'You're more poor': Squatter efforts to shape urban space, housing, and informal work in Windhoek, Namibia

This dissertation investigates whether residents of Windhoek's squatter settlements are changing urban space through their efforts to secure housing and to conduct remunerative work from their dwellings. Studies about the informal economy have moved from analysis of it as a distinct sector to the social and political processes that create informality. The city emerges from the interface between formal and informal processes which entail the everyday practices of residents, the conception of the city in planning documents, and the alternative uses of services and dwellings. Research methods involved the examination of archival documents, surveying and interviewing twenty small-scale enterprise operators in one squatter settlement, and the analysis of meetings between residents and town planners.;African residents conducted paid work from their dwellings in the first decades of South African occupation which influenced the development of their residential area and the institutionalization of town planning in Windhoek. The extension of apartheid policies forced the disappearance of home-based enterprises and restricted the production of housing for African residents. The repeal of apartheid legislation initiated migration to Windhoek, the municipality's withdrawal from the provision of housing and the rise of self-help housing organizations. Consequently informal work and self help housing organizations have grown in importance since political independence.;Observing how squatters run their small-scale enterprises challenges the dominant image of home-based paid work. Dwelling occupants were not always the owner of either the shelter or the business. Squatters attempted to capitalize on location within the settlement and they adopted flexible ways to gain illegal access to services. However the work provided little more than the means for daily survival. Two case studies about self-help housing groups indicate the invisibility of home-based enterprises in the planning process. Relocation to a marginal land parcel destroyed trading opportunities for one group. For another group, a focus on home-based enterprises would have questioned the eviction of fellow squatters. While home-based enterprises have the potential to reform Windhoek's urban space, it is unlikely this change will happen unless planners and savings groups take concerted effort to focus on interventions that promote flexibility and improved access to service infrastructure.