Favelas, barrios and shantytowns

This talk explores the needs of the poor and homeless around the world, charting the interplay between formal and informal settlements (Stiphany & Ward, 2019; Werthmann, 2021). The key example for this talk will be the favelas of Saõ Paulo in the context of a broader concern with Latin American urbanism and the role of individual initiative, social forces and politics as agencies of urban transformation. Built environments are to be seen not only as technological artifacts but also as providing a spatial politics for transforming where and how vulnerable communities immigrate to cities. Key questions arise concerning the relation of informal housing to the formal infrastructural systems of cities, including access to utilities.