Asking ‘Third World questions’ of First World informality: Using Southern theory to parse needs from desires in an analysis of informal urbanism of the global North

Abstract

Long a subject of study in the global South, the topic of citizen-driven, bottom-up, non-professionally produced urbanism has received increasing attention in professional and academic planning circles of the global North. This newfound focus on informal urbanism in the North is a welcome development, but, taken as a whole, Northern literature concerning informality is characterized by conceptual imprecision and an indeterminate analysis of the politics of informal actions and actors. As such, it fails to provide meaningful guidance to planners concerned with urban poverty, social justice, equity, and inclusion. This article attempts to resolve some of these problems by focusing on one key area of conceptual slippage in the literature: the failure to differentiate between informality born of desire and that born of need. This results in a flattened analysis of the political ramifications of informal actions and the political subjectivity of informal actors. In this article, I review the existing literature in order to point out some of these shortcomings. I then suggest that planners in the North have much to learn about informal urbanism from their counterparts working in and on Southern cities. I attempt to reconcile these two bodies of literature, arguing that Southern theory can help Northern planners develop a more nuanced, politically sophisticated approach to informal urbanism.