My guesses ...
- access to water...ie. means to fish? (which may be a sweeping generalization about squatters on waterfronts. i have no idea if all waterfront squatters are fishermen. an occupational survey in relation to location in city (ie. proximity to coast/CBD/industrial, etc) would be fascinating...) ocean waterfront settlements obviously can't use the water for drinking, but perhaps riverfront settlements do?
- land along waterfront is often public...and ambiguous "public space" is vulnerable to being claimed if it doesn't have good and/or defensive design.
- normally there aren't residences RIGHT along the water (ixnay on beachfront houses) so no one bothers them if they live there...?
I think I have to revise my question. The bigger picture is actually asking what leads squatters to squat where they squat, and a subset of those squatters choose to squat along waterfronts, because of either their priorities or circumstances.
There seems to be an obvious answer to that question though. Squatters squat where the land is ambiguously owned so they don't get kicked out on the first night. duh.
So then what does the proliferation of informal settlements on waterfronts mean? Granted, I might be preempting myself...I have yet to check out the numbers of waterfront v. land-locked settlements. But in any of these cases, the presence of squatters is a result of what...ambiguous design? unclear planning? bad governance? Probably all....
I'm not interested in designing a typology of waterfront that is squatter-proof. Past experiences with sheer amazement at human will to live and creativity to make it happen tells me it's not possible anyway.
I round off this pondering session with one last Google search, which yields me a treasure: McGill's Minimum Cost Housing Group. An entire chapter on "Reasons for settling on Coastal, Waterfront and Low-lying areas"... great! Will read and respond to this next time.
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