An estimated one billion people reside in informal settlements globally. These informal communities are defined by digressions from established urban forms, where the infrastructure is autonomously assembled to yield a hyper-dense, programmatically specific environment. With global population set to increase drastically over the coming decades, informal settlements will become pervasive as an urban land typology. Understanding the location and growth of these communities will be vital to understand the energy and material demands of urban centers and plan for the growing challenges created by climate change.
This analysis seeks to locate informal settlements within Mumbai, India, home to one of the largest informal settlements in the world. Using Landsat 8 and VIIRS satellite imagery, informal settlement locations are determined by utilizing the communities’ defining characteristics to set them apart within urban centers.