Informal settlements spatial analysis using Space Syntax and Geographic Information Systems

This paper focuses on the use of quantitative and qualitative spatial analysis to infer the distinctive attributes of informal settlements. All over the world many cities are forced to face a tumultuous process of growth that is placing more than a quarter of the planet’s urban pop- ulation at the margins of society, relegating them to settlements where people have no security of tenure dwellings they inhabit, the neighbourhoods usually lack basic services as well as city infrastructure, and the housing do not comply with current planning rules and building regulations. The Habitat agency of United Nations defines them informal settlements. The intrinsic features of these settlements, where there seems to exist an hidden order and a delicate balance between social structure, relational spatial structure and spatial forms, remain, however, not yet fully understood. This paper aims to point out some key-features of informal settlements, recurring to the use of configurational analysis of urban network and of qualitative analysis of urban environment, through a comparative analysis. In the ArcGIS environment a case study is developed and evaluated, also recurring to a dedicated software plug-in able to implement Space Syntax analysis techniques in GIS workspace. It is hoped that this paper will draw attention to the hidden, distinctive features of informal settlements in order to make rehabilitation programmes more effective and sustainable.