Demystifying Informal Urban Design and Planning: Insights from Asia

By Mahyar Arefi

Touting informal settlements or informality in general as illegal, crime-ridden, unsafe, filthy, chaotic, and formal developments as legal, orderly or safe, and so forth has not solved anything and informality as a way of life or an economic reality lingers and grows. Demystifying informal urban design and planning delves deeper into this conundrum and seeks to debunk some common misguided perceptions about it. Borrowing popular philosophical and political analogies from Isaiah Berlin and Gregory Treverton and others, it encourages urban designers and planners to become multitaskers like foxes rather than hedgehogs who can do one thing right. The book ends with some general takeaways on assuming more proactive roles in informal urban design issues and avoiding two potential pitfalls while interacting with them.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1526174766
• ISBN13: 9781526174765
• Release Date: June 2025
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Length: 304 Pages