Low-income Society in Developing Countries
The urban population of developing countries is increasing at an alarming rate. As a result, a disturbing feature of this trend is the proliferation of informal housing development in cities of developing countries. A great deal of importance in recent years has been put forward to the informal housing sector. The common characteristics of informal housing are insecurity of tenure and low standards of infrastructure and services. By the end of the 1980s, international donor agencies like the World Bank, and UN agencies had given increasing significance to informal housing policies and infrastructure provision in cities in developing countries.
Upgrading and rehabilitation of informal housing are seen in developing countries with the joint venture initiative of the government and private sector. Some of these resettlement programs of informal housing schemes in the past primarily had some success but eventually, in many cases, the evicted people returned to inner city places after selling off their houses to middle-income groups. High standards of housing and job unavailability within their catchment areas have played a significant role in the case of transferring ownership to the middle-income group. In this paper, informal housing practices in developing countries and the attitudes and approaches to changing patterns toward this sector have been discussed.
Informal housing sector development is perhaps a consequence of some significant issues always happening in cities of developing countries. Among them a high rate of population in-migration to the city, a lack of public investment in housing, and the adoption of misguided and often Western-based urban planning policies (O’Hare, Abbott & Barke 1998). All projections reveal that the urban population in Third World countries will increase at an alarming rate in the coming years.
The worrying feature of this tendency is the propagation of informal settlements mostly in city areas (Sethuraman 1985). According to (Sivam 2003), informal housing developments are illegal and composed of unauthorized colonies and squatter settlements. These are mostly evolved because of the non-availability of housing in the legal housing market. The common characteristics of informal housing are insecurity of tenure and low standards of infrastructure and services.
Formal housing is constructed following the building codes and standards enforced by the national housing authorities, whereas Informal housing is built defying minimum standards of housing regulations. Lack of tenure security is a key characteristic of informal settlements. According to the Vienna Declaration on National Regional Policy and Programmes 2004 on Informal Settlements, ‘informal housing or informal settlement’ is defined as human settlements, which for a variety of reasons do not meet legal procedure (and have been built without respecting formal procedures of legal ownership, transfer of ownership, as well as urban planning regulations), prevail in their respective countries and hinder economic development.
While there is important regional diversity in terms of their manifestation, these settlements are mainly characterized by informal or insecure land tenure, inadequate access to basic services, both social and physical infrastructure, and housing finance ((Tsenkova 2009).
The consequences of the rapid increase in population and the changing socio-economic pattern in developing countries have resulted in an acute shortage of housing for low-income households (Sivam 2003). Poor urban governance is considered one of the main elements to happen informal settlement. Urban governance is linked to the benefit of urban people. Good urban governance enables access to urban services like the security of tenure, safe water, sanitation, a clean environment, health, education, etc.
Informal housing and other unofficial settlements have an influence over the development of cities mostly in developing countries. Lots of importance in recent years has been put forward to the informal housing sector. However, Unplanned and sporadic eviction drives without proper resettlements are also common phenomena. Simultaneously, upgrading and rehabilitation of informal housing are seen with the joint venture initiative of the government and private sector. Bangladesh, as a developing country, has been experiencing informal urban housing problems with its highly increasing urbanization rate. Bangladesh has among the highest urbanization rates in the world and the capital city Dhaka is expected to be one of the 10 largest mega cities by 2010 (Ahmed 2007).