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Entrepreneurialising urban informality: Transforming governance of informal settlements in Taipei

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  • Ker-hsuan Chien

Abstract

Informality is a common urban experience among cities in the Global South. Given the thin social welfare and weak regulations, the urban subaltern has therefore had to improvise housing and employment in order to survive. Urban informality is hence conceived as a negotiation process through which spatial value is produced. However, under the current wave of urban entrepreneurialisation, informality is often deemed to be inefficient and unproductive in the new economy that the local governments are trying to build. Many of the informal settlements have been subject to demolition in order to make room for new urban development projects. With the cases of waterfront regeneration projects in Taipei, this paper argues that entrepreneurialism and informality are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Rather, through their co-evolution, urban informality actually contributes to the variegation of urban entrepreneurialism. This paper demonstrates how the urban squatters have managed to re-engage informality and urban development by actively participating in the shaping of the entrepreneurial discourses, reinventing their informal settlements as a key feature that contributes to the city’s economic development. However, although this entwining of entrepreneurialism and informality has brought new opportunities to the informal settlements, it has at the same time presented new threats to their current way of life. By focusing on the entrepreneurialising of urban informality, this paper offers a grounded perspective on the ways in which the urban subaltern has reacted to the unfolding urban entrepreneurialism in Taiwan.

Suggested Citation

  • Ker-hsuan Chien, 2018. "Entrepreneurialising urban informality: Transforming governance of informal settlements in Taipei," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(13), pages 2886-2902, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:55:y:2018:i:13:p:2886-2902
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098017726739
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    Cited by:

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    2. Michele Acuto & Cecilia Dinardi & Colin Marx, 2019. "Transcending (in)formal urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 475-487, February.
    3. Chihsin Chiu, 2024. "Greening informality through metabolic coordination: An urban political ecology of governing extralegal housing forms in Taiwan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1127-1146, May.
    4. Jorn Koelemaij & Sam Taveirne & Ben Derudder, 2023. "An economic geography perspective on city diplomacy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(6), pages 995-1012, May.
    5. Jieheerah Yun, 2022. "The Han River Development: Planning the Riverfront as Seoul’s Natural Landmark," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, March.
    6. María José Zapata Campos & Ester Barinaga & Jaan-Henrik Kain & Michael Oloko & Patrik Zapata, 2023. "Organising grassroots infrastructure: The (in)visible work of organisational (in)completeness," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(1), pages 126-145, January.
    7. Chih-Hung Wang & Yu-Ting Kao & Jo-Tzu Huang, 2021. "Riverfront as a re-territorialising arena of urban governance: Territorialisation and folding of the Xindian River in Taipei metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1245-1261, May.

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