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Urban Informalities: Reflections on the Formal and Informal
Author(s): Michael Waibel (Author), Colin McFarlane
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: July 27, 2012
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 216 pages
- ISBN-10: 1409441326
- ISBN-13: 9781409441328
Book Description
Bringing together an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers working on a wide variety of cities throughout Asia, Latin America and Europe, this book addresses, rethinks and, in some cases, abandons the notions of formal and informal urbanism. This collection critically interrogates both the ways in which ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ are put to work in the governing and politicisation of cities, and their conceptual strengths and weaknesses. It does so by focusing on a wide variety of topics, from specific forms of housing and labour often traditionally linked to the formal/informal divide, to urban political negotiations, cultural practices, and ways of being in the city. The book takes stock of and reflects on how contemporary urban informality/formality relations are being produced and are/might be understood, and puts forward an enlarged and comprehensive understanding of urban informality.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘Providing vivid and colourful insight, this volume of interdisciplinary research on the ambiguous realities of urban informality discusses and questions the very notion of the formal-informal divide … the richness of this book lies in its drawing together of an international group of researchers from a variety of disciplines working on quite distinct notions of urban (in-)formalities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research ‘Urban Informalities will be of interest to anyone willing to learn more about this growing debate, and it provides many informative, articulated and stimulating contributions on the topic’. Urban Geography Research Group
About the Author
Colin McFarlane, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK and Michael Waibel, Department of Geography, Hamburg University, Germany
