Internationally, settlement informality (informal housing and informal settlements) is increasing, not decreasing. Thus, according to United Nations estimates, there are currently 924 million people living in various forms of slums and unauthorized or informal settlements (UN Habitat, 2003, p2). In Sub-Saharan Africa 71,9% of urban dwellers lived in slums (ibid). In South Africa, official gover...

Housing developments in Lagos State peri-urban settlements have contributed immensely to the alleviation of the challenges of housing deficits in central Lagos. This research aims at examining the characteristics of housing development in the peri-urban settlements of Lagos State, Nigeria. Using a case study approach, housing developments in peri-urban settlements in Ibeju-Lekki Local Governmen...

BACKGROUND Preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health challenge. Studies suggest urban informal settlements have particularly high levels of IPV and HIV-prevalence and these settlements are rapidly growing. The current evidence base of effective approaches to preventing IPV recognizes the potential of combining economic strengthening and gender transformative inte...

BACKGROUND This paper considers the question of dietary diversity as a proxy for nutrition insecurity in communities living in the inner city and the urban informal periphery in Johannesburg. It argues that the issue of nutrition insecurity demands urgent and immediate attention by policy makers. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was undertaken for households from urban informal (n = 195) and ...

Like most cities in developing countries, Kigali is experiencing rapid urbanisation leading to an increase in the urban population and rapid growth in the size and number of informal settlements. More than 60% of the city's population resides in these settlements, where they experience inadequate and poor quality urban services including sanitation. This article discusses the issues and constra...

In the present paper, we argue that the relative location of peripheral spontaneous settlements is dynamic and changes with the growth of the city. The periphery is a place under constant mutation, always reproducing new extensions of land while the old peripheries are gradually incorporated to the city and occupied by new inhabitants. It focuses on the process of consolidation within the urban...

The morphology of urban agglomeration is studied here in the context of information exchange between different spatio-temporal scales. Urban migration to and from cities is characterised as non-random and following non-random pathways. Cities are multidimensional non-linear phenomena, so understanding the relationships and connectivity between scales is important in determining how the interpla...