Urban and Industrial Environments

An examination of informal urban activities—including street vending, garage sales, and unpermitted housing—that explores their complexity and addresses related planning and regulatory issues.

Every day in American cities street vendors spread out their wares on sidewalks, food trucks serve lunch from the curb, and homeowners hold sales in their front yards—examples of the wide range of informal activities that take place largely beyond the reach of government regulation. This book examines the “informal revolution” in American urban life, exploring a proliferating phenomenon often associated with developing countries rather than industrialized ones and often dismissed by planners and policy makers as marginal or even criminal. The case studies and analysis in The Informal City challenge this narrow conception of informal urbanism.

The chapters look at informal urbanism across the country, empirically and theoretically, in cities that include Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City, Atlantic City, and New York City. They cover activities that range from unpermitted in-law apartments and ad hoc support for homeless citizens to urban agriculture, street vending and day labor. The contributors consider the nature and underlying logic of these activities, argue for a spatial understanding of informality and its varied settings, and discuss regulatory, planning, and community responses.

Contributors
Jacob Avery, Ginny Browne, Matt Covert, Margaret Crawford, Will Dominie, Renia Ehrenfeucht, Jeffrey Hou, Nabil Kamel, Gregg Kettles, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Kate Mayerson, Alfonso Morales, Vinit Mukhija, Michael Rios, Donald Shoup, Abel Valenzuela Jr. Mark Vallianatos, Peter M. Ward

In The Informal American City, Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris bring together in one accessible volume a highly recommended set of essays that create a wonderful platform for more studies of informality, and its relationship to formality. I strongly encourage you to read them.—Journal of the American Planning Association—Vinit Mukhija is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA and the author of Squatters as Developers? Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Vinit Mukhija is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA and the author of Squatters as Developers? Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Vinit Mukhija is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA and the author of Squatters as Developers? Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Renia Ehrenfeucht is Associate Professor in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans.

Renia Ehrenfeucht is Associate Professor in the Department of Planning and Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA. She is the coauthor of Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press) and other books. She is a leader of the Urban Humanities Initiative, a UCLA program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Vinit Mukhija is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA and the author of Squatters as Developers? Slum Redevelopment in Mumbai.