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

欧洲的房地产危机是显而易见的。2008年全球经济危机、投机性的发展形式、紧缩措施以及与难民涌入有关的住房需求增加等多种因素导致所有人都缺乏负担得起的住所。随之而来的越来越多的无家可归者产生了新的定居点形式，通常与南方或欧洲工业革命期间的“非正式城市”的想象有关。拟议的研究侧重于这些新兴住房模式的各种表现形式，并调查住房市场的正式-非正式连续体，以此作为对非洲大陆当代城市发展进程进行批判性分析的场所。这涉及对伦敦和巴黎有形和半有形非正规住房形式的分析，包括棚户区、自制难民营和占用的居住空间。更具体地说，该项目打算调查：非正规住房作为获得住房的战略相对于伦敦和巴黎的官方住房渠道的作用；住房非正规性在这些城市的城市形态中的表现方式；以及政策和法规在塑造各种形式的城市非正规性方面的作用。因此，这项研究将对伦敦和巴黎不稳定的住房模式提供诊断，并支持在欧洲范围内解决这一问题的可能措施。这项研究采用了混合方法，将规划和社会科学方法与空间和定性数据分析相结合。

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.