The Self-Build Experience

Book excerpt: Using a broad international comparative perspective spanning multiple countries across South America, Europe and Africa, contributors explore resident-led self-building for low and middle income groups in urban areas. Although social, economic and urban prosperity differs across these contexts, there exists a recurring, cross-continental, tension between formal governance and self-regulation. Contributors examine the multi-faceted regulation dilemmas of self-building under the conditions of modernization and consider alternative methods of institutionalization, place-making and urban design, reconceptualizing the moral and managerial ownership of the city. Innovative in scope, this book provides an array of globalized solutions for navigating regulatory tensions in order to optimize sustainable development for the future