The Informal City and Rights in South East Asian Cities: the Cases of Kampung Improvement Programme and Baan Mankong
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The Bartlett Development Planning Unit DPU WORKING PAPER NO. 192 The informal city and rights in South East Asian Cities: the cases of Kampung Improvement Programme and Baan Mankong David Sweeting dpu Development Planning Unit DPU Working Papers are downloadable at: www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu/latest/ publications/dpu-papers If a hard copy is required, please contact the Development Planning Unit (DPU) at the address at the bottom of the page. Institutions, organisations and booksellers should supply a Purchase Order when ordering Working Papers. Where multiple copies are ordered, and the cost of postage and package is significant, the DPU may make a charge to cover costs. DPU Working Papers provide an outlet for researchers and professionals working in the fields of development, environment, urban and regional development, and planning. They report on work in progress, with the aim to disseminate ideas and initiate discussion. Comments and correspondence are welcomed by authors and should be sent to them, c/o The Editor, DPU Working Papers. Copyright of a DPU Working Paper lies with the author and there are no restrictions on it being published elsewhere in any version or form. DPU Working Papers are refereed by DPU academic staff and/or DPU Associates before selection for publication. Texts should be submitted to the DPU Working Papers' Editor Étienne von Bertrab. Graphics and layout: Luz Navarro, Giovanna Astolfo and Paola Fuentes Development Planning Unit | The Bartlett | University College London 34 Tavistock Square - London - WC1H 9EZ Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 1111 - Fax: +44 (0)20 7679 1112 - www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/dpu DPU WORKING PAPER NO. 192 The informal city and rights in South East Asian Cities: the cases of Kampung Improvement Programme and Baan Mankong David Sweeting [email protected] [email protected] October 2017 Based on dissertation written in 2012 ISSN 1474-3280 Abstract. Asia is home to the largest population of people Using intersecting ideas between informality developed by Anan- living in informal settlements and slums. Its southern and ya Roy; the state of exception by Giorgio Agamben; theories on eastern sub regions house over 80% of slum dwellers in the rights to the city by David Harvey and Henri Lefebvre; and in- entire region. The most notable success stories in Asia, in surgent citizenship by James Holston, the paper offers a critical terms of decreasing slum growth significantly, have occurred analysis of pro-poor and self-help housing policy and programs in in South-East Asia, where policies implemented between the Bangkok and Jakarta. The paper aims to examine housing policy 1970’s to early 2000’s have strongly impacted the growth of in each case study through a socio-political and historical lens; slums in major cities. This paper explores rights, citizenship and understand the extent and ambiguities of opening spaces for and spaces of negotiation in relation to innovative approach- negotiation in the process of slum upgrading. es to slum upgrading and low-income housing improvement The paper concludes by offering potential trajectories for insur- programs, in two South East Asian cities: Bangkok, Thailand gent citizenship and spaces for negotiation in expanding notions and Jakarta, Indonesia. of rights for the urban poor in Bangkok and Jakarta. Content 1. Introduction 5 List of acronyms 1.1. Locating citizenship in housing policy 5 CODI Community Organizations Development Institute 2. At crossroads: rights, citizenship DPU Development Planning Unit and globalisation 7 KIP Kampung Improvement Programme NGO Non-Government Organizations 2.1. A battle cry for collective rights 7 NHA National Housing Authority 2.2. Excavating citizenship 7 UCL University College London 2.3. Analytical framework 8 UDP Urban Development Planning UNHABITAT United Nations Human Settlements 3. Policy and planning in Bangkok and Program Jakarta 11 3.1. Situating Southeast Asian citizenship, rights and values 11 3.2. The extent, coverage and limits of Kampung Improvement Programme 12 3.3. The question of spaces for negotiation and reimagining citizenship 14 3.4. Baan Mankong: success story or struggle for citizenship? 15 3.5. The extent and ambiguities of opening space for insurgent citizenship 16 4. Conclusion 18 References 20 5 1. Introduction 1.1 Locating citizenship in housing policy gotiation and develop synergies that redress power rela- tions at city scale (Boonyabancha 2005; Fiori and Ram- “Sometime in the next year, a young man will irez, 1992, Levy, 1996, 2007; Safier 2002). Soomsook flee his village in west Java for the bright lights of Boonyabancha, former Community Organizations Devel- Jakarta” (Davis, 2006:1). opment Institute (CODI) director and architect of the Baan Mankong programme argues, “No cost occupation of land is a temporary phenomenon… options for informal solutions [to the housing crisis] have been already reduced ‘[slum] Upgrading is a great opportunity to make and will rapidly become more so as powerful changes – changes involving all the communities and integrated organisations take control of in the city, changes in the people, changes within urbanisation at the periphery” (Baross and Jan van the relationships, changes in the way of thinking, der Linden, 1990, as cited in Davis, 2006:90). changes in people’s own attitudes towards them- selves and their position in their societies or cities. Upgrading, if it’s done properly, can really liberate Whilst Davis’s global snapshot, Planet of Slums, strikes people.’ (Boonyabancha, ibid:45) a fearful chord for the populous and dense metropolitan areas of the global south, his apocalyptic vision offers more factual discourse against global capitalism and less Echoing a liberating call, Boonyabancha understands the insight into possible solutions for the urban poor (San- obvious benefits of material improvement through pro- som, 2006). The questions raised by Davis, however, are gressive housing policy, but more importantly, envisions undoubtedly central to the plight of many urban poor and transformation as a dynamic interaction progressively re- marginalised: how to provide housing, services and infra- configuring institutional frameworks to reverse the logics structure for the urban poor, at the same time as progres- of injustice, disempowerment and exclusivity created by sively impacting economic growth and urbanization. This policies and institutions in the first place. paper explores these issues in the context of informal spaces, housing and citizenship analysing the cities of In reality, however, the transformative potential of policy Bangkok and Jakarta in Southeast Asia; and later argues can be ambiguous, or often displaying mono-sectoral that housing policy and programs attempting to address ambitions and over-dependency on the formal market. issues of low-income housing and informal settlements Traditionally housing policy has been developed through requires politically inclusive policy to define spaces of ne- top-down, market-driven approaches, but there has gotiation and embed influence over regulatory and insti- always been a limitation in policy coverage giving rise tutional arrangements. to the adoption of unconventional self-help practices contributing to housing stock (Pugh, 2001). In spite of In contrast to Davis, Mitlin (1995) directs policymakers to pro-poor housing policy, informal markets can still be understand urban poverty as more than economic depri- observed in housing provision, even in the ‘poorest of vation, arguing it contains broader ramifications connect- slums in Jakarta, where minimal customary rights to ed to inequality across housing, transport, education, and shelter are bought and sold on faith without the pro- health services. Additionally, despite many policymakers tection of the law’ (Angel, 2000:4). Some critics believe observing urban poverty as ‘spatially confined to informal the limitations to self-help housing policy, made popular settlements and slums’, Marx (2006:22) contends urban by the work of John F. C. Turner, are tied to capital- poverty is highly sensitive to the city geography and can- ist interests and reducing costs of production; causing not be addressed independent of the formal economy. fragmentation amongst collective action and reproduc- The need for comprehensive and integrated approaches tion of problems created by markets the intervention bridging synergies across social, political, spatial and was intended to resolve (Burgess, 1977, 1985; Pradilla, economic processes is clear. Thus, in order to meet the 1976; Harms, 1982; Marcuse, 1992). Indeed, self-help growing needs of the urban low-income and poor, urban housing policy may co-opt individuals and collective po- researchers and practitioners argue for the development litical action, thus suggesting a moral argument against of policies and programmes that expand spaces for ne- potential economic certainty, but this critique distracts 6 DPU Working Paper no. 192 discourse away from furthering non-conventional policy political, institutional and spatial processes, all of which research and development (Ward and Macoloo, 1992). are interconnected and operating at different scales si- The confluence of housing policy with neo-liberal growth multaneously’ that do not define or impose on spaces of patterns suggests a need to understand non-conven- negotiation (Fiori and Brandão, 2010:183). tional self-help policies that are more progressive than the political circumstances that allow for such policies to Conceptions