Architecture Research 2019, 9(3): 51-62 DOI: 10.5923/j.arch.20190903.01 The Types and Locations of Informal Housing in Al-Mafraq City of Jordan Abdelmajeed Rjoub Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Albayt University, Al-Mafraq, Jordan Abstract The study aims to focus on the informal housing types and locations in the city of Al-Mafraq of Jordan. The research followed the survey and analytical method, based on the study and analysis of maps and statistical data issued mainly by the Department of Lands and Survey and the Jordanian Department of Statistics and processing them with GIS software. The study revealed the existence of 5 types of informal housing that distributed over 8 residential districts in the city. The main reason for its existence was the absence of a comprehensive planning for land use that accommodates the new population as well as the inability of the authorities to control the growth of the city considering citizens' non-compliance with building codes and regulations. The study recommends the need for a new master plan for the city to control the trends of its expansion, the identification of land uses in non-organized areas and to intervene in the sorting of large areas and common property lands to cut the spread of informal housing. Keywords Informal Housing, Outskirt Areas, Land Property, City Planning 1. Introduction According to the United Nations 2018 World Urbanization Prospects report, more people of the global live in urban areas than in rural areas and 66% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050 and most urbanization will occur in Africa and Asia (United Nations, 2018). The population of the Arab world is on the verge of shifting from being predominantly rural to urban. As of 2010, more than half of the Arab world’s human population has resided in urban areas, and by 2050, urban inhabitants will account for approximately 75% of the Arab world’s population (Mirkin 2010). In this context, Jordan experienced a high rate of urbanization during the last five decades leading to concentration of population in the main cities (Makhamreh 2011). Since 2000 the housing market in Jordan has witnessed unexpected increase in demand with numbers of housing units. The main and major reasons for the housing and residential higher demand were; the high demographic and population growth of over than 80% on one hand, and on the other the migration of huge numbers of Iraqis, as result of the 2 nd Gulf War in 2003, and now with wave of Syrian refugees migrating due to the Syrian crisis. Those reasons have driven * Corresponding author: rjoub@aabu.edu.jo (Abdelmajeed Rjoub) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/arch Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Scientific & Academic Publishing This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ prices of lands, houses, apartments, and all the suitable flats and dwellings to very high and expensive prices (Saho and Shukair 2017). On the national level, the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDC) had formulated a National Housing Strategy (NHS) that has approved by government of Jordan earlier in 1989 (HUDC 2018). The NHS stated that there was a vast oversupply of vacant serviced residential land in the major Jordanian cities, but this land cannot be used for moderate or low-income housing and there is a corresponding shortage of vacant, serviced land which is appropriate for middle and moderate-income families, and no legal plots which are small enough to be affordable by low income families (Ministry of Planning 1987). The strategy lacks the idea of comprehensive and pre-planning long-term land use, which aims to enable the preservation of natural resources and agricultural lands and directing urbanization to avoid them, it also does not mention the mechanisms that dealing with the existing urban fabric in urban centres (Al-Nusair, 2004). The housing public sector plays a limited though important role in providing housing for specific population target groups. These include low income families in both urban and rural areas, Government employees and military personnel, and residents of the Jordan valley. The most recently a “Decent Home for A Decent Living” initiative was launched in early 2008 by a Royal Decree to provide affordable residential units, with competitive funding schemes, for all citizens (Al-oun et al 2010). The private sector has also become active in low-cost housing projects, with two of the most prominent being: Ahl Al-Azem project, which includes 15,000 apartments and 800