Planning in Self-Planned Informal Cities

Abstract

Post-colonial urban informality is subject to binary interpretations, entrenching or inverting existing practices. There is a renewed attention in urban studies literature to view cities as self-organising systems rather than as an outcome of a top-down hierarchical planning process. With case studies from Khulna city, Bangladesh, the argument presented in this paper reiterates the self-organising system theory where the built-environment is a juxtaposition and spatial negotiation of numerous (micro)informal planning organisations. Land-owner association, housing societies, private land developers, mosque committees, local ward counsellors, young environmental activists, or even individual actors are the true (micro)planners anddecision-makers who negotiate everyday spatial arrangement and service provision of post-colonial cities. Such negotiations and arrangements are not necessarily responses to planning failure, but are democratic, aligned to stakeholders’ aspirations, and testify the need to incorporate such inputs into the planning code. I then argue, that, qualitative negotiations and arrangements, as such informality,need to be incorporated as planning rule in cities of urban informality