On the Nature of Infrastructural-Residual-Space

Modern transportation infrastructure creates leftover residual spaces under viaducts, railway arches, bridges, and flyovers. Arbitrary valuation for such by-product spaces causes systemic exploitation in the form of displacement, unfair rent structures, eviction, unclear land use regulations, and complicated tenant-landowner relationships, resulting in environmental degradation. We conducted a comparative study on seven cities and their evolutionary stages of infra-residual spaces. Analyzing- a global survey with 115 participants from 37 countries, interview data from 25 experts and locals on the control-design-ownership stages of IRS(Infra-residual-spaces) adaptation for these seven case studies provide us with three common conditions for infra-residual space and its adaptation process. We propose three main hypotheses: first, IRS having social, commercial, and political value eventually cannot be overlooked for development, and it is a global phenomenon irrespective of global south or north; second, whether owned by private companies or the state, local organizations should be the anchoring organizations to determine land use and land value adjustments through proper arbitration; third, and most importantly, rent for these leftover spaces should be transparent for all tenants and decided by arbitration, rather than by the amount one is willing to pay.