Crossmedia Imaging of Latin American Informal Cities

Gaining accurate data on urban informality is essential to address a range of pressing issuessuch as housing, healthcare, transportation, economic competiveness, security, and environmentalwellbeing that affect the living standards of city residents. Mapping informal cities,however, poses many challenges. The methods often used by governments and privatecontractors rely heavily on computer modeling based on satellite and aerial images. Theseapproaches have been criticized as inadequate both in terms of their mapping quality andtheir top-down approach to data collection. More promising are community-driven strategies,which involve residents of informal settlements in the gathering, processing, and controlof information about their urban environment. The end result is often not only more accuratemapping data, but also the enhancement of grassroots campaigns that contribute to communityempowerment and democratization.

Volume Editors
Robert Corser & Sharon Haar

ISBN
978-1-944214-03-6