Supporting a Decision for Informal Settlements Development using the Analytical Network Process

Abstract

Developing informal settlements has become an important issue for improving urban structures in developing countries. An Informal Settlements Development Fund (ISDF) was presented to Egypt for supporting urban, economic, social and environmental plans. Development plans do not clearly take into account population priorities or satisfaction criteria. Furthermore, evaluating several alternatives was based on usual statistical methods that cannot deal with multiple criteria or complex problems, leading to imprecise results. Nowadays, adding value to the developed area, restoring cost, and studying social and economic plan impacts on the population, represent high priorities. In this study, a model concerns the optimal decision evaluation for multi-criteria in informal settlements development was proposed. Five clusters (criteria) were identified and included the efficiencies of urban structure, economic, social, and environmental, in addition to population satisfaction. Twenty one internal factors represented in nods were categorized under the five clusters and affecting proposed four alternatives. The model depended on the Analytic Network Process (ANP) technique which is used to support multi-criteria decision making. ANP was selected for its capability to deal with complex problems, create dependencies and feedbacks as well as use the relative weights of all interactions. This technique confirms a logical decision and accurate prediction amongst numerous alternatives. The model was validated and applied to an informal settlements area as a case study in Egypt. The results supported to use first alternative by 38.20%, while the ISDF results selected the third alternative. Moreover, the detailed analysis emphasized that the first alternative was more balanced between the social elements and the direct economic requirements of the population, while the third alternative tended to achieve restoring cost despite its negative social effects. Lastly, the proposed model can be used appropriately in similar cases to improve informal settlements.