Rethinking precarious neighborhoods

International audience; Forty years on from the first Habitat Conference (1976) and the creation of what will become UN-Habitat (1978), why precarious settlements are still today home to nearly one billion people across the world and continue to grow? In dealing with informal settlements, urban policies have hardly ever followed the recommendations of international institutions. These advocate the legalization and improvement of living conditions in such precarious spaces, together with affordable housing provision for low-income households. Yet, depending on the country and the period, policies have espoused multiple approaches that are sometimes very far from these recommendations. Two main trends repeatedly oppose each other: keeping the residents on site or relocating/displacing them. Why are these policies so diverse and occasionally so far-removed from international recommendations? How and on what criteria are national or local policies formulated? The choices made depend on the way in which these settlements are conceptualized by those intents on tackling them. The question of land plays a core role in shaping these policies. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the recent history of urban policy in Beirut (Lebanon), Phnom Penh (Cambodia) and Damascus (Syria), this chapter shows the role played by the different representations of land (as property, territory, value, space of social anchorage, etc.) and how the co-presence and competition between these different conceptions shape public action on precarious settlements.