Understanding formal and informal relationships in settlement upgrading for planning just and inclusive cities: the case of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

Since colonial times a formal/informal divide entrenched in systems of urban planning in Phnom Penh, Cambodia has been used as a governmental tool by the state to marginalize and exclude informal settlements. This tool has also been used to impose a market-oriented model of urban development that is insufficient in progressing the aspirations, needs, and claims to justice of people living in these settlements. In fact, this model has led to the development of a highly unequal and unjust city. This problematic touches on a key aspect of planning knowledge which affects many other cities of the global south. Binaries are a characteristic of western thought and capitalism. This way of thinking reproduces a hierarchical worldview with a privileging pole and unequal power relationships by making divisions between formal/informal sectors, public/private property, ordinary/global cities, and individual/collective ways of life. Binaries turn the merely different into an absolute other and exclude and marginalize the reality of difference in cities. Despite growing evidence of formal and informal relationships in cities, most research has tended to concentrate on understanding these systems separately. My research addresses this knowledge gap. In this thesis I explain how formal and informal relationships are composed in the context of informal settlement upgrading practices in Phnom Penh with emphasis in three dimensions: a) land access, b) finance for housing, infrastructure and livelihoods, and c) political recognition. I use a case study of one informal settlement in PhnomPenh to evidence how the state is implicated in informality and how these relationships produce social and spatial inequalities. I also explain how formal and informal relationships are characterized by a negotiability of value of citizenship rights, were collective action plays a key role as a mechanism that vulnerable groups rely on to legitimize their claims and secure land, housing, infrastructure, livelihoods and political recognition. This research is guided by theoretical propositions on social and spatial justice, specifically processes of accumulation by dispossession that result from the financialization of land and housing. Within this framework, the concepts of space, power, and collective action are used to transcend exchange value and illuminate the use value of cities. II