Comments on: Information is not a roof

By: Paul Currion

Paul Currion — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:59:54 +0000

Jim – thanks for dropping by. It’s rare to find an article in the press that reflects critical issues in this sector accurately, so I hope you write more!

Tom’s point about the legal issues doesn’t detract from the article – I understand that space is always a constraint – but it is important. In the future we’re going to see NGOs forced to get to grips with legal questions around what we broadly call “protection”, which includes property rights. (He beat me to it with the de Soto reference – I’m not as much of a convert as I used to be, but it’s still a good read.)

The rights question is made more complicated by the legal status of refugees, of course, but it seems that we should be more concerned about the “shantyization” processes that we’re seeing globally, which threaten to knock back many of the advances we’ve made in terms of health, education, etc. Urban planning needs its own revolution…

By: Tom Longley

Tom Longley — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:12:16 +0000

Hi Jim —

Thanks for getting stuck into our harping and carping about your (excellent) article. Perhaps you can persuade your editor to commission a follow-up about the complexity of the legal issues in emergency, transitional and even slum settlements.

A book on this matter that has really influenced my own thinking is Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, which is all about the development of private property laws. It’s not as dull as it sounds!

By: Jim Lewis

Jim Lewis — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:48:33 +0000

Hi, all: Jim Lewis here. I happened on your blog and thought I’d respond, in part because the questions you raise are indeed important. I don’t think granting legal title to a shelter is quite the solution, though, since the larger problem is ownership of the land on which it rests. My understanding is that a majority of the world’s poor don’t own the property they live on: renters, tenant farmers, squatters, and so on. (You may already know this: I don’t mean to be preaching to the choir here.) It does create great enormous problems. Among other things, aid groups are chary of investing in building on land that might be taken away at any moment, and few of them are equipped to deal with the legal issues that would arise. Indeed, no one really wants to take on the task of responsible building for, e.g., squatters. But even if one were to get a program started that encouraged land ownership, it would presumably take considerable time and legal expertise to get the issues sorted out. In the meantime, those people are living in grossly sub-standard conditions. — Ought we, then, to encourage the building of portable shelters?

I don’t know. (And again, my apologies if all of this is too familiar to you.)

As for why I didn’t write about it: I did, in an earlier draft. But one always has less space than one would like, and in the end we decided, first of all, to try to stay focussed on design, as such, and secondly, that the legal issues of land ownership were so complicated, and varied so widely around the world, that it would be more irresponsible to mention it briefly than to pass over it altogether. (I had to leave out a number of other issues that I would have liked to have discussed as well — women’s rights, for example, the question of sovereignty, and many others.)

All best,

By: Paul Currion

Paul Currion — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:18:32 +0000

Yes, the legal questions were noticeably absent. Understandable – it’s intended for a general audience – but problematic – since those have really become the questions in this area. I’m sure if Conor’s reading this he’ll have something to say…

By: Tom Longley

Tom Longley — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:17:16 +0000

Fair article; perceptive, good spread of views on the issue, nice reference to Fred Cuny, etc.

I would have liked to see some discussion about the roles of legal status and property title, and their influence on ideas of permeance of settlements. What kind of effect would the grant of legal title to a shelter have?