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Why do rapidly growing Asian cities sometimes develop shantytowns and squatter settlements?

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Dense crowd of people walking through the brightly lit Shibuya shopping district in Tokyo, Japan, surrounded by colorful store signs and billboards in Japanese and English. — city Crowds of people in Tokyo's Shibuya shopping district.

Rapidly growing Asian cities often develop shantytowns and squatter settlements due to a combination of natural population growth and large-scale rural-to-urban migration. This ceaseless influx of people frequently overwhelms the existing capacity of urban centers to provide adequate jobs, essential services, and appropriate housing for new arrivals.12

Because many migrants lack access to the formal economy, they often rely on the informal economy for survival, working as petty commodity producers or service providers. These individuals frequently build makeshift dwellings on the urban periphery, creating settlements that lack basic infrastructure such as proper water supply, electricity, sanitation, and transportation.31

While these areas are often stigmatized, it is important to recognize that they are not merely places of poverty; they are characterized by intimate, resilient networks of kinship and mutual dependence that allow residents to survive in the absence of formal job security or welfare institutions. Ultimately, the emergence of these settlements highlights the significant challenges cities face when urban growth outpaces the development of necessary infrastructure and social support systems.314