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A slum is a highly populated urban
UN-Habitat, Kenya (April 2007) Although slums are usually located in
on its report, "The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003". Due to increasing urbanization of the general populace, slums became common in the 19th to late 20th centuries in the United States and Europe.Lawrence Vale (2007), From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors, Harvard University Press, Slums are still predominantly found in urban regions of
United Nations Habitat (2007)The challenge of slums – Global report on Human Settlements
United Nations Habitat (2003) The world's largest slum city is found in Orangi,
Before the 19th century, rich and poor people lived in the same districts, with the wealthy living on the high streets, and the poor in the service streets behind them. But in the 19th century, wealthy and upper-middle-class people began to move out of the central part of rapidly growing cities, leaving poorer residents behind.
Slums were common in the United States and Europe before the early 20th century. London's East End is generally considered the locale where the term originated in the 19th century, where massive and rapid urbanization of the dockside and industrial areas led to intensive overcrowding in a warren of post-medieval streetscape. The suffering of the poor was described in popular fiction by moralist authors such as
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area
A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.
Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family res ...
consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse < ...
. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inhabited by impoverished people.What are slums and why do they exist?UN-Habitat, Kenya (April 2007) Although slums are usually located in
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
s, in some countries they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation
Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation syste ...
services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...
, and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.UN-HABITAT 2007 Press Releaseon its report, "The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003". Due to increasing urbanization of the general populace, slums became common in the 19th to late 20th centuries in the United States and Europe.Lawrence Vale (2007), From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors, Harvard University Press, Slums are still predominantly found in urban regions of
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...
, but are also still found in developed economies.Slums: Past, Present and FutureUnited Nations Habitat (2007)The challenge of slums – Global report on Human Settlements
United Nations Habitat (2003) The world's largest slum city is found in Orangi,
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former ...
, Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
.
Slums form and grow in different parts of the world for many different reasons. Causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration
Rural flight (or rural exodus) is the migratory pattern of peoples from rural areas into urban areas. It is urbanization seen from the rural perspective.
In industrializing economies like Britain in the eighteenth century or East Asia in the ...
, economic stagnation and depression, high unemployment, poverty, informal economy, forced or manipulated ghettoization, poor planning, politics, natural disasters, and social conflicts. Strategies tried to reduce and transform slums in different countries, with varying degrees of success, include a combination of slum removal, slum relocation, slum upgrading, urban planning with citywide infrastructure development, and public housing.
The UN defines slums as .... individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure
Etymology and nomenclature
It is thought that ''slum'' is a British slang word from theEast End
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
of London meaning "room", which evolved to "back slum" around 1845 meaning 'back alley, street of poor people.'
Numerous other non English terms are often used interchangeably with ''slum'': shanty town, favela
Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
, rookery, gecekondu, skid row, barrio, ghetto, banlieue, bidonville, taudis, bandas de miseria, barrio marginal, morro, paragkoupoli, loteamento, barraca, musseque, iskuwater, Inner city
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists somet ...
, tugurio, solares, mudun safi, kawasan kumuh, karyan, medina achouaia, brarek, ishash, galoos, tanake, baladi, trushchoby, chalis, katras, zopadpattis, ftohogeitonia, basti, estero, looban, dagatan, umjondolo, watta, udukku, and chereka bete.
The word ''slum'' has negative connotations, and using this label for an area can be seen as an attempt to delegitimize that land use when hoping to repurpose it.
History
Before the 19th century, rich and poor people lived in the same districts, with the wealthy living on the high streets, and the poor in the service streets behind them. But in the 19th century, wealthy and upper-middle-class people began to move out of the central part of rapidly growing cities, leaving poorer residents behind.
Slums were common in the United States and Europe before the early 20th century. London's East End is generally considered the locale where the term originated in the 19th century, where massive and rapid urbanization of the dockside and industrial areas led to intensive overcrowding in a warren of post-medieval streetscape. The suffering of the poor was described in popular fiction by moralist authors such as Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
– most famously '' Oliver Twist'' (1837-9) and echoed the Christian Socialist values of the time, which soon found legal expression in the Public Health Act of 1848. As the slum clearance movement gathered pace, deprived areas such as Old Nichol were fictionalised to raise awareness in the middle classes in the form of moralist novels such as '' A Child of the Jago'' (1896) resulting in slum clearance and reconstruction programmes such as the Boundary Estate (1893-1900) and the creation of charitable trusts such as the Peabody Trust founded in 1862 and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (1904) which still operate to provide decent housing today.
Slums are often associated with Victorian Britain, particularly in industrial English towns, lowland Scottish towns and Dublin City in Ireland. Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' slum clearance and built new
In France as in most industrialised European capitals, slums were widespread in Paris and other urban areas in the 19th century, many of which continued through first half of the 20th century. The first cholera epidemic of 1832 triggered a political debate, and Louis René Villermé study of various
, Union sociale pour l'habitat, February 2012 initiative to finance and build public housing and remove slums, managed by techniciens – urban technocrats., and financed by Livret A – a tax free savings account for French public. Some slums remain in the early XXIst century in France, most of which are dismantled after a few months, the largest being the "Petite Ceinture" slum on the northern Paris decommissioned train tracks. New York City is believed to have created the United States' first slum, named the Five Points in 1825, as it evolved into a large urban settlement.The First Slum in America
Kevin Baker, The New York Times (September 30, 2001) Five Points was named for a lake named Collect. which, by the late 1700s, was surrounded by slaughterhouses and tanneries which emptied their waste directly into its waters. Trash piled up as well and by the early 1800s the lake was filled up and dry. On this foundation was built Five Points, the United States' first slum. Five Points was occupied by successive waves of freed slaves, Irish, then Italian, then Chinese, immigrants. It housed the poor, rural people leaving farms for opportunity, and the persecuted people from Europe pouring into New York City. Bars, bordellos, squalid and lightless tenements lined its streets. Violence and crime were commonplace. Politicians and social elite discussed it with derision. Slums like Five Points triggered discussions of affordable housing and slum removal. As of the start of the 21st century, Five Points slum had been transformed into the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods of New York City, through that city's campaign of massive
Rural–urban migration is one of the causes attributed to the formation and expansion of slums. Since 1950, world population has increased at a far greater rate than the total amount of arable land, even as
The formation of slums is closely linked to
Orhan Esen, London School of Economics and Political Science (2009) The Millennium Development Goals proposes that member nations should make a "significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers" by 2020. If member nations succeed in achieving this goal, 90% of the world total slum dwellers may remain in the poorly housed settlements by 2020. Choguill claims that the large number of slum dwellers indicates a deficiency of practical housing policy. Whenever there is a significant gap in growing demand for housing and insufficient supply of affordable housing, this gap is typically met in part by slums. ''The Economist'' has observed that "good housing is obviously better than a slum, but a slum is better than none". Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government bureaucracy are two main causes of poor house planning. Financial deficiency in some governments may explain the lack of affordable public housing for the poor since any improvement of the tenant in slums and expansion of public housing programs involve a great increase in the government expenditure. The problem can also lie on the failure in coordination among different departments in charge of economic development,
Some of the slums in today's world are a product of 
Ben Arimah, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi, Kenya Poor quality, unpaved streets encourage slums; a 1% increase in paved all-season roads, claims Arimah, reduces slum incidence rate by about 0.35%. Affordable public transport and economic infrastructure empowers poor people to move and consider housing options other than their current slums. A growing economy that creates jobs at rate faster than population growth, offers people opportunities and incentive to relocate from poor slum to more developed neighborhoods. Economic stagnation, in contrast, creates uncertainties and risks for the poor, encouraging people to stay in the slums. Economic stagnation in a nation with a growing population reduces per capita disposal income in urban and rural areas, increasing urban and rural poverty. Rising rural poverty also encourages migration to urban areas. A poorly performing economy, in other words, increases poverty and rural-to-urban migration, thereby increasing slums.
Marja Kuiper and Kees van der Ree, Global Urban Development Magazine, Vol 2, Issue 1, March 2006
The World Bank and UN Habitat estimate, assuming no major economic reforms are undertaken, more than 80% of additional jobs in urban areas of developing world may be low-paying jobs in the informal sector. Everything else remaining same, this explosive growth in the informal sector is likely to be accompanied by a rapid growth of slums.
United Nations Habitat Group (2011) Throughout the second half of the 19th century, for example, French political parties relied on votes from slum population and had vested interests in maintaining that voting block. Removal and replacement of slum created a conflict of interest, and politics prevented efforts to remove, relocate or upgrade the slums into housing projects that are better than the slums. Similar dynamics are cited in favelas of Brazil, slums of India,
Joshi and Unnithan, India Today (March 7, 2005) and shanty towns of Kenya.
Scholars claim politics also drives rural-urban migration and subsequent settlement patterns. Pre-existing patronage networks, sometimes in the form of gangs and other times in the form of political parties or social activists, inside slums seek to maintain their economic, social and political power. These social and political groups have vested interests to encourage migration by ethnic groups that will help maintain the slums, and reject alternate housing options even if the alternate options are better in every aspect than the slums they seek to replace.
Physical and Spatial Characteristics of Slum Territories Vulnerable to Natural Disasters
, Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est, n° 44, French Institute for Research in Africa At their start, slums are typically located in least desirable lands near the town or city, that are state owned or philanthropic trust owned or religious entity owned or have no clear land title. In cities located over a mountainous terrain, slums begin on difficult to reach slopes or start at the bottom of flood prone valleys, often hidden from plain view of city center but close to some natural water source. In cities located near lagoons, marshlands and rivers, they start at banks or on stilts above water or the dry river bed; in flat terrain, slums begin on lands unsuitable for agriculture, near city trash dumps, next to railway tracks,Banerji, M. (2009)
Provision of basic services in the slums and resettlement colonies of Delhi
Institute of Social Studies Trust and other shunned undesirable locations. These strategies shield slums from the risk of being noticed and removed when they are small and most vulnerable to local government officials. Initial homes tend to be tents and shacks that are quick to install, but as slum grows, becomes established and newcomers pay the informal association or gang for the right to live in the slum, the construction materials for the slums switches to more lasting materials such as bricks and concrete, suitable for slum's topography. The original slums, over time, get established next to centers of economic activity, schools, hospitals, sources of employment, which the poor rely on. Established old slums, surrounded by the formal city infrastructure, cannot expand horizontally; therefore, they grow vertically by stacking additional rooms, sometimes for a growing family and sometimes as a source of rent from new arrivals in slums. Some slums name themselves after founders of political parties, locally respected historical figures, current politicians or politician's spouse to garner political backing against eviction.
Slum areas are characterized by substandard housing structures. Shanty homes are often built hurriedly, on ad hoc basis, with materials unsuitable for housing. Often the construction quality is inadequate to withstand heavy rains, high winds, or other local climate and location. Paper, plastic, earthen floors, mud-and-wattle walls, wood held together by ropes, straw or torn metal pieces as roofs are some of the materials of construction. In some cases, brick and cement is used, but without attention to proper design and structural engineering requirements. Various space, dwelling placement bylaws and local building codes may also be extensively violated.
Overcrowding is another characteristic of slums. Many dwellings are single room units, with high occupancy rates. Each dwelling may be cohabited by multiple families. Five and more persons may share a one-room unit; the room is used for cooking, sleeping and living. Overcrowding is also seen near sources of drinking water, cleaning, and sanitation where one toilet may serve dozens of families. In a slum of Kolkata, India, over 10 people sometimes share a 45 m2 room. In Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, population density is estimated at 2,000 people per hectare — or about 500,000 people in one square mile.
However, the density and neighbourhood effects of slum populations may also offer an opportunity to target health interventions.
One of the identifying characteristics of slums is the lack of or inadequate public infrastructure. From safe drinking water to electricity, from basic health care to police services, from affordable public transport to fire/ambulance services, from sanitation sewer to paved roads, new slums usually lack all of these. Established, old slums sometimes garner official support and get some of these infrastructure such as paved roads and unreliable electricity or water supply. Slums usually lack street addresses, which creates further problems.
Slums often have very narrow alleys that do not allow vehicles (including emergency vehicles) to pass. The lack of services such as routine garbage collection allows rubbish to accumulate in huge quantities. The lack of infrastructure is caused by the informal nature of settlement and no planning for the poor by government officials. Fires are often a serious problem.
In many countries, local and national government often refuse to recognize slums, because the slum are on disputed land, or because of the fear that quick official recognition will encourage more slum formation and seizure of land illegally. Recognizing and notifying slums often triggers a creation of property rights, and requires that the government provide public services and infrastructure to the slum residents. With poverty and informal economy, slums do not generate tax revenues for the government and therefore tend to get minimal or slow attention. In other cases, the narrow and haphazard layout of slum streets, houses and substandard shacks, along with persistent threat of crime and violence against infrastructure workers, makes it difficult to layout reliable, safe, cost effective and efficient infrastructure. In yet others, the demand far exceeds the government bureaucracy's ability to deliver.
Low socioeconomic status of its residents is another common characteristic attributed to slum residents.
Slums are often placed among the places vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides and floods. In cities located over mountainous terrain, slums begin on slopes difficult to reach or start at the bottom of flood-prone valleys, often hidden from plain view of city center but close to some natural water source. In cities located near lagoons, 
Some slums risk man-made hazards such as toxic
Examples of illicit informal economy include illegal substance and weapons trafficking, drug or moonshine/ changaa production, prostitution and gambling – all sources of risks to the individual, families and society. Recent reports reflecting illicit informal economies include drug trade and distribution in Brazil's ''favelas'', production of fake goods in the ''colonías'' of Tijuana, smuggling in ''katchi abadis'' and slums of Karachi, or production of synthetic drugs in the ''townships'' of Johannesburg.
The slum-dwellers in informal economies run many risks. The informal sector, by its very nature, means income insecurity and lack of social mobility. There is also absence of legal contracts, protection of labour rights, regulations and bargaining power in informal employments.
Some scholars suggest that crime is one of the main concerns in slums. Empirical data suggest crime rates are higher in some slums than in non-slums, with slum homicides alone reducing life expectancy of a resident in a Brazil slum by 7 years than for a resident in nearby non-slum.In the Violent Favelas of Brazil
S Mehta, The New York Review of Books (August 2013) In some countries like Venezuela, officials have sent in the military to control slum criminal
Robert Muggah and Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development & UNDP (October 2007) Violence often leads to retaliatory and vigilante violence within the slum. Gang and drug wars are endemic in some slums, predominantly between male residents of slums. The police sometimes participate in gender-based violence against men as well by picking up some men, beating them and putting them in jail.
'' slum clearance and built new
council house
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 ...
s. There are still examples left of slum housing in the UK, but many have been removed by government initiative, redesigned and replaced with better public housing.
In Europe, slums were common. By the 1920s it had become a common slang expression in England, meaning either various taverns and eating houses, "loose talk" or gypsy language, or a room with "low going-ons". In '' Life in London'' (1821) Pierce Egan used the word in the context of the "back slums" of Holy Lane or St Giles. A footnote defined slum to mean "low, unfrequent parts of the town". Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
used the word slum in a similar way in 1840, writing "I mean to take a great, London, back-slum kind walk tonight". Slum began to be used to describe bad housing soon after and was used as alternative expression for rookeries. In 1850 the Catholic Cardinal Wiseman described the area known as Devil's Acre in Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buck ...
, London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
as follows:
Close under the Abbey of Westminster there lie concealed labyrinths of lanes and potty and alleys and slums, nests of ignorance, vice, depravity, and crime, as well as of squalor, wretchedness, and disease; whose atmosphere is typhus, whose ventilation is cholera; in which swarms of huge and almost countless population, nominally at least, Catholic; haunts of filth, which no sewage committee can reach – dark corners, which no lighting board can brighten.This passage was widely quoted in the national press, leading to the popularization of the word ''slum'' to describe bad housing.
In France as in most industrialised European capitals, slums were widespread in Paris and other urban areas in the 19th century, many of which continued through first half of the 20th century. The first cholera epidemic of 1832 triggered a political debate, and Louis René Villermé study of various arrondissement
An arrondissement (, , ) is any of various administrative divisions of France, Belgium, Haiti, certain other Francophone countries, as well as the Netherlands.
Europe
France
The 101 French departments are divided into 342 ''arrondissements'' ...
s of Paris demonstrated the differences and connection between slums, poverty and poor health. Melun Law first passed in 1849 and revised in 1851, followed by establishment of Paris Commission on Unhealthful Dwellings in 1852 began the social process of identifying the worst housing inside slums, but did not remove or replace slums. After World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, French people started mass migration from rural to urban areas of France. This demographic and economic trend rapidly raised rents of existing housing as well as expanded slums. French government passed laws to block increase in the rent of housing, which inadvertently made many housing projects unprofitable and increased slums. In 1950, France launched its Habitation à Loyer Modéré
Habitation may refer to:
* Human settlement, a community in which people live
* Dwelling
In law, a dwelling (also known as a residence or an abode) is a self-contained unit of accommodation used by one or more households as a home - such as ...
10 idées reçues sur les HLM, Union sociale pour l'habitat, February 2012 initiative to finance and build public housing and remove slums, managed by techniciens – urban technocrats., and financed by Livret A – a tax free savings account for French public. Some slums remain in the early XXIst century in France, most of which are dismantled after a few months, the largest being the "Petite Ceinture" slum on the northern Paris decommissioned train tracks. New York City is believed to have created the United States' first slum, named the Five Points in 1825, as it evolved into a large urban settlement.The First Slum in America
Kevin Baker, The New York Times (September 30, 2001) Five Points was named for a lake named Collect. which, by the late 1700s, was surrounded by slaughterhouses and tanneries which emptied their waste directly into its waters. Trash piled up as well and by the early 1800s the lake was filled up and dry. On this foundation was built Five Points, the United States' first slum. Five Points was occupied by successive waves of freed slaves, Irish, then Italian, then Chinese, immigrants. It housed the poor, rural people leaving farms for opportunity, and the persecuted people from Europe pouring into New York City. Bars, bordellos, squalid and lightless tenements lined its streets. Violence and crime were commonplace. Politicians and social elite discussed it with derision. Slums like Five Points triggered discussions of affordable housing and slum removal. As of the start of the 21st century, Five Points slum had been transformed into the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods of New York City, through that city's campaign of massive
urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of bligh ...
.
Five Points was not the only slum in America. Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis ( ; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, " muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in America at the turn of the t ...
, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine and others photographed many before World War II. Slums were found in every major urban region of the United States throughout most of the 20th century, long after the Great Depression. Most of these slums had been ignored by the cities and states which encompassed them until the 1960s' War on Poverty
The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a nationa ...
was undertaken by the Federal government of the United States.
A type of slum housing, sometimes called poorhouses, crowded the Boston Commons, later at the fringes of the city.
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of the same name, Brazil's List of Brazilian states by population, third-most populous state, and the List of largest citi ...
documented its first slum in 1920 census. By the 1960s, over 33% of population of Rio lived in slums, 45% of Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...
and Ankara
Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, mak ...
, 65% of Algiers, 35% of Caracas
Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...
, 25% of Lima
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of t ...
and Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, who ...
, 15% of Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
. By 1980, in various cities and towns of Latin America alone, there were about 25,000 slums.
Causes that create and expand slums
Slums sprout and continue for a combination of demographic, social, economic, and political reasons. Common causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration, poor planning, economic stagnation and depression, poverty, high unemployment, informal economy, colonialism and segregation, politics, natural disasters and social conflicts.Rural–urban migration
Rural–urban migration is one of the causes attributed to the formation and expansion of slums. Since 1950, world population has increased at a far greater rate than the total amount of arable land, even as agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...
contributes a much smaller percentage of the total economy. For example, in India, agriculture accounted for 52% of its GDP in 1954 and only 19% in 2004; in Brazil, the 2050 GDP contribution of agriculture is one-fifth of its contribution in 1951. Agriculture, meanwhile, has also become higher yielding, less disease prone, less physically harsh and more efficient with tractors and other equipment. The proportion of people working in agriculture has declined by 30% over the last 50 years, while global population has increased by 250%.
Many people move to urban areas
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
primarily because cities promise more jobs, better schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than subsistence farming in rural areas. For example, in 1995, 95.8% of migrants to Surabaya
Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Indonesian province of East Java and the second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern border of Java island, on the Mad ...
, Indonesia reported that jobs were their primary motivation for moving to the city. However, some rural migrants may not find jobs immediately because of their lack of skills and the increasingly competitive job markets, which leads to their financial shortage. Many cities, on the other hand, do not provide enough low-cost housing
Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and housing authority, assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of Shelter (building), shelter. Housing ensures that members of so ...
for a large number of rural-urban migrant workers. Some rural–urban migrant workers
A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
Migrant workers who work outsi ...
cannot afford housing in cities and eventually settle down in only affordable slums. Further, rural migrants, mainly lured by higher incomes, continue to flood into cities. They thus expand the existing urban slums.
According to Ali and Toran, social networks
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
might also explain rural–urban migration and people's ultimate settlement in slums. In addition to migration for jobs, a portion of people migrate to cities because of their connection with relatives or families. Once their family support in urban areas is in slums, those rural migrants intend to live with them in slums
Urbanization
The formation of slums is closely linked to urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
. In 2008, more than 50% of the world's population lived in urban areas. In China, for example, it is estimated that the population living in urban areas will increase by 10% within a decade according to its current rates of urbanization. The UN-Habitat reports that 43% of urban population in developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...
and 78% of those in the least developed countries are slum dwellers.
Some scholars suggest that urbanization creates slums because local governments are unable to manage urbanization, and migrant workers
A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
Migrant workers who work outsi ...
without an affordable place to live in, dwell in slums. Rapid urbanization drives economic growth and causes people to seek working and investment opportunities in urban areas. However, as evidenced by poor urban infrastructure and insufficient housing
Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and housing authority, assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of Shelter (building), shelter. Housing ensures that members of so ...
, the local governments sometimes are unable to manage this transition. This incapacity can be attributed to insufficient funds and inexperience to handle and organize problems brought by migration and urbanization. In some cases, local governments ignore the flux of immigrants during the process of urbanization. Such examples can be found in many African countries. In the early 1950s, many African governments believed that slums would finally disappear with economic growth in urban areas. They neglected rapidly spreading slums due to increased rural-urban migration caused by urbanization. Some governments, moreover, mapped the land where slums occupied as undeveloped land.
Another type of urbanization does not involve economic growth but economic stagnation or low growth, mainly contributing to slum growth in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
. This type of urbanization involves a high rate of unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refer ...
, insufficient financial resources and inconsistent urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water ...
policy. In these areas, an increase of 1% in urban population will result in an increase of 1.84% in slum prevalence.
Urbanization might also force some people to live in slums when it influences land use
Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long his ...
by transforming agricultural land into urban areas and increases land value. During the process of urbanization, some agricultural land is used for additional urban activities. More investment will come into these areas, which increases the land value. Before some land is completely urbanized, there is a period when the land can be used for neither urban activities nor agriculture. The income from the land will decline, which decreases the people's incomes in that area. The gap between people's low income and the high land price forces some people to look for and construct cheap informal settlements
Informal housing or informal settlement can include any form of housing, shelter, or settlement (or lack thereof) which is illegal, falls outside of government control or regulation, or is not afforded protection by the state. As such, the inf ...
, which are known as slums in urban areas. The transformation of agricultural land also provides surplus labour
Surplus labour (German: ''Mehrarbeit'') is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ("necessary labour"). The "s ...
, as peasants have to seek jobs in urban areas as rural-urban migrant workers
A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
Migrant workers who work outsi ...
.
Many slums are part of economies of agglomeration in which there is an emergence of economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables a ...
at the firm level, transport costs and the mobility of the industrial labour force. The increase in returns of scale will mean that the production of each good will take place in a single location. And even though an agglomerated economy benefits these cities by bringing in specialization and multiple competing suppliers, the conditions of slums continue to lag behind in terms of quality and adequate housing. Alonso-Villar argues that the existence of transport costs implies that the best locations for a firm will be those with easy access to markets, and the best locations for workers, those with easy access to goods. The concentration is the result of a self-reinforcing process of agglomeration. Concentration is a common trend of the distribution of population. Urban growth is dramatically intense in the less developed countries, where a large number of huge cities have started to appear; which means high poverty rates, crime, pollution and congestion.
Poor house planning
Lack of affordable low-cost housing and poor planning encourages the supply side of slums.Istanbul's GecekondusOrhan Esen, London School of Economics and Political Science (2009) The Millennium Development Goals proposes that member nations should make a "significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers" by 2020. If member nations succeed in achieving this goal, 90% of the world total slum dwellers may remain in the poorly housed settlements by 2020. Choguill claims that the large number of slum dwellers indicates a deficiency of practical housing policy. Whenever there is a significant gap in growing demand for housing and insufficient supply of affordable housing, this gap is typically met in part by slums. ''The Economist'' has observed that "good housing is obviously better than a slum, but a slum is better than none". Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government bureaucracy are two main causes of poor house planning. Financial deficiency in some governments may explain the lack of affordable public housing for the poor since any improvement of the tenant in slums and expansion of public housing programs involve a great increase in the government expenditure. The problem can also lie on the failure in coordination among different departments in charge of economic development,
urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water ...
, and land allocation. In some cities, governments assume that the housing market will adjust the supply of housing with a change in demand. However, with little economic incentive, the housing market is more likely to develop middle-income housing rather than low-cost housing. The urban poor gradually become marginalized in the housing market where few houses are built to sell to them.
Colonialism and segregation
Some of the slums in today's world are a product of urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
brought by colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their rel ...
. For instance, the Europeans arrived in Kenya
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in the nineteenth century and created urban centers such as Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city prope ...
mainly to serve their financial interests. They regarded the Africans as temporary migrants and needed them only for supply of labour. The housing policy aiming to accommodate these workers was not well enforced and the government built settlements in the form of single-occupancy bedspaces. Due to the cost of time and money in their movement back and forth between rural and urban areas, their families gradually migrated to the urban centre. As they could not afford to buy houses, slums were thus formed.
Others were created because of segregation imposed by the colonialists. For example, Dharavi slum of Mumbai – now one of the largest slums in India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
, used to be a village referred to as Koliwadas, and Mumbai used to be referred as Bombay. In 1887, the British colonial government expelled all tanneries, other noxious industry and poor natives who worked in the peninsular part of the city and colonial housing area, to what was back then the northern fringe of the city – a settlement now called Dharavi. This settlement attracted no colonial supervision or investment in terms of road infrastructure, sanitation
Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation syste ...
, public services or housing. The poor moved into Dharavi, found work as servants in colonial offices and homes and in the foreign owned tanneries and other polluting industries near Dharavi. To live, the poor built shanty towns within easy commute to work. By 1947, the year India became an independent nation of the commonwealth, Dharavi had blossomed into Bombay's largest slum.
Jan Nijman, A STUDY OF SPACE IN MUMBAI'S SLUMS, Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Volume 101, Issue 1, pages 4–17, February 2010
Similarly, some of the slums of Lagos
Lagos ( Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national capital of Nigeria until December 1991 f ...
, Nigeria sprouted because of neglect and policies of the colonial era. During apartheid era of South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...
, under the pretext of sanitation and plague epidemic prevention, racial and ethnic group segregation was pursued, people of colour were moved to the fringes of the city, policies that created Soweto and other slums – officially called townships. Large slums started at the fringes of segregation-conscious colonial city centers of Latin America. Marcuse suggests ghettoes in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, and elsewhere, have been created and maintained by the segregationist policies of the state and regionally dominant group.
Poor infrastructure, social exclusion and economic stagnation
Social exclusion and poor infrastructure forces the poor to adapt to conditions beyond his or her control. Poor families that cannot afford transportation, or those who simply lack any form of affordable public transportation, generally end up in squat settlements within walking distance or close enough to the place of their formal or informal employment. Ben Arimah cites this social exclusion and poor infrastructure as a cause for numerous slums in African cities.Slums as Expressions of Social Exclusion: Explaining the Prevalence of Slums in African CountriesBen Arimah, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi, Kenya Poor quality, unpaved streets encourage slums; a 1% increase in paved all-season roads, claims Arimah, reduces slum incidence rate by about 0.35%. Affordable public transport and economic infrastructure empowers poor people to move and consider housing options other than their current slums. A growing economy that creates jobs at rate faster than population growth, offers people opportunities and incentive to relocate from poor slum to more developed neighborhoods. Economic stagnation, in contrast, creates uncertainties and risks for the poor, encouraging people to stay in the slums. Economic stagnation in a nation with a growing population reduces per capita disposal income in urban and rural areas, increasing urban and rural poverty. Rising rural poverty also encourages migration to urban areas. A poorly performing economy, in other words, increases poverty and rural-to-urban migration, thereby increasing slums.
Marja Kuiper and Kees van der Ree, Global Urban Development Magazine, Vol 2, Issue 1, March 2006
Informal economy
Many slums grow because of growing informal economy which creates demand for workers. Informal economy is that part of an economy that is neither registered as a business nor licensed, one that does not pay taxes and is not monitored by local or state or federal government. Informal economy grows faster than formal economy when government laws and regulations are opaque and excessive, government bureaucracy is corrupt and abusive of entrepreneurs, labour laws are inflexible, or when law enforcement is poor. Urban informal sector is between 20 and 60% of most developing economies' GDP; in Kenya, 78 per cent of non-agricultural employment is in the informal sector making up 42 per cent of GDP. In many cities the informal sector accounts for as much as 60 per cent of employment of the urban population. For example, in Benin, slum dwellers comprise 75 per cent of informal sector workers, while in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad and Ethiopia, they make up 90 per cent of the informal labour force. Slums thus create an informal alternate economic ecosystem, that demands low paid flexible workers, something impoverished residents of slums deliver. In other words, countries where starting, registering and running a formal business is difficult, tend to encourage informal businesses and slums. Without a sustainable formal economy that raise incomes and create opportunities, squalid slums are likely to continue.
The World Bank and UN Habitat estimate, assuming no major economic reforms are undertaken, more than 80% of additional jobs in urban areas of developing world may be low-paying jobs in the informal sector. Everything else remaining same, this explosive growth in the informal sector is likely to be accompanied by a rapid growth of slums.
Labour, work
Research in the latest years based on ethnographic studies, conducted since 2008 about slums, published initially in 2017, has found out the primary importance of labour as the main cause of emergence, rural-urban migration, consolidation and growth of informal settlements. It also showed that work has also a crucial role in the self-construction of houses, alleys and overall informal planning of slums, as well as constituting a central aspect by residents living in slums when their communities suffer upgrading schemes or when they are resettled to formal housing. For example, it was recently proved that in a small favela in the northeast of Brazil (Favela Sururu de Capote), the migration of dismissed sugar cane factory workers to the city of Maceió (who initiated the self-construction of the favela), has been driven by the necessity to find a job in the city. The same observation was noticed on the new migrants who contribute to the consolidation and growth of the slum. Also, the choice of the terrain for the construction of the favela (the margins of a lagoon) followed the rationale that it could offer conditions to provide them means of work. Circa 80% of residents living in that community live from the fishery of a mussel which divides the community through gender and age. Alleys and houses were planned to facilitate the working activities, that provided subsistence and livelihood to the community. When resettled, the main reason of changes of formal housing units was due to the lack of possibilities to perform their work in the new houses designed according to formal architecture principles, or even by the distances they had to travel to work in the slum where they originally lived, which was in turn faced by residents by self-constructing spaces to shelter the work originally performed in the slum, in the formal housing units. Similar observations were made in other slums. Residents also reported that their work constitutes their dignity, citizenship, and self-esteem in the underprivileged settings in which they live. The reflection of this recent research was possible due to participatory observations and the fact that the author of the research has lived in a slum to verify the socioeconomic practices which were prone to shape, plan and govern space in slums.Poverty
Urban poverty encourages the formation and demand for slums. With rapid shift from rural to urban life, poverty migrates to urban areas. The urban poor arrives with hope, and very little of anything else. They typically have no access to shelter, basic urban services and social amenities. Slums are often the only option for the urban poor.
Politics
Many local and national governments have, for political interests, subverted efforts to remove, reduce or upgrade slums into better housing options for the poor.Assessing Slums in the Development ContextUnited Nations Habitat Group (2011) Throughout the second half of the 19th century, for example, French political parties relied on votes from slum population and had vested interests in maintaining that voting block. Removal and replacement of slum created a conflict of interest, and politics prevented efforts to remove, relocate or upgrade the slums into housing projects that are better than the slums. Similar dynamics are cited in favelas of Brazil, slums of India,
Joshi and Unnithan, India Today (March 7, 2005) and shanty towns of Kenya.
Scholars claim politics also drives rural-urban migration and subsequent settlement patterns. Pre-existing patronage networks, sometimes in the form of gangs and other times in the form of political parties or social activists, inside slums seek to maintain their economic, social and political power. These social and political groups have vested interests to encourage migration by ethnic groups that will help maintain the slums, and reject alternate housing options even if the alternate options are better in every aspect than the slums they seek to replace.
Social conflicts
Millions ofLebanese
Lebanese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Lebanese Republic
* Lebanese people
The Lebanese people ( ar, الشعب اللبناني / ALA-LC: ', ) are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may al ...
people formed slums during the Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
from 1975 to 1990. Similarly, in recent years, numerous slums have sprung around Kabul to accommodate rural Afghans escaping Taliban violence.
Natural disasters
Major natural disasters in poor nations often lead to migration of disaster-affected families from areas crippled by the disaster to unaffected areas, the creation of temporary tent city and slums, or expansion of existing slums. These slums tend to become permanent because the residents do not want to leave, as in the case of slums near Port-au-Prince after the 2010Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
earthquake, and slums near Dhaka after 2007 Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million pe ...
Cyclone Sidr.
Slums in developing countries
Location and growth
Slums typically begin at the outskirts of a city. Over time, the city may expand past the original slums, enclosing the slums inside the urban perimeter. New slums sprout at the new boundaries of the expanding city, usually on publicly owned lands, thereby creating anurban sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...
mix of formal settlements, industry, retail zones and slums. This makes the original slums valuable property, densely populated with many conveniences attractive to the poor.Rosa Flores Fernandez (2011)Physical and Spatial Characteristics of Slum Territories Vulnerable to Natural Disasters
, Les Cahiers d'Afrique de l'Est, n° 44, French Institute for Research in Africa At their start, slums are typically located in least desirable lands near the town or city, that are state owned or philanthropic trust owned or religious entity owned or have no clear land title. In cities located over a mountainous terrain, slums begin on difficult to reach slopes or start at the bottom of flood prone valleys, often hidden from plain view of city center but close to some natural water source. In cities located near lagoons, marshlands and rivers, they start at banks or on stilts above water or the dry river bed; in flat terrain, slums begin on lands unsuitable for agriculture, near city trash dumps, next to railway tracks,Banerji, M. (2009)
Provision of basic services in the slums and resettlement colonies of Delhi
Institute of Social Studies Trust and other shunned undesirable locations. These strategies shield slums from the risk of being noticed and removed when they are small and most vulnerable to local government officials. Initial homes tend to be tents and shacks that are quick to install, but as slum grows, becomes established and newcomers pay the informal association or gang for the right to live in the slum, the construction materials for the slums switches to more lasting materials such as bricks and concrete, suitable for slum's topography. The original slums, over time, get established next to centers of economic activity, schools, hospitals, sources of employment, which the poor rely on. Established old slums, surrounded by the formal city infrastructure, cannot expand horizontally; therefore, they grow vertically by stacking additional rooms, sometimes for a growing family and sometimes as a source of rent from new arrivals in slums. Some slums name themselves after founders of political parties, locally respected historical figures, current politicians or politician's spouse to garner political backing against eviction.
Insecure tenure
Informality ofland tenure
In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individua ...
is a key characteristic of urban slums. At their start, slums are typically located in least desirable lands near the town or city, that are state owned or philanthropic trust owned or religious entity owned or have no clear land title. Some immigrants regard unoccupied land as land without owners and therefore occupy it. In some cases the local community or the government allots lands to people, which will later develop into slums and over which the dwellers don't have property rights
The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership) is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely and is typically ...
. Informal land tenure also includes occupation of land belonging to someone else. According to Flood, 51 percent of slums are based on invasion to private land in sub-Saharan Africa, 39 percent in North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...
and West Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes A ...
, 10 percent in South Asia, 40 percent in East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...
, and 40 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In some cases, once the slum has many residents, the early residents form a social group, an informal association or a gang that controls newcomers, charges a fee for the right to live in the slums, and dictates where and how new homes get built within the slum. The newcomers, having paid for the right, feel they have commercial right to the home in that slum. The slum dwellings, built earlier or in later period as the slum grows, are constructed without checking land ownership rights or building codes, are not registered with the city, and often not recognized by the city or state governments.
Secure land tenure is important for slum dwellers as an authentic recognition of their residential status in urban areas. It also encourages them to upgrade their housing facilities, which will give them protection against natural and unnatural hazards. Undocumented ownership with no legal title to the land also prevents slum settlers from applying for mortgage, which might worsen their financial situations. In addition, without registration of the land ownership, the government has difficulty in upgrading basic facilities and improving the living environment. Insecure tenure of the slum, as well as lack of socially and politically acceptable alternatives to slums, also creates difficulty in citywide infrastructure development such as rapid mass transit, electrical line and sewer pipe layout, highways and roads.
Substandard housing and overcrowding
Slum areas are characterized by substandard housing structures. Shanty homes are often built hurriedly, on ad hoc basis, with materials unsuitable for housing. Often the construction quality is inadequate to withstand heavy rains, high winds, or other local climate and location. Paper, plastic, earthen floors, mud-and-wattle walls, wood held together by ropes, straw or torn metal pieces as roofs are some of the materials of construction. In some cases, brick and cement is used, but without attention to proper design and structural engineering requirements. Various space, dwelling placement bylaws and local building codes may also be extensively violated.
Overcrowding is another characteristic of slums. Many dwellings are single room units, with high occupancy rates. Each dwelling may be cohabited by multiple families. Five and more persons may share a one-room unit; the room is used for cooking, sleeping and living. Overcrowding is also seen near sources of drinking water, cleaning, and sanitation where one toilet may serve dozens of families. In a slum of Kolkata, India, over 10 people sometimes share a 45 m2 room. In Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, population density is estimated at 2,000 people per hectare — or about 500,000 people in one square mile.
However, the density and neighbourhood effects of slum populations may also offer an opportunity to target health interventions.
Inadequate or no infrastructure
One of the identifying characteristics of slums is the lack of or inadequate public infrastructure. From safe drinking water to electricity, from basic health care to police services, from affordable public transport to fire/ambulance services, from sanitation sewer to paved roads, new slums usually lack all of these. Established, old slums sometimes garner official support and get some of these infrastructure such as paved roads and unreliable electricity or water supply. Slums usually lack street addresses, which creates further problems.
Slums often have very narrow alleys that do not allow vehicles (including emergency vehicles) to pass. The lack of services such as routine garbage collection allows rubbish to accumulate in huge quantities. The lack of infrastructure is caused by the informal nature of settlement and no planning for the poor by government officials. Fires are often a serious problem.
In many countries, local and national government often refuse to recognize slums, because the slum are on disputed land, or because of the fear that quick official recognition will encourage more slum formation and seizure of land illegally. Recognizing and notifying slums often triggers a creation of property rights, and requires that the government provide public services and infrastructure to the slum residents. With poverty and informal economy, slums do not generate tax revenues for the government and therefore tend to get minimal or slow attention. In other cases, the narrow and haphazard layout of slum streets, houses and substandard shacks, along with persistent threat of crime and violence against infrastructure workers, makes it difficult to layout reliable, safe, cost effective and efficient infrastructure. In yet others, the demand far exceeds the government bureaucracy's ability to deliver.
Low socioeconomic status of its residents is another common characteristic attributed to slum residents.
Problems
Vulnerability to natural and man-made hazards
Slums are often placed among the places vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides and floods. In cities located over mountainous terrain, slums begin on slopes difficult to reach or start at the bottom of flood-prone valleys, often hidden from plain view of city center but close to some natural water source. In cities located near lagoons, marshlands
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found ...
and rivers, they start at banks or on stilts above water or the dry river bed; in flat terrain, slums begin on lands unsuitable for agriculture, near city trash dumps, next to railway tracks, and other shunned, undesirable locations. These strategies shield slums from the risk of being noticed and removed when they are small and most vulnerable to local government officials. However, the ad hoc construction, lack of quality control on building materials used, poor maintenance, and uncoordinated spatial design make them prone to extensive damage during earthquakes as well from decay. These risks will be intensified by climate change.
Some slums risk man-made hazards such as toxic industries
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial secto ...
, traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic d ...
and collapsing infrastructure. Fires are another major risk to slums and its inhabitants, with streets too narrow to allow proper and quick access to fire control trucks.
Unemployment and informal economy
Due to lack of skills and education as well as competitive job markets, many slum dwellers face high rates of unemployment. The limit of job opportunities causes many of them to employ themselves in the informal economy, inside the slum or in developed urban areas near the slum. This can sometimes be licit informal economy or illicit informal economy without working contract or any social security. Some of them are seeking jobs at the same time and some of those will eventually find jobs in formal economies after gaining some professional skills in informal sectors. Examples of licit informal economy include street vending, household enterprises, product assembly and packaging, making garlands and embroideries, domestic work, shoe polishing or repair, driving tuk-tuk or manual rickshaws, construction workers or manually driven logistics, and handicrafts production. In some slums, people sort and recycle trash of different kinds (from household garbage to electronics) for a living – selling either the odd usable goods or stripping broken goods for parts or raw materials. Typically these licit informal economies require the poor to regularly pay a bribe to local police and government officials.
Examples of illicit informal economy include illegal substance and weapons trafficking, drug or moonshine/ changaa production, prostitution and gambling – all sources of risks to the individual, families and society. Recent reports reflecting illicit informal economies include drug trade and distribution in Brazil's ''favelas'', production of fake goods in the ''colonías'' of Tijuana, smuggling in ''katchi abadis'' and slums of Karachi, or production of synthetic drugs in the ''townships'' of Johannesburg.
The slum-dwellers in informal economies run many risks. The informal sector, by its very nature, means income insecurity and lack of social mobility. There is also absence of legal contracts, protection of labour rights, regulations and bargaining power in informal employments.
Violence
Some scholars suggest that crime is one of the main concerns in slums. Empirical data suggest crime rates are higher in some slums than in non-slums, with slum homicides alone reducing life expectancy of a resident in a Brazil slum by 7 years than for a resident in nearby non-slum.In the Violent Favelas of BrazilS Mehta, The New York Review of Books (August 2013) In some countries like Venezuela, officials have sent in the military to control slum criminal
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...
involved with drugs and weapons. Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
is another serious issue related to crime in slums. In Nairobi slums, for example, one fourth of all teenage girls are raped each year.
On the other hand, while UN-Habitat reports some slums are more exposed to crimes
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
with higher crime rates (for instance, the traditional inner-city slums), crime is not the direct resultant of block layout in many slums. Rather crime is one of the symptoms of slum dwelling; thus slums consist of more victims than criminals. Consequently, slums in all do not have consistently high crime rates; slums have the worst crime rates in sectors maintaining influence of illicit economy – such as drug trafficking, brewing, prostitution and gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
–. Often in such circumstance, multiple gangs fight for control over revenue.
Slum crime rate correlates with insufficient law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...
and inadequate public policing. In main cities of developing countries, law enforcement lags behind urban growth and slum expansion. Often police can not reduce crime because, due to ineffective city planning and governance, slums set inefficient crime prevention system. Such problems is not primarily due to community indifference. Leads and information intelligence from slums are rare, streets are narrow and a potential death traps to patrol, and many in the slum community have an inherent distrust of authorities from fear ranging from eviction to collection on unpaid utility bills to general law and order. Lack of formal recognition by the governments also leads to few formal policing and public justice institutions in slums.
Women in slums are at greater risk of physical and sexual violence
Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., Worl ...
. Factors such as unemployment that lead to insufficient resources in the household can increase marital stress and therefore exacerbate domestic violence.
Slums are often non-secured areas and women often risk sexual violence
Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., Worl ...
when they walk alone in slums late at night. Violence against women and women's security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
in slums emerge as recurrent issues.
Another prevalent form of violence in slums is armed violence (gun violence
Gun-related violence is violence committed with the use of a firearm. Gun-related violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide (except when and where ruled justifiable), assault with a deadly weapon, an ...
), mostly existing in African and Latin American slums. It leads to homicide
Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...
and the emergence of criminal gangs. Typical victims are male slum residents.More Slums Equals More ViolenceRobert Muggah and Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development & UNDP (October 2007) Violence often leads to retaliatory and vigilante violence within the slum. Gang and drug wars are endemic in some slums, predominantly between male residents of slums. The police sometimes participate in gender-based violence against men as well by picking up some men, beating them and putting them in jail.
Domestic violence against men
Domestic violence against men is violence or other physical abuse towards men in a domestic setting, such as in marriage or cohabitation. As with domestic violence against women, violence against men may constitute a crime, but laws vary bet ...
also exists in slums, including verbal abuses and even physical violence from households.
Cohen as well as Merton theorized that the cycle of slum violence does not mean slums are inevitably criminogenic, rather in some cases it is frustration against life in slum, and a consequence of denial of opportunity to slum residents to leave the slum. Further, crime rates are not uniformly high in world's slums; the highest crime rates in slums are seen where illicit economy – such as drug trafficking, brewing, prostitution and gambling – is strong and multiple gangs are fighting for control.
Infectious diseases and epidemics
Slum dwellers usually experience a high rate of disease. Diseases that have been reported in slums include cholera,HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
, measles, malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...
, dengue, typhoid, drug resistant tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...
, and other epidemics. Studies focus on children's health in slums address that cholera and diarrhea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin ...
are especially common among young children. Besides children's vulnerability to diseases, many scholars also focus on high HIV/AIDS prevalence in slums among women. Throughout slum areas in various parts of the world, infectious diseases are a significant contributor to high mortality rates. For example, according to a study in Nairobi's slums, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis attributed to about 50% of the mortality burden.
Factors that have been attributed to a higher rate of disease transmission in slums include high population densities, poor living conditions, low vaccination rates, insufficient health-related data and inadequate health service
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profess ...
. Overcrowding leads to faster and wider spread of diseases due to the limited space in slum housing. Poor living conditions also make slum dwellers more vulnerable to certain diseases. Poor water quality
Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through ...
, a manifest example, is a cause of many major illnesses including malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...
, diarrhea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin ...
and trachoma. Improving living conditions such as introduction of better sanitation and access to basic facilities can ameliorate the effects of diseases, such as cholera.
Slums have been historically linked to epidemics, and this trend has continued in modern times. For example, the slums of West African nations such as Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It ...
were crippled by as well as contributed to the outbreak and spread of Ebola in 2014. Slums are considered a major public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
concern and potential breeding grounds of drug resistant diseases for the entire city, the nation, as well as the global community.
Child malnutrition
Childmalnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...
is more common in slums than in non-slum areas.
In Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...
and New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the NCT Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati B ...
, 47% and 51% of slum children under the age of five are stunted and 35% and 36% of them are underweighted. These children all suffer from third-degree malnutrition, the most severe level, according to WHO standards. A study conducted by Tada et al. in Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...
slums illustrates that in terms of weight-forage, 25.4% of the children who participated in the survey suffered from malnutrition, compared to around 8% national malnutrition prevalence in Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
. In Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
and the Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesprotein-energy malnutrition (PEM), vitamin A deficiency (VAD), iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and iodine deficiency disorders (IDD). Malnutrition can sometimes lead to
Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of slums as urban populations have increased in
UN-HABITAT report, April 2007. Some NGO's are focused at addressing local problems (i.e. sanitation issues, health, ...), through the mapping out of the slums and its health services, creation of latrines, creation of local food production projects, and even microcredit projects. In one project (in Rio de Janeiro), the government even employed slum residents for the reforestation of a nearby location. To achieve the goal of "cities without slums", the UN claims that governments must undertake vigorous urban planning, city management, infrastructure development, slum upgrading and poverty reduction.
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
among children. Dr. Abhay Bang
Abhay Bang and Rani Bang are Indian activists and community health researchers working in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, India. Together, they have overseen a programme that has substantially reduced infant mortality rates, one whic ...
's report shows that malnutrition kills 56,000 children annually in urban slums in India.
Widespread child malnutrition in slums is closely related to family income
Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...
, mothers' food practice, mothers' educational
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
level, and maternal employment or housewifery. Poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse < ...
may result in inadequate food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ...
intake when people cannot afford to buy and store enough food, which leads to malnutrition. Another common cause is mothers' faulty feeding practices, including inadequate breastfeeding
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that bre ...
and wrongly preparation of food for children. Tada et al.'s study in Bangkok slums shows that around 64% of the mothers sometimes fed their children instant food instead of a normal meal. And about 70% of the mothers did not provide their children three meals every day. Mothers' lack of education leads to their faulty feeding practices. Many mothers in slums don't have knowledge on food nutrition for children. Maternal employment also influences children's nutritional status. For the mothers who work outside, their children are prone to be malnourished. These children are likely to be neglected by their mothers or sometimes not carefully looked after by their female relatives.
Other non-communicable diseases
A multitude of non-contagious diseases also impact health for slum residents. Examples of prevalent non-infectious diseases include: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, neurological disorders, and mental illness. In some slum areas of India, diarrhea is a significant health problem among children. Factors like poor sanitation, low literacy rates, and limited awareness make diarrhea and other dangerous diseases extremely prevalent and burdensome on the community. Lack of reliable data also has a negative impact on slum dwellers' health. A number of slum families do not report cases or seek professional medical care, which results in insufficient data. This might prevent appropriate allocation of health care resources in slum areas since many countries base their health care plans on data from clinic, hospital, or national mortality registry. Moreover,health service
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profess ...
is insufficient or inadequate in most of the world's slums. Emergency ambulance
An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport.
Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...
service and urgent care An urgent care center (UCC), also known as an urgent treatment centre in the United Kingdom, is a type of walk-in clinic focused on the delivery of urgent ambulatory care in a dedicated medical facility outside of a traditional emergency department ...
services are typically unavailable, as health service providers sometimes avoid servicing slums. A study shows that more than half of slum dwellers are prone to visit private practitioners or seek self-medication with medicines available in the home. Private practitioners in slums are usually those who are unlicensed or poorly trained and they run clinics and pharmacies mainly for the sake of money. The categorization of slum health by the government and census data also has an effect on the distribution and allocation of health resources in inner city areas. A significant portion of city populations face challenges with access to health care but do not live in locations that are described as within the "slum" area.
Overall, a complex network of physical, social, and environmental factors contribute to the health threats faced by slum residents.
Countermeasures
Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of slums as urban populations have increased in developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...
. Nearly a billion people worldwide live in slums, and some project the figure may grow to 2 billion by 2030 if governments and the global community ignore slums and continue current urban policies. United Nations Habitat group believes change is possible.Slum Dwellers to double by 2030UN-HABITAT report, April 2007. Some NGO's are focused at addressing local problems (i.e. sanitation issues, health, ...), through the mapping out of the slums and its health services, creation of latrines, creation of local food production projects, and even microcredit projects. In one project (in Rio de Janeiro), the government even employed slum residents for the reforestation of a nearby location. To achieve the goal of "cities without slums", the UN claims that governments must undertake vigorous urban planning, city management, infrastructure development, slum upgrading and poverty reduction.
Slum removal