IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i9p2201-2219.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Living Conditions Diamond: An Analytical and Theoretical Framework for Understanding Slums

Author

Listed:
  • Sumila Gulyani

    (The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC, 20433, USA)

  • Ellen M Bassett

    (School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207, USA)

Abstract

What constitutes a ‘slum’ is much debated in the urban poverty and affordable housing literature. We argue that a focus on living conditions can help clarify this and present a framework, the living conditions diamond, for detailing living conditions and determining how the settlements we deem ‘slums’ compare with each other and with nonslum settlements. The diamond distils living conditions into four dimensions: (i) tenure, (ii) infrastructure, (iii) unit quality, and (iv) neighbourhood and location. This framework depicts conditions in graphic terms enabling comparison of conditions within and across cities. The diamond moves us beyond the notion that slums are homogeneously poor in quality, and facilitates analyses that can reveal why they differ. Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya and Dakar, Senegal are compared.

Suggested Citation

  • Sumila Gulyani & Ellen M Bassett, 2010. "The Living Conditions Diamond: An Analytical and Theoretical Framework for Understanding Slums," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(9), pages 2201-2219, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:9:p:2201-2219
    DOI: 10.1068/a42520
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a42520
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a42520?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alain Durand Lasserve & Harris Selod, 2009. "The Formalization of Urban Land Tenure in Developing Countries," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00813117, HAL.
    2. Amis, Philip, 1984. "Squatters or tenants: the commercialization of unauthorized housing in Nairobi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 87-96, January.
    3. Alan Gilbert, 2007. "The Return of the Slum: Does Language Matter?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 697-713, December.
    4. Gulyani, Sumila & Talukdar, Debabrata & Jack, Darby, 2010. "Poverty, living conditions, and infrastructure access : a comparison of slums in Dakar, Johannesburg, and Nairobi," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5388, The World Bank.
    5. Jan K. Brueckner & Harris Selod, 2009. "A Theory of Urban Squatting and Land-Tenure Formalization in Developing Countries," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 28-51, February.
    6. Omar M. Razzaz, 1993. "Examining Property Rights and Investment in Informal Settlements: The Case of Jordan," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 69(4), pages 341-355.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Owens, Kathryn E. & Gulyani, Sumila & Rizvi, Andrea, 2018. "Success when we deemed it failure? Revisiting sites and services projects in Mumbai and Chennai 20 years later," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 260-272.
    2. Lozano-Gracia, Nancy & Young, Cheryl, 2014. "Housing consumption and urbanization," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7112, The World Bank.
    3. World Bank Group, 2018. "Cameroon City Competitiveness Diagnostic," World Bank Publications - Reports 30164, The World Bank Group.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abdillah, Kiky Kirina & Abdul Manaf, Azima & Awang, Abd Hair, 2022. "Land tenure security for low-income residents' urban livelihoods: A human development approach review of temporary occupation license," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Jean-Louis van Gelder & Eva C Luciano, 2015. "Tenure Security as a Predictor of Housing Investment in Low-Income Settlements: Testing a Tripartite Model," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 485-500, February.
    3. Brueckner, Jan K. & Mation, Lucas & Nadalin, Vanessa G., 2019. "Slums in Brazil: Where are they located, who lives in them, and do they ‘squeeze’ the formal housing market?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 48-60.
    4. Letrouit,Lucie Michele Maya & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Trust or Property Rights ? Can Trusted Relationships Substitute for Costly Land Registration in West African Cities ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9310, The World Bank.
    5. Fox, Sean, 2014. "The Political Economy of Slums: Theory and Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 191-203.
    6. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    7. Jedwab, Remi & Christiaensen, Luc & Gindelsky, Marina, 2017. "Demography, urbanization and development: Rural push, urban pull and…urban push?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 6-16.
    8. Marcus H. Böhme & Sarah Kups, 2017. "The economic effects of labour immigration in developing countries: A literature review," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 335, OECD Publishing.
    9. Carmine Guerriero, 2023. "Property rights, transaction costs, and the limits of the market," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 143-176, June.
    10. M. Picard,Pierre & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Customary Land Conversion and the Formation of the African City," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9192, The World Bank.
    11. Koroso, Nesru H. & Zevenbergen, Jaap A. & Lengoiboni, Monica, 2019. "Land institutions’ credibility: Analyzing the role of complementary institutions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 553-564.
    12. Brueckner, Jan K., 2013. "Urban squatting with rent-seeking organizers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 561-569.
    13. Shohei Nakamura, 2017. "Does slum formalisation without title provision stimulate housing improvement? A case of slum declaration in Pune, India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(7), pages 1715-1735, May.
    14. Estebania Teyeliz Martínez-Jiménez & Julie Le Gallo & Enrique Pérez-Campuzano & Alonso Aguilar Ibarra, 2022. "The effects of land price in the peri-urban fringe of Mexico City: Environmental amenities for informal land parcel purchasers," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(1), pages 222-241, January.
    15. Rivera-Padilla, Alberto, 2021. "Slums, allocation of talent, and barriers to urbanization," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    16. Panman, Alexandra & Lozano Gracia, Nancy, 2022. "Titling and beyond: Evidence from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    17. James Natia Adam & Timothy Adams & Jean-David Gerber, 2021. "The Politics of Decentralization: Competition in Land Administration and Management in Ghana," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.
    18. Eric Heikkila & Michael Lin, 2014. "An integrated model of formal and informal housing sectors," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 52(1), pages 121-140, January.
    19. Umar, Bridget Bwalya & Kaluma, Ketiwe & Kapembwa, Julius & Membele, Garikai Martin, 2023. "Does the evidence match the rhetoric? Post-formalization land investments and credit access in Zambia: Cases from informal settlements in Lusaka City region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Cai, Yongyang & Selod, Harris & Steinbuks, Jevgenijs, 2018. "Urbanization and land property rights," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 246-257.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:9:p:2201-2219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.