AP Syllabus focus:
‘Squatter settlements and conflicts over land tenure have increased in many large cities, especially where formal housing supply is limited.’
Urban growth often outpaces formal housing supply, leading low-income residents to establish informal communities and face insecure land rights that shape urban development and social outcomes.
Squatter Settlements and Land Tenure Conflicts
Squatter settlements emerge where rapid urbanization, limited affordable housing, and insufficient planning intersect. These areas illustrate how informal housing, insecure land ownership, and urban inequality shape spatial patterns and daily life in many cities.
Understanding Squatter Settlements
Squatter settlements refer to residential areas where people occupy land illegally or without formal land ownership due to housing shortages or high land costs. They often expand quickly as migrants and low-income households seek proximity to employment.
Squatter Settlement: A residential area developed without legal land ownership or formal permission, often lacking basic infrastructure and official recognition.
Squatter settlements develop through layered processes that reflect economic, social, and political constraints.
Key Characteristics
Informal construction, frequently using temporary or recycled materials
Limited infrastructure, such as unreliable electricity, water, and sanitation
High residential density due to constrained space and growing populations
Peripheral or marginal locations, including steep slopes, floodplains, or unused urban land
Lack of formal services, including schools, roads, and waste removal
Factors Driving the Growth of Squatter Settlements
Population pressures and economic challenges expand informal housing even as cities attempt to regulate land use.
Urbanization Pressures
Rural-to-urban migration increases demand for low-cost housing near job opportunities.
Natural population growth within cities intensifies housing shortages.
Limited formal housing supply, especially for low-income residents, pushes people to seek unregulated land.
Economic Constraints
High housing costs in central and rapidly growing areas exclude low-income households.
Underemployment and informal labor economies reduce access to credit or mortgages.
Speculative land markets encourage developers to focus on profitable projects rather than affordable options.
Land Tenure: A Central Challenge
Land tenure refers to the legal rights individuals or groups have to own, occupy, or use land. Unclear or insecure tenure contributes directly to conflict.
Land Tenure: The system of legal and customary rights that determine who can use, control, and transfer land.
Because residents in squatter settlements lack legal land titles, they face insecurity that affects investment, stability, and long-term planning.
Types of Land Tenure Conflicts
Conflicts arise when multiple groups claim rights to the same land or when governments attempt to regulate informal settlements.
Common Forms of Conflict
Evictions, often without compensation, occur when landowners or governments reclaim urban land.
Legal disputes emerge when residents seek recognition or when ownership records are unclear.
Community–developer conflicts arise when new infrastructure or redevelopment projects target occupied land.
Political conflicts occur when leaders promise land rights but fail to enforce them.
Social and Spatial Impacts of Tenure Insecurity
The absence of formal land rights influences how residents build, invest, and interact with the city around them.
Impacts on Residents
Housing instability, which prevents long-term improvements or investment in durable materials
Limited access to services, since governments often hesitate to extend infrastructure to illegally occupied land
Exclusion from credit markets, because residents cannot use property as collateral
Increased vulnerability during natural hazards, such as landslides or floods, due to unsafe locations
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Informal Economies and Community Organization
Many squatter settlements rely on informal economies, where residents engage in unregulated jobs such as street vending, repair services, or home-based enterprises. These activities help households survive but also reinforce the settlement’s marginalization as they remain outside formal regulatory frameworks.
Residents often create self-organized governance structures, including community associations or informal leaders who help manage land disputes, coordinate improvements, and negotiate with government agencies.
Government Responses to Squatter Settlements
City governments and planning agencies use a range of strategies to address the challenges posed by informal settlements, each with different consequences for residents.
Common Approaches
Eviction and demolition, which remove settlements to clear land for infrastructure or development
Upgrading programs, which improve services such as roads, water access, and sanitation while allowing residents to remain
Land titling initiatives, which grant formal land ownership to residents to increase security
Relocation programs, which move communities to planned housing farther from the city center
These approaches vary in effectiveness depending on political will, funding, and the urban context.
Why Squatter Settlements Persist
Despite policy interventions, squatter settlements often continue to expand because the underlying drivers—rapid urbanization, housing shortages, and poverty—remain unresolved.
Key Reasons for Persistence
Mismatch between affordable housing demand and supply
Slow bureaucratic processes for legal land acquisition
Limited enforcement of zoning or building regulations
Continued migration from rural areas or smaller towns
Economic necessity, as informal settlements provide access to jobs and community networks
The Geography of Land Tenure Conflicts
The spatial distribution of squatter settlements reflects broader patterns of urban inequality. Settlements typically cluster:
along transport corridors
near industrial zones
on hazard-prone or environmentally sensitive land
at the urban periphery, where regulation is weaker
This aerial photograph of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, illustrates the extremely high residential density and self-built structures that characterize many squatter settlements. The tightly packed metal roofs and narrow paths highlight limited infrastructure and scarce open space. Although taken in one specific location, the spatial form shown here is representative of informal settlements in rapidly growing cities worldwide. Source.
Understanding these patterns helps explain how cities expand and where vulnerable populations locate themselves.
Toward More Inclusive Urban Development
Grassroots organizations, savings groups, and neighborhood associations often mobilize residents to negotiate with local governments, resist forced evictions, and demand more secure land tenure.
This photograph shows a community meeting in the Freedom Square informal settlement of Gobabis, Namibia, illustrating how residents collectively organize to address land rights and service needs. Such gatherings exemplify participatory negotiation and resistance to eviction. Although taken in a specific national context, it clearly represents grassroots mobilization common in informal settlements worldwide. Source.
In some cities, infrastructure projects and upgrading schemes bring new transport lines, public facilities, and services into squatter settlements, which can both improve living conditions and intensify land-value and tenure conflicts.
FAQ
Governments assess factors such as the safety of the site, long-term land-use plans and whether infrastructure can realistically be extended to the area.
Political considerations also matter. Settlements with strong community organisation or electoral influence are more likely to receive upgrading, while those on high-value land may face eviction regardless of need.
In some regions, traditional authorities allocate or manage land outside formal legal frameworks, creating overlapping claims between customary users and state agencies.
Conflicts often arise when urban expansion meets customary land, as neither system fully recognises the rights granted by the other.
Formalisation depends on political will, investment incentives and the stability of land claims.
Settlements near employment centres or transport routes may be prioritised for services, while those in hazardous zones remain excluded.
Long-term community advocacy can also influence the likelihood of gaining legal recognition.
Informal landlords may subdivide land and rent units without legal titles, creating multi-layered claims where tenants have even weaker protections than owners.
This can intensify disputes, especially when authorities intervene. It also complicates upgrading efforts because multiple actors must negotiate rights and responsibilities.
They provide technical support for mapping, titling and participatory planning, helping clarify boundaries and rights.
They may also fund infrastructure improvements or pilot projects that encourage governments to formalise settlements.
However, their involvement can create tensions if reforms raise land values and risk displacing current residents.
Practice Questions
(1–3 marks)
Explain one reason why squatter settlements often develop on marginal land within rapidly growing cities.
Question 1 (1–3 marks)
1 mark for identifying a valid reason, such as the low cost or availability of marginal land.
1 mark for explaining that formal housing is unaffordable or insufficient for low-income migrants.
1 mark for linking the reason to rapid urbanisation or limited government regulation that pushes residents to settle in hazardous or unclaimed spaces.
(4–6 marks)
Using an urban example you have studied, analyse how insecure land tenure can create social and spatial challenges for residents in squatter settlements.
Question 2 (4–6 marks)
1 mark for identifying an appropriate urban example (e.g., Kibera in Nairobi, Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, Dharavi in Mumbai).
1–2 marks for describing how insecure tenure leads to social challenges, such as fear of eviction, lack of investment in housing, or exclusion from basic services.
1–2 marks for describing spatial challenges, such as overcrowding, construction on hazardous sites, or lack of formal infrastructure.
1 mark for analytical explanation linking insecurity of land rights to broader urban processes, such as inequality, informal governance, or disputes between residents, governments, and developers.
