Lessons from informal settlements: a 'peripheral' problem with self-organising solutions

This paper investigates how planning institutions and informal settlements are interrelated elements of the urban system, suggesting that this interrelation can be the result of self-organisation and co-evolutionary processes. It examines the Portuguese planning responses to informal settlements, showing that they can trigger the emergence of new institutional structures, which influence plans, planning processes and legal frameworks. This process suggests the importance of experimentation, long-term relations and short chains in planning. Without analysing this process through the lens of self-organisation, it would risk being seen simply as an unrepeatable process that occurred in a turbulent period of Portuguese history.