Diversity and Dynamics of Informal Rental Housing in a Mid-sized City in India1,2

Informal housing predominates urban housing options in developing countries, including India, in both its metro and its mid-sized cities. Within urban housing, two-fifths is rental in India. This study is located within one mid-sized city (Guwahati) in one of the least developed states (Assam) in India. The pro-cesses of supply of rental housing in the informal sector are linked with the processes of overall supply of housing identified in Guwahati as housing through (i) informal occupation of public and private lands, (ii) alienation of land and (iii) public sector. Within that, landownership, processes of land occupation/ subdivision and development, and the role of various actors create submarkets. Submarket-specific, settlement-specific and owner-specific processes shape a diversity of informal rental housing with regard to extent, quality, level of basic services, rents and tenure security for the urban poor, posing challenges for pursuing a policy of ‘formalizing the informal ’ in the case of India