City Akimats prefer to w'ork with their own statistics rather than with official figures. Job-seekers moving to Almaty, for example, often encounter difficulty finding housing and work legally, so they take refuge in micro-districts on the outskirts of the city where they are not officially registered, do not own property and have limited access to public services (Makhmutova, 2012). In the absence of the cities’ readiness to accept and accommodate new residents, they join informal economic sectors.24 By settling in cheaper peripheral areas around large cities, migrants contribute to urban sprawl. Since land and property prices are high, they usually occupy rural land and build individual houses from the cheapest accessible local materials (e.g. clay) with poor amenities (furnace heating and no central sewage system), and are vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquake and flooding.25 Migrants living in unauthorised housing such as former dachas?6 have no valid address and thus no official status. Not all migrants are highly educated, but they are highly motivated and entrepreneurial. They bring a diversity of skills and competencies to the urban economy necessary for development.