IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v10y2021i5p535-d557382.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spontaneous Cities: Lessons to Improve Planning for Housing

Author

Listed:
  • Nikos Angelos Salingaros

    (Departments of Mathematics and Architecture, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA)

Abstract

The world can learn two key lessons from spontaneous settlements: ( i ) design so as to adapt to human biology; and ( ii ) design to save energy. Timeless processes of urban growth and sustainability have forced societies to conserve energy. Yet, nowadays, a profession focused on design ideology and short-term profit discredits many economical and effective long-term design methods. Decision-makers, politicians, and urbanists talk of energy conservation while continuing to use failed notions of industrial urbanity in place of documented solutions that work. Most damaging is the myopic academic elite’s fixation on an unsustainable industrial-modernist visual vocabulary of minimalist forms. By promoting typologies based on images dating from the 1920s, instead of using scientific analysis, the industry serves extractive global imperialism rather than satisfying the world’s population needs. We should instead learn from how self-builders adapt form, geometry, materials, surfaces, and ornament to maximize the user’s emotional experience in an otherwise extremely challenging environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikos Angelos Salingaros, 2021. "Spontaneous Cities: Lessons to Improve Planning for Housing," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-15, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:535-:d:557382
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/535/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/535/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paulo Silva, 2020. "Not So Much about Informality: Emergent Challenges for Urban Planning and Design Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-16, October.
    2. Osamu Saito, 2013. "Resource Use and Waste Generation by the Tourism Industry on the Big Island of Hawaii," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 17(4), pages 578-589, August.
    3. Shlomo Angel, 2017. "Urban Forms and Future Cities: A Commentary," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-5.
    4. Angel, Schlomo, 2000. "Housing Policy Matters: A Global Analysis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195137156.
    5. Jota Samper & Jennifer A. Shelby & Dean Behary, 2020. "The Paradox of Informal Settlements Revealed in an ATLAS of Informality: Findings from Mapping Growth in the Most Common Yet Unmapped Forms of Urbanization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-25, November.
    6. Peris Njoroge & Amollo Ambole & Daniel Githira & George Outa, 2020. "Steering Energy Transitions through Landscape Governance: Case of Mathare Informal Settlement, Nairobi, Kenya," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-19, June.
    7. Liza Weinstein, 2008. "Mumbai's Development Mafias: Globalization, Organized Crime and Land Development," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 22-39, March.
    8. Francesco Chiodelli, 2019. "The Dark Side of Urban Informality in the Global North: Housing Illegality and Organized Crime in Northern Italy," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 497-516, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. João Tonucci, 2023. "PROPERTY‐LED INFORMALITY: Shifting Informal Land Development from Popular Housing to Middle‐Class and Elite Speculation in Belo Horizonte," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 527-545, July.
    2. Ramin Keivani & Michael Mattingly & Hamid Majedi, 2008. "Public Management of Urban Land, Enabling Markets and Low-income Housing Provision: The Overlooked Experience of Iran," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(9), pages 1825-1853, August.
    3. Diana Mitlin, 2011. "Shelter Finance in the Age of Neo-liberalism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(6), pages 1217-1233, May.
    4. Mengqiu Cao & Robin Hickman, 2018. "Car dependence and housing affordability: An emerging social deprivation issue in London?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(10), pages 2088-2105, August.
    5. Seko, Miki & Sumita, Kazuto, 2007. "Effects of government policies on residential mobility in Japan: Income tax deduction system and the Rental Act," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 167-188, June.
    6. Richard Arnott, 2008. "Housing policy in developing countries. The importance of the informal economy," Working Papers 200801, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2008.
    7. Andrew Harris, 2008. "From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(12), pages 2407-2428, November.
    8. Haris Gazdar & Hussain Bux Mallah, 2013. "Informality and Political Violence in Karachi," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(15), pages 3099-3115, November.
    9. Eran Ben-Joseph, 2009. "Commentary: Designing Codes: Trends in Cities, Planning and Development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(12), pages 2691-2702, November.
    10. Anguelovski, Isabelle & Martínez Alier, Joan, 2014. "The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 167-176.
    11. Godfred Seidu Jasaw & Osamu Saito & Kazuhiko Takeuchi, 2015. "Shea ( Vitellaria paradoxa ) Butter Production and Resource Use by Urban and Rural Processors in Northern Ghana," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-23, March.
    12. Hesam Kamalipour, 2023. "Shaping Public Space in Informal Settlements: A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-17, February.
    13. COLIN McFARLANE, 2008. "Governing the Contaminated City: Infrastructure and Sanitation in Colonial and Post‐Colonial Bombay," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 415-435, June.
    14. Llerena Guiu Searle, 2014. "Conflict and Commensuration: Contested Market Making in India's Private Real Estate Development Sector," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 60-78, January.
    15. Crecentia Pamidzai Gandidzanwa & Muchaiteyi Togo, 2022. "Adaptive Responses to Water, Energy, and Food Challenges and Implications on the Environment: An Exploratory Study of Harare," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Maria Claudia Lucchetti & Gabriella Arcese, 2014. "Tourism Management and Industrial Ecology: A Theoretical Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-10, August.
    17. Urmi Sengupta & Brendan Murtagh & Camila D’Ottaviano & Suzana Pasternak, 2018. "Between enabling and provider approach: Key shifts in the national housing policy in India and Brazil," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(5), pages 856-876, August.
    18. World Bank Group, 2018. "Cameroon City Competitiveness Diagnostic," World Bank Publications - Reports 30164, The World Bank Group.
    19. Jie Chen & Zan Yang & Ya Ping Wang, 2014. "The New Chinese Model of Public Housing: A Step Forward or Backward?," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 534-550, June.
    20. Andrew Harris, 2012. "The Metonymic Urbanism of Twenty-first-century Mumbai," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(13), pages 2955-2973, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:535-:d:557382. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.