Urban Informality & Why it Matters

Today, informal settlements are home to over a billion people (nearly 1/7 of the world population); and that number is projected to triple by 2050. These growing settlements are the result of rapid urbanization and present us with both lessons as well as serious challenges for the future of our planet. In this next episode of ON CITIES, host Carie Penabad speaks with Dr. Janice Perlman, a global expert on urbanization and the informal sector. With over fifty years of experience researching the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and working within informal settlements in megacities throughout the world, Perlman sheds light on the realities of daily life for informal settlers and how we can address the pressing challenges of rapid urbanization to create a more equitable and sustainable future for all. Tune in Friday, June 16, 2023 at 11:00 AM EST, 8:00 PST on the Voice America Variety Channel https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/4119/on-cities; and find all previous episodes on Spotify, Apple iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.

Dr. Janice Perlman is an internationally recognized expert on urbanization and informal settlements. Her book, Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford University Press, 2010) won the 2010 PROSE Award for best book of the year. The book is based on a longitudinal panel study of migrants and squatters over four generations. For this research, Dr. Perlman received a Guggenheim, two consecutive Fulbright Fellowships, and grants from The World Bank, The Tinker Foundation and The Ford Foundation. Her earlier book, The Myth of Marginality (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976) won the C. Wright Mills Award and changed thinking about informal communities worldwide. Since its release, the book has been translated into over a dozen other languages. In 1987 Prof. Perlman founded The Mega-Cities Project; a global non-profit designed to shorten the lag time between ideas and implementation in urban problem solving. Mega-Cities has identified, nurtured and transferred hundreds of scalable innovations among communities in the world’s largest cities. Perlman received the Global Citizens Award for this work. Perlman was a tenured professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at numerous universities throughout the world. Perlman holds a BA in Anthropology and Latin American Studies from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Political Science and Urban Studies from MIT.