An Analysis of Urban Informal Settlements Governance in Developing Countries from the Perspective of Space Production: A Case Study of Indonesia and Egypt

Paper Abstract: With the acceleration of the global urbanization process, the emergence and expansion of informal settlements has gradually become one of the serious and common urban problems faced by developing countries. Therefore, the effective governance of informal settlements has become a key link for countries to improve the level of urban modernization. However, from the perspective of actual practice, there are great differences in the control and improvement of urban informal settlements in developing countries, and the governance effectiveness of different countries shows significant differences. Based on this, this paper proposes the following research questions: How are urban informal settlements governed in developing countries? Why are there discrepancies in governance effectiveness? What kind of experience can be learned from this? In order to answer these questions, this paper attempts to introduce Henri Lefebvre's space production theory and construct a ternary spatial analysis framework of "representations of space", "spatial practice" and "representational space". By choosing Surabaya, Indonesia, and Cairo, Egypt, as cases, this paper conducts a comparative analysis on the governance practices of informal settlements (Kampun, Ashwa'iyyat) in the two countries, reveals the different governance paths of urban informal settlements in developing countries, and analyzes the key factors affecting governance effectiveness.