Urban Informality

This rich and provocative collection succeeds not only in deconstructing the outmoded antinomies of informal versus formal, local versus global, and marginalized versus institutionalized power, but, mirabili dictu, takes a giant leap along the path to fruitful reconstruction. Its strong chapters, written by theoretically sophisticated and research-grounded area specialists with considerable experience in specific urbanized settings in the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, not only illustrate common problems but identify variations in response, contingent on differences in their cultural, economic, and geopolitical contexts. -- Janet Abu-Lughod, New School for Social Research (Emerita) The spread of urban informality is the most significant trend shaping the space and time of our 21st century world. This book is the finest collection of scholarly essays I know on this phenomenon. It should be mandatory reading for courses on urbanization and on development studies. -- Manuel Castells, University of California at Berkeley (Emeritus) The book presents a rich view of 'urban informality' as a system of regulation and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The editors are well experienced in teaching town planning and the book will be found very useful reading by the town planners, developers, and other government and local self-government officials. * Educational Book Review *

Ananya Roy is Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. Nezar AlSayyad is Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Architecture and Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam: Politics, Culture, and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Lexington Books, 2002).

Chapter 1 Urban Informality: Crossing Borders Chapter 2 Urban Informality as a "New" Way of Life Part 3 Liberalization, Globalization, and Urban Informality Chapter 4 Love in the Time of Enhanced Capital Flows: Reflections on the Links Between Liberalization and Informality Chapter 5 The Changing Nature of the Informal Sector in Karachi Due to Global Restructuring and Liberalization, and Its Repercussions Chapter 6 Globalization and the Politics of the Informals in the Global South Chapter 7 The Politics of Urban Informalities Chapter 8 Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, 1969-2002 Chapter 9 The Gentleman's City: Urban Informality in the Calcutta of New Communism Chapter 10 Tilting at Sphinxes: Locating Urban Informality in Egyptian Cities Chapter 11 Control, Resistance, and Informality: Urban Ethnocracy in Beer-Sheva, Israel Part 12 Transnational Interrogation Chapter 13 Informality of Housing Production at the Urban-Rural Interface: The "Not So Strange Case" of the Texas Colonias Chapter 14 Power, Property, and Poverty: Why De Soto's "Mystery of Capital" Cannot be Solved Chapter 15 Transnational Trespassings: The Geopolitics of Informality