Sustainable urbanization policies and strategies are posited as a major tool by which to achieve the sustainable development of growing towns and cities. A major challenge for sustainable urbanization policies and strategies is how to address the complexity of urbanization, especially the ongoing growth of informal settlements and slums in developing countries. It is acknowledged that those living their lives in such housing and settlements suffer greater levels of spatial, economic and social exclusion from the benefits of urbanization that other segments of the urban population. Using a case study approach, this paper examines the range of challenges associated with the growth of informal settlements and slums, seeking to understand how they are positioned via upgrading policies in city urbanization plans and strategies in Indonesia’s third largest city, Bandung. The research finds that there has been a shift in kampung and slum upgrading policy from in-situ solutions to vertical housing towers which appear incompatible in accommodating the way of life practiced in kampung adaptive urbanism contexts. The manner in which city governments manage informal settlements and slums by seeking to reshape and restructure the lifestyles of residents to align with formal market measures has a major impact on existing disadvantaged communities. The paper concludes with a call for greater leadership, political commitment and recognition of contextual responses when developing slum upgrading policies set within urbanization policies and strategies branded as sustainable.

The urbanisation of Pacific towns and cities continues to increase, with one in four Pacific islanders an urban resident. Understanding the Pacific urbanisation process, including the concept of the ‘rural village in the city’, is critical to formulating urban growth responses. Two key consequences of Pacific urbanisation are growing urban poverty and the increasing number of informal settlements, both of which are inextricably linked. With formal land and housing supply systems marginalised, informal or squatter settlements now cater for the majority of population growth occurring in Pacific towns and cities. Noting Papua New Guinea (PNG) has approximately 1 million persons living in towns and cities, the incidence and characteristics of informal settlements are examined in Port Moresby, the Pacific Region's largest city. In the context of the Port Moresby experience, discussion focuses on why informal settlements are not a priority for development assistance, including identification of the constraints and opportunities required to resolve the major policy shift to address growing informal settlements and their management. The article draws strongly on a review of the literature, as well as fieldwork undertaken while working full time in Port Moresby in 2009 and 2010.

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are often cited as being the most vulnerable to the future impacts of a changing climate. Furthermore, being located in the ‘Pacific Rim of Fire’, PICs have long been exposed to the impacts of a range of natural and climate-related extreme events—such as earthquakes and cyclones—and are considered to be amongst the most vulnerable countries to natural disasters. The physical vulnerability of Pacific towns and cities is further exaggerated by development deficits, geographical isolation, weak governance, and complex issues of land tenure. This paper, based on substantive project experience in the Pacific region by each of the authors, reviews the resilience challenges facing Melanesian cities in the context of rapid urbanization and global environmental change. It then sets this in the context of the global ‘New Urban Agenda’ which was launched at Habitat III in Quito at the end of 2016, setting out the critical implementation challenges and opportunities for enhancing urban resilience in the Pacific.

Housing Resilience and the Informal City

Informality is a global phenomenon entrenched in the Global South and increasingly emerging in the Global North. In dense and compact informal settlements commonly seen in the Global South, housing transformation to meet resident needs typically occurs through small-scale physical alterations and adaptations. Within this setting, the aim of this paper is to provide a substantive assessment of the dynamics of change and spatial complexities of housing in informal settlements by deconstructing the micro-morphology occurring in built and unbuilt spaces. This includes the space where housing and alleyways meet; namely, the public-private interface. The paper achieves this by; (i) defining a set of interface typologies that constitute the form of the domestic housing space pushing into alleyways by using the key variables of distance and proximity, (ii) quantifying the housing typologies so as to examine types, patterns and processes of transformation, and (iii) understanding the basic planning and regulatory framework in which households undertake these adaptations. The method used in this research is a case study of kampung Lebak Siliwangi in northern Bandung, Indonesia. The paper makes a major contribution to the literature in terms of identifying principles by which housing transformation practices occur through micro-morphology which is locally self-organised and incremental. Residents undertake little or no consultation with neighbours or local governance leaders when making changes, though they observe and replicate the micro-scale changes made to housing form by other residents. The boundaries of the built (housing) and unbuilt spaces (alleyway) are fluid due to ‘interface creep’ which allows housing to create new building lines, interface types and alleyway alignments. In this setting, the notion of ‘interface creep’ and the reliance of residents on small-scale distance and proximity changes are a key narrative of the paper as they allow adaptability, having strong ties to the way housing and alleyways are locally regulated, controlled and governed. On the other hand, this dependence threatens housing conditions, sociality, access, multifunctionality and economic modes of production in public spaces (the alleyway). The paper concludes with comments of the implications of the research that could be applied to theoretical and methodological frameworks for a deeper understanding of informal housing in the Global North.