Wang, Xinran and Iruretagoyena, Maitane and Pastor, Luis Alonso and Larson, Kent, Taxonomy of Informality: Methodology for Establishing Multi-Dimension Global Informal Indicators to Be Used on the Informality Crowd-Sourced Database. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4149958 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4149958

Abstract

By 2050, the UN expects that 68% of the world's population will be living in urban areas and 90% of this urbanization is expected to take place in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, as rapid urbanized-informal communities. The complexity and broad scope of assessing informality have led world organizations such as UN-Habitat, to leave the data gathering and assessment task in the hands of local partners that use a diverse and very different (not normalized) set of methodologies and metrics, giving rise to unequal evaluations. As such, unified field- research inhibits potential comparisons between communities, and thus inhibits ways to extrapolate successful strategies learned in a settlement that might benefit other locations and communities. Measuring informality is a key indicator to evaluate the status of these communities and guide aids and policies. Informality has been studied extensively, yet, most studies focus on only a few aspects and investigate at a local or community level. Criteria and standards are very different across studies and regions, making comparisons unfeasible. Based on the literature review and previous work made by the City Science group, MIT Media Lab, we propose a non-traditional comprehensive taxonomy of informality, containing three major aspects—Architecture, Populace, and Site—each described by a set of subcategories with sub-indicators. We quantify and update existing indicators to acknowledge the evolution of beliefs and global development, especially emphasizing the voice of informal community members.