Urbanisation, informality, and corruption
How should anti-corruption policies be designed when the ways people live and make a living in rapidly growing cities are often marked by high levels of informality? What do we actually know about the relationship between corruption and informality in cities? Is there a distinctively urban dimension to this relationship, or can we just use insights from research on anti-corruption and local governance more broadly?
Urban informality, affecting economies, individual livelihoods, and living arrangements, is a central feature of our times. The world is rapidly urbanising, with the fastest rates experienced in the Global South. High and persistent levels of informality are a defining feature of these burgeoning cities. But our understanding of the relationship between corruption and informality is still evolving. Informality has long been seen as corrosive to clean government, as it both drives and is driven by corruption. This conventional wisdom is gradually giving way to a more nuanced understanding of how governance and informality may be related.
Reading Development 