Haiti's economy: even more deformalized now

ARTICLE: Aid Groups Focus on Haiti's Homeless, By RAY RIVERA and DAMIEN CAVE, New York Times, January 21, 2010

The creation of tent cities was inevitable, but it will raise a host of follow-on issues, and security will be a big one:

"You are sleeping and people reach their hands in and try to take your stuff," said Jimmy Jean Philippe, 33, who has been living in the camp since the quake. "That's why we need security."

In a blink, Haiti's economy has been deformalized far more than it was beforehand. By that I mean, suddenly, everyone is reduced to living in an environment where no one can prove their ownership of anything, so everybody is forced to play security-guard, squatter-style, all the time.