The Groupe URD Haiti Observatory website also has a

wide range of urban context and recovery data.2

Contextual aspects relevant to post-earthquake
community planning include:
• The city’s rapid informal growth
• The earthquake’s impact on the built environment
• Displacement and the humanitarian response
• The institutional context of urban planning and the
built environment
• The economic situation, and
• The political situation and foreign assistance.
1.4.1 The city’s physical context and
rapid informal growth, 1980–2010
Port-au-Prince is situated in a coastal plain bordered by
steep slopes to the south that rise to over 2,000 metres.
Haiti has a tropical humid climate and is exposed to
frequent Caribbean tropical storms and hurricanes.
Even moderate rainfall can cause inundation and flash
flooding in the heavily populated marshlands and ravines
and landslides on the slopes. As well as being exposed
to weather hazards, Port-au-Prince is vulnerable to
earthquakes and the increased risk of rising sea levels.
The topography of the city is a challenge to urban
planning, infrastructure provision and disaster risk
management. Its many steep slopes and ravines or
gullies mean that nearby areas are often not connected
and make sewerage installations and solid waste
collection difficult.
The city grew rapidly between 1980 and 2010. At the
time of the earthquake, most of the population lived in
informal neighbourhoods, developed largely outside of
urban planning or controls. Areas of Port-au-Prince were
the most densely populated in the Western Hemisphere;
but they lacked basic infrastructure or services. Many
neighbourhoods were located on marginal, low-lying
sites that were prone to flooding or on precarious steep
slopes. Growth in informal settlements was driven by
demand for housing as the city’s population grew from
500,000 to 2.7 million between 1982 and 2007. In
2008, over 70% of people living in the city’s informal
neighbourhoods were originally from the countryside
(UN-Habitat 2009), which shows the dynamic and
emergent nature of the settlements and communities
(Corbet 2012). Figure 1 maps the growth of Port-auPrince from 1950 to 2010, illustrating rapid expansion
from 1980 onwards.
Figure 2 illustrates the typical density and pattern
of urban development in Jalousie, an informal
neighbourhood. The blue plastic sheeting shows where
shelters are constructed on roofs, as well as a small
camp on the flat land at the top of the hill (top right of
the photograph). Jalousie suffered less damage than
most other areas.
Figure 1. Growth of Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, 1950–2010
Source: MPCE, UN-Habitat and UNDP (2011). Used with permission of the government of Haiti.
2 https://urd.org/en/research-page/?activite=observatories&zone_geo=haiti
Learning from community pLanning foLLowing the 2010 haiti earthquake
14 www.iied.org
1.4.2 The earthquake’s impact on the
built environment
The Haiti post-disaster needs assessment estimated
damages of approximately US$7.8 billion, exceeding
the country’s 2009 national GDP (GoH 2010b).
The Ministère des Travaux Publics, Transports et
Communications/Ministry of Public Works, Transport
and Communications (MTPTC) reported that 80,397
houses in Port-au-Prince were destroyed or damaged
beyond repair, and 103,937 houses were damaged but
deemed repairable (GFDRR 2016). Considering the
proportion of residential buildings that housed multiple
families, the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Committee
(IHRC) estimated that 105,468 housing units or homes
were destroyed and 156,277 damaged (GFDRR
2016). Figures 3 and 4 map destroyed/damaged
beyond repair (red), repairable (yellow) and habitable
(green) buildings.
Figure 2. Jalousie, an informal neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, 2010
Credit: Giovanni Cassani/IOM
Figure 3. MTPTC rapid visual assessment of damage and habitability for Port-au-Prince, 2010