What tenure security? The case for a tripartite view

In the face of advancing urban informality in the developing world there appears to be increasing consensus that tenure security is an important engine driving settlement development. This has, however, not led to a consensus about what tenure security exactly entails. In both theory and policy, the idea of tenure security for low-income settlement dwellers is encountered in three distinct forms: tenure security as perceived by dwellers, tenure security as a legal construct and de facto tenure security. The main argument of this paper is that much controversy that surrounds the debate arises precisely as a consequence of the indiscriminate use of these different kinds of tenure security. To address this problem, a tripartite conceptualization of tenure security that incorporates its three constituent components (perception, de jure, de facto) and clarifies their interrelations is presented.