Urban informality in the Global North: (il)legal status and housing strategies of Ghanaian migrants in New York City

Mohammad Usman, Sabina Maslova and Gemma Burgess

International Journal of Housing Policy, 2021, vol. 21, issue 2, 247-267

Abstract: Different legal statuses of migrants are known to affect housing opportunities in the destination cities. The research explores the housing journeys of Ghanaian migrants in the Bronx in New York City to understand the processes by which poor documented and undocumented migrants access housing, and explores the role of legal status in housing allocation. Relying on qualitative data collected through 55 in-depth interviews with migrants, the study argues that legal status does not necessarily determine Ghanaian migrants’ access to housing. Instead, the findings suggest that undocumented migrants report better housing outcomes compared to their documented counterparts. This is organised through urban informality enabled by social networks in the Bronx’s ethnic enclave. The paper argues that, rather than legal status, the strength of one’s social ties in the Ghanaian migrant community regulates access to housing. Complicit actors, including profit-seeking providers and indifferent public authorities, allow the informal processes of housing allocation to operate. The paper calls attention to the relationship between immigration status and housing informality in the Global North and sheds light on the hidden, informal sub-markets that migrants create and occupy.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/19491247.2020.1814189 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:intjhp:v:21:y:2021:i:2:p:247-267

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REUJ20

DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2020.1814189

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Housing Policy is currently edited by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Gerard van Bortel and Richard Ronald

More articles in International Journal of Housing Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().