilities (permanent, self/developer built; semi-permanent, self-built/existing; temporary, self-built shack; McCartney & Krishnamurthy, 2018), which analyzes building conditions based on materiality. Site factors/risks (McCartney & Krishnamurthy, 2018) related to topography and constrained development areas included an assessment of physical exposure, considering the location of settlements in relation to environmental risks such as landslides, floods, and proximity to industrial or hazardous areas—factors that disproportionately affect informal settlements in both contexts.
Furthermore, we added variables from fieldwork: mobility, street and sidewalk conditions, and urban equipment, considering the presence, absence, and quality of public facilities such as schools, health centers, and community spaces (quantified by percentage of area occupied like Muñoz and Ramos, 2024). We also consider services provision identifying formal or informal access to basic infrastructure such as water, electricity, sewage, and waste collection assessed by connection regularity (formal or informal) and coverage grade (low, medium, high).
The research acknowledges that informal settlements commonly emerge through engagement with pre-existing formal infrastructure and can replicate the urban design of surrounding neighborhoods. The research notes that variables like mobility are specific to field-based studies. By combining qualitative methods with spatial analysis and focusing on these multidimensional variables, the research offers a nuanced understanding of informal urbanization in Soacha and Monterrey.
Results: Illustrating Gradients of Informality
Soacha is a conurbated municipality directly integrated into the southern periphery of Bogotá, forming a key component of the larger metropolitan region of the Colombian capital (Figure 1). Its rapid demographic expansion has made it one of the main territories absorbing Bogotá’s housing deficit, largely through informal urbanization on steep slopes and environmentally sensitive areas. In contrast, informal settlements in Monterrey are located on the peripheries of Monterrey, often at the urban–rural interface where illegal land subdivisions and self-construction prevail. While both contexts share socioeconomic drivers of informality, their metropolitan positions highlight distinct pressures: Soacha as a densely conurbated municipality within Bogotá’s metropolitan region, and Monterrey as a polycentric industrial metropolis in northern México (Figure 1).
Location of the Selected Informal Settlements Within Their Metropolitan Contexts: Monterrey Metropolitan Area (top) and Soacha–Bogotá Metropolitan Region (bottom).
Monterrey
Jose María Maldonado (JOMAMA)
JOMAMA, located in the northern delegation of Monterrey, has a flat topography and slopes less than 10%. It was formed between 1980 and 1989 by families displaced from the Pesquería River (see Figure 2). The consolidation process began in 2010, and by 2024, 80 families lived there, having delineated 76 lots in a semi-regular layout of 7 m × 15 m and laid out 8-m-wide streets. This regular plotting aims to facilitate future formalization before Fomento Metropolitano de Monterrey (FOMERREY), the parastatal organization in charge of regularization.
Historical Growth of Informal Settlements in Monterrey (left) and Soacha (right) Based on Satellite Imagery (2000–2024). The Red Outlines Indicate the Spatial Extent of Settlement Expansion and Consolidation.
Access networks were designed by branching off an existing road, giving way to an extended gridding formation. The streets facilitated connections, although irregular, to basic services. Electricity is obtained through cable extensions, which have caused home overloads and fires. Access to water was managed with Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey, receiving “formal” authorization to establish a community tap with uneven pressure and intermittent service 2 to 3 days a week. There is no formal drainage; septic tanks are used. The streets are dirt roads with no sidewalks or public lighting. In 2024, the community created street signage, allowing residents to obtain voter IDs with the neighborhood address, although they are not formally registered in the urban system. Urban solid waste is collected at the neighborhood’s entrance, while some waste is thrown into the Pesquería River. Internet access is limited to a Wi-Fi network from a local store, but most families do not have access due to high costs. Gas service is obtained through tank trucks.
In terms of amenities, although there are no internal green areas, residents have close access to the “El Triángulo” park and the CEDE 226 community center, enabled by the TECHO foundation. The proximity to primary and secondary schools (less than 500 m) and high schools (1,000 m), as well as access to transport routes 311, 310, and 39, allows them to access the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) clinics in half an hour. In addition, the Ecovía terminal, located 3 km away on foot, improves connectivity to metropolitan services. The materiality of the homes reflects a slow consolidation process. In 2022, it was reported that some homes presented structural risks due to inadequate foundations, increasing vulnerability to extreme weather events. Most houses were built without technical assistance using wood, palm, and asbestos sheets. Since 2015, the TECHO association has helped with basic wooden housing modules and construction training to improve residents’ quality of life.
The proximity to the Pesquería River represents a significant danger during hydrometeorological events that frequently affect Monterrey, as well as pollution from solid waste accumulation. Despite having a community WhatsApp group for alerts and emergencies, residents seek a structured contingency plan. In addition, insecurity due to illicit activities has led to implementing a security committee with support from the municipal government. Despite these challenges, JOMAMA has developed adaptation strategies. The role of women in community management and organization stands out. The community has actively sought the regularization of their land, which has been delayed for years, as part of the territory is ejidal 1 and another part is municipal. This process and the training offered by TECHO have increased social cohesion, as greater participation in community activities has been documented.
Valles de San Bernabé
Valles de San Bernabé, with flat topography and slopes of less than 10%, is located in the La Alianza delegation of Monterrey. It was founded in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. This settlement began with the occupation of an intestate plot by 20 families expelled from a nearby plot (see Figure 3). From the beginning, the community has shown organization, which has allowed progress in the delineation of lots, street layout, and connection to basic services with provisional water and electricity connections. One hundred thirty-five lots of 105 m² were delineated, extending road patterns on adjacent neighborhoods, creating a semi-organized gridding layout with 12-m-wide dirt roads for vehicular and pedestrian circulation. This layout met FOMERREY specifications and was achieved through a surveyor hired with the residents’ resources, who was aware of the requirements for future regularization. However, since the land is two hectares, no spaces were allocated for amenities or green areas because it is not a requirement established by FOMERREY. This decision is now limiting, as the need for a community center and green and recreational areas has been identified, even though there are schools, medical dispensaries, and bus stops for Route 311 within 500 m.
Case Studies.
The materiality of the homes is predominantly precarious, with ephemeral materials that have been progressively adapted to more durable materials as families acquire resources. There are no public amenities, sidewalks, or functional lighting (it exists but is precarious and its connection is illegal), and the streets are not paved. Solid waste collection occurs at the entrance of the neighborhood on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Gas is obtained from gas stations or through tank trucks that arrive quickly when requested. However, residents report receiving less gas than they paid for, generating distrust. To avoid these problems, some families go to a gas station 15 min away by car, although the distance makes access difficult for those without transportation.
The location of Valles de San Bernabé near the Pesquería River (see Figure 1) introduces significant environmental and health hazards. The lack of formal drainage and the use of septic tanks have contributed to environmental contamination. At the same time, the accumulation of solid waste and debris in the river and some neighbors who hoard distinct items in the area aggravate unsanitary conditions. In addition, insecurity has been reported in the neighborhood streets and areas near the river, increasing the perception of vulnerability and making it difficult to use these spaces for recreational or community purposes. On the other hand, the slow but progressive consolidation by the residents themselves has allowed for an evolution in urban density, with a gradual increase in the number of families living in the area and an adaptation of spaces according to their needs. The humanitarian actions of the TECHO Foundation since June 2024 stand out, providing support to some families for the construction of homes. Although the structures are basic wooden housing modules, they offer an initial housing solution that the beneficiaries can expand and improve later. TECHO’s contribution has also generated social cohesion in some neighborhood streets, fostering community participation and organizational capacities that will help them face pending urban challenges.
Soacha
Brisas de las Arenas
This settlement is located in Comuna 4 of the municipality of Soacha, in the Altos de Cazucá sector. With a topography of steep slopes averaging 35% and a sinuous morphology that adapts to the terrain (see Figure 3), it originated from an informal occupation on July 20, 2014, in an old stone quarry that was sealed and abandoned by its owners. Populations living in extreme poverty came to Soacha, the outskirts of Bogotá, displaced by armed conflict and Venezuelan migrants. The area consists of approximately 650 lots of varying sizes. Due to the absence of formal plot planning and the use of incremental building, regularization is challenging. The site is not officially registered with the municipality and is deemed at high risk for mass removal and flooding, which necessitates evacuation. Access networks are not available, except for pedestrian passageways between an incremental gridding layout that responds to the organicity of the terrain.
Basic services are obtained through irregular connections with nearby neighborhoods. Due to the geomorphology of the terrain, the neighborhood is divided into three sectors with steep slopes. Sector 1 has better conditions for service connections due to its lower slope and proximity to formalized settlements. In this sector, there is access to potable water, natural gas, and regulated electricity. Sectors 2 and 3 depend on hoses connected to neighboring areas for intermittent water supply. Electricity is obtained irregularly, with installations of poles and cables without safety measures, which has caused fires in several homes. Household gas is also obtained irregularly, representing a high risk. The entire neighborhood lacks formal sewer systems. The community has precariously built drainage networks that are not sufficient to handle black and rainwater. Due to the settlement’s location, these networks also collect wastewater from higher neighborhoods, causing floods and waste accumulation during rains.
Mobility is limited due to the presence of dirt roads; there are no formal layouts, and they are very narrow. The steep slopes prevent vehicular access, and there are no sidewalks or pedestrian stairs, affecting accessibility and safety. Access to the neighborhood is on foot through rudimentary paths from public transport points, mainly the Bogotá-Soacha Highway, where the TransMilenio system operates. Informal taxis and minibuses circulate within 500 m, facilitating residents’ movement. The community has enabled three spaces for communal halls, although they have not yet been built. There is a plot intended for the construction of a local park, but it has not been enabled. The settlement lacks community amenities, and residents depend on education, health, and recreation services from neighboring areas or Comuna 4.
The consolidation of homes is uneven. The first sector has better conditions, with homes made of permanent materials like brick and clay block, cement, and zinc or fiber cement, built in the last 12 years through self-construction. The second sector has one-story homes, some with permanent materials and others in precarious conditions. The third sector houses the most recent families, with homes in a state of high vulnerability and built with perishable materials like wood, tin, plastic, cardboard, glass, and recycled materials. Few community initiatives have been documented. Only recently, after 12 years of existence, the Brisas de las Arenas Community Association has been formed, seeking to articulate collective efforts to improve the quality of life of inhabitants.
Villa Mercedes
Villa Mercedes is located near the neighborhoods of Terranova and Loma Linda in Comuna 4 of the municipality of Soacha, in the sector known as Altos de Cazucá. Its topography features slopes between 15% and 20%. It has existed for more than 25 years since its founding in 1998 and has managed to consolidate thanks to individual and community efforts. By 2025, it houses approximately 2,000 families and is divided into three sectors. Access networks were designed by pirate developers by branching an existing road that later gave way to a semi-organized gridding layout. Villa Mercedes obtained its regularization in 2013 through resolution 960 on October 24, allowing access to public neighborhood improvement programs, including paving most of its streets. However, some streets still lack treatment. Despite this regularization, the titling of homes remains a pending challenge for many families.
Despite its age, the neighborhood has not managed to guarantee permanent and quality access to basic services. Although potable water is piped in, its supply is intermittent, causing recurring crises. The sewer system, initially built by the community and later improved in some streets by the municipality, does not adequately separate wastewater and rainwater, causing constant sanitary problems. In contrast, all homes have stable electricity and natural gas services. Mobility in the sector is limited, and access to transportation is restricted. Residents rely on pirate taxis or colectivos, creating informal mobility networks based on trust between users and providers. Regarding solid waste collection service, there are no collectors which result in garbage dumps. Solid waste is collected at the lower part of the neighborhood three times a week. Internet service is generally private, depending on the household’s economic condition, through private service antennas.
Regarding urban amenities, it has a communal hall, a neighborhood park, and a sports field. However, it lacks amenities such as educational institutions, health centers, and other services located outside the neighborhood, making their use difficult. Faced with this lack, residents have promoted community initiatives, creating outdoor spaces for education and school reinforcement. The consolidation of the neighborhood has been mainly achieved through progressive self-construction without specialized technical assistance, resulting in homes that do not adequately consider the slope of the terrain, causing structural failures. Villa Mercedes is located in an area with steep slopes (see Figure 3), which do not represent a direct risk but complicate construction conditions due to inadequate techniques.
Table 1 summarizes the main variables of the selected case studies, comparing dimensions such as land tenure, access to services, urban form, and risk exposure. These differences can also be read in relation to their metropolitan locations (Figure 1) and settlement layouts (Figure 2), providing a framework to understand their distinct trajectories of consolidation.
Informal neighborhoods evolve through distinct trajectories or through gradients of informality (see Figure 2). Each settlement occupies a different place within each gradient—tenure, services, mobility, spatial risk—and no case consistently ranks as “more” or “less” informal across all dimensions (Table 1). Instead, they exhibit multidimensional, relational gradients that challenge binary classifications and underscore the need to understand informality as an assemblage of overlapping territorial, infrastructural, and regulatory configurations.
Some settlements densify over time without substantial improvements due to lack of regularization, whereas others gradually consolidate with infrastructure and services. This contrast shows that time alone does not guarantee better living conditions; rather, consolidation depends on governance and land tenure frameworks.
The observed discrepancies between Monterrey and Soacha cannot be explained solely by the age of settlements or by resident initiatives. Rather, they reflect deeper differences in land governance regimes, urban planning approaches, and economic dynamics. In Mexico, a strongly legalistic approach ties recognition and service provision to formal titling, producing prolonged stagnation in otherwise consolidated neighborhoods. This legalistic orientation is further reinforced by the current regulatory framework, which imposes a highly formalistic model that conditions urban improvement on the full regularization of land tenure.
The Ley de Asentamientos Humanos, Ordenamiento Territorial y Desarrollo Urbano para el Estado de Nuevo León—together with federal guidelines issued by SEDATU and INSUS 2 —establishes that an irregular settlement can only be incorporated into urban development once it meets a series of technical, administrative, and legal requirements, including feasibility assessments, subdivision plans, proof of settlement age, verified absence of risk, and the subsequent individual titling of plots (Congreso del Estado de Nuevo León, 2017/2025, arts. 129–135; Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano [SEDATU], 2024). This institutional design implies that the provision of infrastructure and basic services is contingent upon completing a complex and sequential procedure, which the federal program itself describes as lengthy, costly, and bureaucratic—often involving between 10 and 20 administrative steps over several years (SEDATU–INSUS, 2024). Consequently, regularization operates as the primary enabler of public intervention, generating extended waiting periods and slower trajectories of socio-spatial integration when compared with contexts in which service provision is not dependent on prior titling.
In Colombia, by contrast, governance arrangements operate through more flexible mechanisms linked to rent capture by both municipal administrations and market actors via the provision of public utilities. These conditions enable the partial integration of informal settlements even in the absence of full regularization, allowing communities to secure a minimum level of infrastructure and maintain visibility over time. Thus, the procedure for urban legalization is regulated by the Ministry of Housing, City and Territory through Decree 1077 of 2015, Articles 2.2.6.5.1 and subsequent provisions (as amended by Article 2 of Decree 149 of 2020 issued by the Ministry). This process authorizes the approval of urban plans and the issuance of urban regulations, without prejudice to the criminal, civil, and administrative liabilities of those involved. It is important to distinguish Urban Legalization processes (for neighborhoods) from Property Legalization processes (titling). Likewise, Colombian legislation—specifically Law 142 of 1994, which establishes the regime for public utilities—allows utility providers, whether public or private, to deliver services on a permanent basis in informal settlements regardless of their legal status. For this reason, neighborhood upgrading processes in informal settlements are not limited exclusively to the regulatory framework but are also shaped directly by economic dynamics.
Similarly, understanding informal settlements through a political economy lens highlights that their growth, persistence, and spatial patterns are closely tied to broader economic systems, including housing markets, labor dynamics, migration flows, and speculative land practices. Taken together, these planning and economic dynamics demonstrate that informal settlements are not anomalies or planning failures but outcomes of structural processes that shape how land, power, and opportunity are distributed across the city and exist in gradients. Informal settlements in Monterrey and Soacha are not isolated phenomena; they are shaped by structural inequalities, governance gaps, and institutional interventions that sustain informality over time. Nonetheless, it must be stressed how these territories also generate alternative economic dynamics—such as rotating savings groups (or tandas), solidarity-based exchanges, community support chains, and shared care practices—that sustain everyday life and express residents’ agency. Highlighting these alternative economic systems underscores that informal settlements not only emerge from structural conditions but also actively produce the city and reproduce social life.
Discussion: Similarities and Contrasts in Informality Processes in Monterrey and Soacha
This comparative study of informal settlements in Monterrey (JOMAMA and Valles de San Bernabé) and Soacha (Brisas de las Arenas and Villa Mercedes) challenges static or binary conceptions of urban informality. Informal urbanization, as demonstrated here, cannot be reduced to a uniform or linear trajectory; rather, it unfolds along gradients conditioned by socio-spatial differentiation, risk governance regimes, and shifting thresholds of recognition.
One of the central insights emerging from this comparison is the political nature of invisibility and its impact on urban citizenship. Across both cities, the partial or total exclusion of informal settlements from official data and planning instruments is not a mere technical oversight but a mode of structural marginalization. The absence of these territories from land cadasters and infrastructure maps reflects a politics of nonrecognition that sustains the precarity of these spaces.
The analysis also complicates the assumption that time alone guarantees consolidation. Although JOMAMA and Villa Mercedes both originated in the 1990s, their developmental trajectories diverge starkly. Legal frameworks, topographic constraints, and degrees of community organization intersect to shape uneven outcomes. For instance, JOMAMA remains locked in legal limbo due to intestate land tenure, despite decades of resident investment. In contrast, Villa Mercedes has leveraged community mobilization and relatively safer geography to incrementally secure infrastructure and political visibility. These findings challenge developmentalist narratives that frame informal settlements as evolving predictably toward formalization and instead suggest a more variegated and contingent process mediated by state selectivity and resident initiative (Roy, 2005).
Infrastructure access emerges as a key site of differentiation and struggle. While all four settlements exhibit varying degrees of infrastructural precarity, the political economy of service provision operates differently in each context. In Monterrey, despite public control over utilities, informal settlements depend on unofficial negotiations or clientelist arrangements to access basic services, often at the cost of rights-based claims. In contrast, Soacha’s regulatory framework recognizes access to services as a legal right, yet privatization limits effective inclusion. These divergent models reveal that the formalization of infrastructure is not only a technical matter but also an ideological one, reflecting broader logics of neoliberal governance that frame residents alternately as clients, consumers, or informal negotiators rather than full citizens.
Mobility patterns further illustrate the embeddedness of marginalization in urban infrastructures. In both cities, the physical isolation of informal settlements—whether through topographic inaccessibility in Soacha or through planning omissions in Monterrey—translates into concrete mobility penalties. The lack of last-mile connectivity, poor road conditions, and reliance on informal transport reinforce socioeconomic exclusion and hinder access to employment, education, and services. Importantly, these exclusions are not simply spatial but are shaped by planning decisions that render certain populations invisible or irrelevant to infrastructural investment.
Despite these structural constraints, the study foregrounds resident agency as a critical force in shaping the contours of informal urbanization. Community strategies—ranging from anticipatory planning in Valles de San Bernabé to localized governance structures in JOMAMA—demonstrate that informal settlements are not passive recipients of neglect but active producers of urban space. These practices reflect what Bolívar (2011), Bolívar and Pedrazzini (2008), and Bolívar (2016) describe as features of “territorios autoproducidos”—forms of bottom-up planning that operate in dialogue with, and sometimes in anticipation of, formal planning institutions (author’s translation). The involvement of civil society actors, such as TECHO and Universidad al Barrio, further illustrates the hybrid governance arrangements that characterize informal settlements, where state, community, and non-state actors co-produce territorial development under uncertain and often unstable conditions.
Perhaps the most significant comparative insight lies in the differing institutional models through which informal urbanization is negotiated. In Soacha, processes of physical and social consolidation have progressed in the absence of full legal regularization, supported by community resilience and flexible governance arrangements. In Monterrey, by contrast, land tenure regularization remains a non-negotiable prerequisite for access to infrastructure and recognition, effectively halting the development of otherwise consolidated neighborhoods. These contrasting models speak to deeper ideological orientations toward informality: the Colombian context allows for partial inclusion through functional integration, whereas the Mexican framework remains more rigidly legalistic, with recognition tethered to formal titling. This contrast underscores the need for more differentiated and context-sensitive approaches to urban governance that do not conflate legality with legitimacy or integration.
While technical tools such as risk maps have advanced territorial diagnostics, their application through binary logics of “feasibility” often obscures the internal dynamics of adaptation and risk mitigation that characterize informal settlements. This reductionist approach reinforces exclusion by disregarding both the differentiated levels of risk and the varying degrees of consolidation present across these territories. Instead, adopting more agile and layered tools—including satellite imagery, morphogenesis analysis, and community-led mapping—proves essential for producing more grounded assessments that can register not only vulnerabilities but also the capacities for local resilience. In cases such as Brisas de las Arenas, high-risk zoning functions less as a protective mechanism and more as a justification for state withdrawal, despite ongoing resident-led mitigation efforts. Risk thus becomes politicized, serving as a rationale for exclusion rather than an impetus for innovation.
Our analysis calls for a critical rethinking of the technical instruments that underpin urban policy and risk governance. This study argues for the development of more participatory and situated diagnostic tools—beyond satellite imaging and morphogenesis analysis—to include the non-negotiable integration of fieldwork and localized approaches that more accurately reflect the lived realities and adaptive capacities of residents. Moreover, the lack of systematic registration of informal settlements in official censuses constitutes a political, rather than merely technical, mechanism of exclusion. As shown in Monterrey and Soacha, their omission from housing inventories reinforces their status as “grey spaces” (Yiftachel, 2009) where full citizenship is fragmented and subject to selective recognition. This invisibilization perpetuates urban inequality.
Legal frameworks further reflect structural contradictions: while both México and Colombia formally recognize urban rights—including the right to housing and to the city—access to basic services and effective regularization remains elusive. The failure to implement key instruments, such as Resolution 448 in Colombia or the LGAHOTDU 3 in México, coupled with reliance on informal arrangements with local authorities, illustrates how rights recognized in law are often not materially guaranteed. Informality, then, is not the result of state absence, but rather of a fragmented and selective state presence that reinforces exclusion through both omission and targeted intervention.
Based on the empirical patterns observed in both cases, we suggest that the notion of gradients of informality can serve as a helpful lens for interpreting the diversity, complexity, and multiscale dynamics that determine how informality unfolds. This comparison reveals how informality is produced not merely through the absence of the state, but through its selective, fragmented, and often contradictory presence. It also demonstrates how residents contest and navigate these gradients to assert their right to the city. Despite these structural constraints, residents are not passive recipients of precarious governance. Community-led initiatives—including local mapping, neighborhood signage, and the formation of grassroots associations—have been central in pressing for recognition and shaping pathways of consolidation. This reveals that community agency is not peripheral, but fundamental to negotiating inclusion within structurally unequal urban environments.
Adding to this, we found that technological tools, while valuable, must be grounded in empirical fieldwork and connected to territorially sensitive regulatory frameworks. Urban informality cannot be adequately recognized through traditional cadastral surveys or top-down declarations alone. Emerging technologies—such as GIS, urban morphogenesis analysis, artificial intelligence, and citizen science platforms—hold promise in improving diagnostics, identifying internal consolidation gradients, and making visible the territorial knowledge and organizing capacity of residents. However, these tools must complement, not replace, the structural policy changes needed to address the historical roots of exclusion. Moving toward more inclusive urban policy requires transcending binary classifications and embracing approaches that acknowledge local resilience, community-built urban space, and the everyday negotiation of rights under conditions of systemic precarity.
Conclusion
This comparative study of informal urbanization in Monterrey (México) and Soacha (Colombia) allows us to understand that urban informality should not be approached as a binary condition between legal and illegal, but rather as gradients of informality—a continuum of spatial, social, and political practices and configurations shaped by varying degrees of state recognition, service provision, regulatory compliance, and community-led consolidation. These gradients respond to specific contexts of exclusion, fragmented governance, and community agency. First, informality remains a relevant topic of analysis because it has not been resolved, either in the past or in the present. On the contrary, it has mutated and become more complex, taking root in undeveloped, high-risk areas and increasingly precarious conditions. Second, public policies have failed to recognize informality as a structural part of the Latin American city. Its institutional denial—through invisibility in censuses, maps, and planning instruments—perpetuates the marginalization of millions of people. Understanding these gradients makes visible how exclusion operates not through a simple presence or absence of legality but through layered, uneven, and negotiated forms of recognition and urban citizenship. This exclusion is not only technical but also political in nature.
Third, urban consolidation can no longer be assumed to be a natural process that occurs automatically over time. Cases such as Villa Mercedes and JOMAMA show divergent trajectories determined by legal security, topography, community organization, and the capacity for dialogue with the State. These divergent paths illustrate how gradients of informality shape the pace and direction of consolidation: settlements with partial recognition, infrastructural footholds, or stronger organizational networks advance through certain steps of integration, whereas others remain stalled in early, more precarious stages of the gradient. Regularization, in this sense, is not an end in itself but part of a broader process of urban integration and territorial justice.
Fourth, urban informality must be analyzed not solely through institutional or regulatory lenses but as a lived, territorial process that unfolds through uneven degrees of recognition, service provision, and political visibility. While this study does not draw directly on residents’ perspectives, the concept of gradients of informality helps foreground how inhabitants’ everyday practices, organizational strategies, and negotiations with the State shape differentiated pathways of consolidation and integration. Attempts to resolve informality within rigid frameworks of formal urbanism have failed. Multiscale, ethical, and situated planning is required, articulating State, community, and technical efforts from the beginning of the occupation process. This entails intervening without criminalizing, planning without evicting, and planning that recognizes local knowledge and organizational forms. Recognizing these systemic connections is fundamental for designing solutions that are feasible, socially integrated, and responsive to the economic and institutional conditions that underpin informal urbanization. Interventions that ignore these connections risk treating informal settlements as temporary or isolated problems, rather than as integral components of the urban fabric with embedded livelihoods, networks, and socioeconomic functions.
Finally, this study offers a methodological proposal, which, although contextualized, can be replicated. It is based on Kim Dovey’s framework, enriched with contextual variables and fieldwork, and allows for the illustration of gradients of urban informality. Operationalizing these dimensions in fieldwork and comparative analysis allowed us to trace how informality unfolds across space and time, producing granular insights into the socio-spatial logics of each settlement. This approach avoids simplifications and could provide input for more inclusive public policies that recognize the territories constructed by people as a legitimate part of the city, leading to a richer understanding of how urban informality unfolds. The key is not to adapt informality to formality but to construct responses from within informality itself, valuing its capabilities, resilience, and right to the city. This approach holds promise for future comparative research that seeks to move beyond typologies toward situated, relational understandings of urban informality.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Tecnologico de Monterrey for enabling our visit to Bogotá to study the dynamics of informal settlements. We also thank the Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanismo at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, particularly the research group Procesos Urbanos en Hábitat, Vivienda e Informalidad, for their academic collaboration and for facilitating our engagement with the territorial realities of urban informality.
Authors Note
Tecnológico de Monterrey should appear without the accent on official platforms and author affiliations as Tecnologico de Monterrey, in accordance with institutional guidelines.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.