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This paper investigates the multiple ways in which the lives of urban refugees are impacted by the presence of refugee camps. It builds on a growing body of literature on the urban refugee experience that recognizes the agency exercised in the rejection of the camp. But it also demonstrates how, in countries with an encampment policy, the presence of camps can limit urban refugees' mobility and their ability to take advantage of all that urban life has to offer. It also highlights the consequences of the choice refugees must make between receiving humanitarian aid in a camp and living unassisted in an urban area. The paper draws on qualitative interviews with refugees in Ethiopia, Kenya and Jordan. It presents conclusions on the inadequacy of the international response, which fails to capitalize on the presence of displaced people in cities, to achieve the supposed policy goal of "self-reliance". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial in the journal "Environment & Urbanization" discusses the need for a developmental approach to urban crises, particularly in situations of protracted displacement. It highlights the importance of recognizing the distinctions between refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) living in urban areas and the challenges they face. The editorial also emphasizes the need for a more rights-based approach, economic inclusion, recognition of agency, and adopting a spatial lens in responding to forced displacement in cities. The discussion focuses on the shift towards an "urban first" strategy and a world without camps, advocating for local initiatives and municipal-led responses to support displaced people in urban settings. [Extracted from the article]

This article serves as the first academic inquiry into the establishment and functioning of community review panels (CRPs) in England. CRPs are an innovation in public participation in planning. The first CRP was established in 2018 to operate within the boundaries of the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) in West London. It was set up to mirror the workings of a Design Review Panel, with people selected to serve on the CRP for their local knowledge and ability to participate in substantive discussions. CRPs are now active in six areas of London and Southeast England, predominantly in locations experiencing significant development or regeneration. The article is based on analysis of primary interview and observation data, grey literature on CRPs, and a review of academic and policy debates on public participation and lay knowledge. It explores the potential for CRPs to provide meaningful input into planning and place-making. It concludes that well-managed panels can make meaningful contributions to the development control process, but could be more effectively employed in broader place-making. Both outcomes are contingent on local planners' willingness and ability to serve as brokers of different types of knowledge, testing lay and expert perspectives alongside each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The movement of large numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) is routinely categorised as a humanitarian emergency. Where governments are unable or unwilling to meet the needs of the displaced, it is assumed that displacement will be managed by humanitarian agencies. Given the protracted nature of large-scale internal displacement, and the choice of the majority of IDPs to move to urban centres, this article argues that the approaches framing assistance to and protection of IDPs need a rethink. It proposes reconceptualising IDP movements as an accelerated version of an inevitable and widespread trend towards urbanisation. This opens up opportunities to work with and in support of municipal authorities – at the frontline of response to IDP movements – and to deploy a range of urban planning and legal tools that can meet both IDP needs and urban development challenges. Initiatives that benefit large numbers of urban residents – displaced and hosts – can also incentivise much needed local political will in support of IDPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with the discussions on the benefits and drawbacks of land titling programmes that seek to regularize informal urban settlements in developing countries. It is based on fieldwork in two neighbourhoods of Maputo, Mozambique, that are currently part of a municipal government regularization programme supported by the World Bank. The fieldwork explored an informal titling system administrated by the neighbourhood authorities upon which local residents rely to prevent land conflicts and to provide proof of residence. The findings add to the literature that demonstrates growing unease with a strictly dyadic formal/informal analysis of land occupation, and further queries the assumption that the state and the informal settler are diametrically opposed, with the former granting formal rights to the latter. In the process of these discussions, the article highlights the limited scholarly attention that has been granted to the governance implications of land titling programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]