Geography
The Geography of Informal Settlements in Global Cities
Quick fact
As of 2023, over one billion people live in informal settlements; in Nairobi, Kenya, the Kibera district houses about 250,000 people, yet it rarely appears on official maps.
Why this is interesting
Imagine a city where 60% of the population lives in homes they built themselves, on land they don't legally own. How did that happen—and why does it keep happening?
Read the full explanation
Understanding The Geography of Informal Settlements in Global Cities
Think of a city as a market: land near the center is expensive, so formal developers build upward and outward where profit is possible. But not everyone can afford formal housing. When migrants arrive faster than housing can be built, they settle on leftover land—steep hillsides, floodplains, or the city's fringe. They build shelters from whatever they can salvage, creating dense, self-managed neighborhoods. Over time, these areas gain basic services—water, electricity, schools—often through community pressure and political negotiation, even without legal ownership. This is informal settlement: a parallel system of housing that bypasses official planning and ownership codes, yet becomes a permanent feature of the city's geography.
A deeper explanation
Why do informal settlements appear where they do? The answer lies in a city's land rent gradient. Prime land has high value, so it's reserved for formal, high-cost uses. Lower-income residents are pushed to low-value fringe areas: steep slopes, riverbanks, and industrial zones—places no one else wants. As cities expand, these edge zones absorb incoming population. Meanwhile, zoning laws and strict building codes often make safe, affordable housing impossible, so informality becomes the only option. The result is a patchwork of neighborhoods that exist outside the official map but are deeply integrated into the city's economy, supplying labor for construction, domestic work, and street vending. Understanding this geography reveals how urban inequality is not accidental but systematically produced by the intersection of markets, policy, and migration.