Incumbent governments commonly increase public expenditures prior to elections in order to curry favor with voters and boost their chances of retaining office. This study, set in Albania, focuses on a non-fiscal approach to winning votes: condoning, or at least tolerating, informal construction activities in the residential sector prior to elections. We term this approach … Continue reading
This chapter analyzes the urban form of informal settlements in the Western Balkans. Informal housing is now a permanent fixture of the urban landscape in this region. Given the widespread and increasing scale of informal settlements, it is important to record their spatial qualities and compare them to informal settlements elsewhere. A five-point framework is … Continue reading
On Wednesday, UQ|UP’s Dorina Pojani delivered a guest lecture for the students of architecture and planning at the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien). The lecture was part of Master’s level course, led by Mamica Burda and Catalin Berescu, which this year is focusing on housing informality in the Balkans. Dorina’s guest lecture was on … Continue reading
A new edited book on urban informality is out! The ‘Rutledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization‘ has been edited by Roberto Rocco and Jan van Ballegooijen at Delft University of Technology. It contains a collection of 25 case studies on urban informality, which examine the processes of informal urbanization in different socio-political and cultural setttings. Dorina … Continue reading