Car-ownership and economic and housing insecurity in informal settlements in seven Asian cities

Source abstract

Informal settlements in Global South cities are often marked by inadequate infrastructure, informal employment, and insecure housing tenure among residents. While researchers have examined access and travel behavior in such areas, little is known about car ownership. Yet some households own cars, raising questions about the role of cars in such contexts. This paper examines how economic, occupational, and housing characteristics shape car ownership in informal settlements, by using a cross-country neighborhood survey of 6076 households in 10 informal settlements and 76 traditional neighborhoods across seven Asian cities: Delhi and Madurai (India), Dhaka and Khulna (Bangladesh), Manila and Batangas (Philippines), and Datong (China). Focus groups with residents helped frame the research questions and provided qualitative insights into neighborhood conditions. Car ownership is modeled as a binary outcome using a complementary log–log random effects model. Car ownership is rare in informal settlements (6%, compared with 25% in non-informal neighborhoods), but varies significantly across neighborhoods. Higher income and employment in the transportation sector are strong predictors of car-ownership. Households that informally occupy dwellings and migrants from other areas are more likely to own cars. The study provides new evidence on mobility in informal settlements by highlighting cars as dual-use assets for both income generation and household transportation. The findings underscore the need to integrate housing, urban development, and transportation policy, and to account for neighborhood-level heterogeneity in shaping sustainable mobility.