Self-management and the production of habitat: a case study of the Alianza Solidaria Housing Cooperative in Quito

During the second half of the twentieth century, Ecuador went through an intense rural-urban migration that drove a significant increase in the demand for housing units. Insufficient government response resulted in great housing deficit in all the cities. Later, this triggered the formation of pro housing organizations across the country, which looked for quick solutions for the poorest working class. Since the 70s, economic changes driven by the oil boom also contributed to said housing deficit increase along with the growth of urban informality in many cities. Although self-build and self-management housing production fostered urban sprawl over unserved peripheral land, cooperativism became an alternative to tackle the growing scarcity. However, the case of Alianza Solidaria Housing Cooperative stands out among the numerous social organizations that aimed for better living conditions. It developed an alternative for housing production in the periphery of Quito based on a comprehensive vision about habitat, self-management, solidarity-based economy and cooperativism.

The Solano Trindade housing occupation as an urban self-management project in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro

This chapter analyses an urban self-management project developed by the partnership between a social housing movement — Movimento Nacional de Luta pela Moradia/MNLM (National Movement of Struggle for Housing) and a public university — Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) in a land occupation in the metropolitan periphery of Rio de Janeiro. Solano Trindade occupation, located in the peripheral city "Duque de Caxias", has as its main innovation the social movement-university partnership in the collective construction of ways to associate housing and emancipated work through technical and political training. The article presents activities developed in the context of this partnership during the collective production of housing, urban services and agroecological products with alternative technologies, highlighting the interactions between the agents and the tension between scientific and popular knowledge.

Residents’ experiences of self-build housing

This chapter is concerned with why people assume the responsibility for building their own home and how they fulfil that role in the context of the Homeruskwartier in Almere in the Netherlands. It considers the rationales and design strategies self-builders employ, as well as how this interacts with the regulatory framework imposed by the municipality. The chapter draws upon a mixed methodology, combining quantitative survey data with in-depth interviews. The chapter concludes that there is a wide range of rationales and strategies employed by self-builders in the Almere Homeruskwartier. While some self-builders employ architects, others opt for using catalogue-builders or DIY. Customization and financial motives are both found to be particularly salient. Rather than delimiting creativity and imagination, residents feel the regulatory framework created a sense of possibility and security. Planners must take into account the multi-dimensional nature of the self-built home when developing form-based codes. Further research on self-organized housing provision should refrain from studying self-building practices in isolation, but engage with its relation to structuring institutional and economic logics.

Contested governance of housing for low-and middle-income groups in European city-regions: the pivotal role of commissioning

Comparing the housing situation of European city-regions is complicated by the large differences between social-economic and institutional conditions. In the first part of the chapter, a global indication is given of the different tenures, the differences of accessibility, and the recent tendencies of housing conditions. Social and private rent appear to be the most common arrangements for low- and middle-income groups; these are provided by different public and private sector agencies. The second part of the chapter discusses recent experiences of articulating the commissioning role of tenants vis à vis the public sector, the market and the established developers in a number of significant cases.

My House, My Life Programme – Entities: two self-management experiences in the city of São Paulo

The chapter analyses two experiences of housing production through the federal Program ‘My Life My House Entities’ in São Paulo: Ipiranga/ Dandara and Maria Domitila buildings, both projects of Unification of the Tenements and Housing Struggles (Unificação das Lutas de Cortiços e Moradia – ULCM) movement. São Paulo has a long history of innovative policies regarding self-build housing. During the last two decades, government housing programs steadily incorporated self-help and collective task forces. The text analyses the opportunity of high quality affordable housing in central areas based on self-help and participative practices in the recent Brazilian experience.

The experience of an African city: urban areas in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

The combination of the population explosion and the unbridled and disjointed urbanization in Burkina Faso is posing a crucial problem of poor access to decent housing. This chapter distinguishes different stages of urban development in Burkina, and analyses the inconsistency of public measures. It also discusses the role of housing markets and governments in a country where self-construction is the main mode of housing production; the withdrawal of the State from the organization of housing promotion; and the emergence of a civil society.

Residential experiences in times of shifting housing regimes in Istanbul

This chapter examines changing housing regimes in Istanbul. It analyses two forms of self-building that emerged as solutions improvised by people in response to the pressing housing need and became predominant modes of housing production since the 1950s, namely “gecekondu,” and “yap-sat” or “build-and-sell.” Although stimulated by governments for some decades, both of these self-regulated housing forms came to a point of expulsion under the new regime of capital accumulation based on aggressive real-estate development that has been adopted as part of neoliberal urban policies in Turkey since the 2000s. The frenzy for urban transformation accompanied by financialization of housing led to further commodification of housing and urban space, undermining the right to decent and affordable housing and quality urban space for every citizen, which gave rise to considerable dissent that culminated in the emergence of new urban movements in defence of housing rights and ‘right to the city.’

From neighbourhood self-organisation to city building: the case of Bathore, Kamëz (Albania)

This chapter delves in the evolution of the city of Kamëz from a small town in the suburbs of Tirana, the capital of Albania, to a city of over 90,000 inhabitants. Practices of self-built are analysed in three main timeframes reflecting the different socio-political conditions of Albania. Initially, experiences of self-built are analysed in the pre-1990s in Kamëz during the dictatorial regime. Afterwards, the analysis is focused on the dynamic evolution of the area of Bathore, a neighbourhood in Kamëz, in a complete absence urban management by the state and where citizens through informal development populated the whole area. In the end, the chapter is focused on a project for the improvement of the neighbourhood which afterwards became a common practice for the evolution of the city through self-built practices. The main focus of the analysis is on the role of state, non-state and citizens in the process of self-built experiences in Albania.

The institutionalisation of self-build governance: exemplifying governance relationships in São Paulo/ Brazil/ Latin America

The chapter shows how the housing policies for the low-income population in Brazil, especially in São Paulo, were transformed by popular practices. The huge increase of the Brazilian favela population in the last decades reaching more than 11 million inhabitants (about 6% of the Brazilian population in 2010) has led institutions to gradually tolerate heterodox practices (such as land invasion) and even to have them legalized by the public power. Starting from the point of view of Latin American urbanization and irregularity reality, this article describes the gradual institutionalizing of informal governance arrangements in Brazil and the evolution of the intervention paradigm from the 1960’s to the present day.

Introduction: Self-building as a right to the city

The chapter sets up the analytical framework for the comparison of cases of self-building by low income groups in city-regions of the Global North and South. Considering the enormous local differences, a choice of paradigm is needed to enable comparison. By designing a framework of contested urban governance, the analysis focuses on the struggle of social and economic forces that are underlying the local experiences: it consists of the economic powers that capitalize on material growth of cities on the one hand and the social and cultural powers of the urban population, claiming their right to the city, on the other. Crucial is the commissioning role of the residents in the attempts to control their housing situation in relation to other relevant players on urban housing markets. These attempts are not only made in the micro-level performance of self-building but also in the political and social struggle on the conditions that rest on these practices.