New precarious settlements, informality-formality continuum and the housing access question in Europe

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The housing crisis in Europe is evident. A multitude of factors, such as the global economic crisis of 2008, speculative forms of development, austerity measures and an increased housing demand linked to the influx of refugees, has resulted in a shortage of affordable shelter for all. The consequent growing homelessness has generated new forms of settlements typically associated with the imaginaries of ‘informal cities’ in the South or during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. The proposed research focuses on various manifestations of these emerging housing formats and investigates the formal-informal continuum in the housing market as a site of critical analysis of the contemporary urban development process on the continent. This involves an analysis of visible and semi-visible forms of informal housing in London and Paris including shantytowns (bidonvilles), self-made refugee camps and appropriated living spaces. More specifically the project intends to investigate: the role of informal housing as a housing access strategy vis-à-vis official housing channels in London and Paris; the ways in which housing informalities unfold themselves in the urban morphology of these cities, and the role of policies and regulations in shaping various forms of urban informalities. As such the research will provide a diagnosis of the precarious housing formats in London and Paris and support possible measures to address this problem in a European context. The research uses a mixed-methods approach combining planning and social science methods with spatial and qualitative data analysis.