Slum

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A slum is a district of a city or town which is usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Slums can be found in most large cities around the world. Though the terms are often now used interchangeably, slums and ghettos differ in that ghetto refers to a neighborhood based on shared ethnicity. Slums are also different from favelas or shanty towns, in that they consist of permanent (if low-quality) housing rather than less-durable shacks of cardboard or corrugated iron or newspaper.

Contents 1 Characteristics 2 Growth and countermeasures 3 Income disparity 4 Slums versus ghettos 5 References 6 See also 7 Literature 8 External links

[edit] Characteristics

Slums are usually characterized by urban blight and by high rates of poverty and unemployment. They tend to be breeding centers for many social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high rates of mental illness, suicide, and despair. In many poor countries they exhibit high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care.

In many slums, especially in poor countries, many live in very narrow alleys that do not allow vehicles (like ambulances and fire trucks) 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. Additionally, informal settlements often face the brunt of natural and man-made disasters, such as landslides, as well as earthquakes and tropical storms. Many slum dwellers employ themselves in the informal economy. This can include street vending, drug dealing, domestic work, and prostitution. In some slums people even 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.

[edit] Growth and countermeasures

Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of slums as urban populations have increased in the Third World. In many countries, the rural peasants have moved to large cities in droves chasing low-wage factory employment after having been deprived of pre-colonial traditional property rights that often vest in the community rather than the individual.

Many governments around the world have attempted to solve the problems of slums by clearing away old decrepit housing and replacing it with modern housing with much better sanitation. The displacement of slums is aided by the fact that many are squatter settlements whose property rights are not recognized by the state. This process is especially common in the Third World. Slum clearance often takes the form of eminent domain and urban renewal projects, and often the former residents are not welcome in the renewed housing. Moreover new projects are often on the semi-rural peripheries of cities far from opportunities for generating livlihoods as well as schools, clinics etc. At times this has resulted in large movements of inner city slum dwellers militantly opposing relocation to formal housing on the outskirts of cities. See, for example, Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban, South Africa.

In some countries, leaders have addressed this situation by rescuing rural property rights to support traditional sustainable agriculture, however this solution has met with open hostility from capitalists and corporations. It also tends to be relatively unpopular with the slum communities themselves, as it involves moving out of the city back into the countryside, a reverse of the rural-urban migration that originally brought many of them into the city.

Critics argue that slum clearances tend to ignore the social problems that cause slums and simply redistribute poverty to less valuable real estate. Where communities have been moved out of slum areas to newer housing, social cohesion may be lost. If the original community is moved back into newer housing after it has been built in the same location, residents of the new housing face the same problems of poverty and powerlessness.

[edit] Income disparity

According to the UNDP 1997 Human Development Report,^[2] and the 2004 United Nations Human Development (UNHDP) report,^[3] Malaysia has the highest income disparity between the rich and poor in Southeast Asia, greater than that of Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia. The UNHDP Report shows that the richest 10% in Malaysia control 38.4% of the economic income as compared to the poorest 10% who control only 1.7%. Kuala Lumpur as the capital of Malaysia has an increasing number of squatters,^{[4] [5]} shanty towns and slums, and is also seeing an increase in criminal acts such as snatch theft,^[6] robberies, and rape.

[edit] Slums versus ghettos

Many times people use the term ghetto when they are actually referring to a slum.

Definition of a Ghetto

To qualify as a ghetto, an area must contain certain aspects:

• There must be a majority of one group of people over the rest of a population in an area.

• This majority group must be a racial, ethnic or religious group that is a minority compared to the major population.

• This group must have been discriminated against, when it comes to housing, in the past and possibly currently.

A ghetto is not based on the population’s social-economic level, amount of crime or amount of unemployment. A person who lives in a ghetto chooses not to leave the ghetto because of past discrimination and/or is unable to leave because of current discrimination. The first ghetto was a Jewish ghetto located in Venice, Italy. In the United States, census tracks are used to determine if an area is a ghetto.

Definition of a Slum

A slum is only based on the social-economic level of the population that live in an area. The characteristics of a slum include: crime, unemployment, suicide rate, low level education, low level income and low quality housing. A slum is not based on the race, ethicality or religion of the people in the area. A person who lives in a slum is unable to move away from the slum because of their economic status.

[edit] References

1. ^ Slums in Delhi, India.
2. ^ Asian Analysis 1998 by Asean Focus Group, Professor Michael Leigh Director Institute of East Asian Studies University Malaysia, Sarawak.
3. ^ Speech at the Meeting between DAPSY National and Perak State Leaders In Teluk Intan by Lim Guan Eng, If the 2004 Petronas profits of RM 35.6 billion (US$9.89 billion) were distributed to the poor, Malaysia would not have wealth distribution problems.
4. ^ http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Apec/pdf/97fe_012.pdf
5. ^ http://aplikasi.kpkt.gov.my/akhbar.nsf/8521d968204e8b454825697400224ca6/ddc8bbe48f9dc13748256f09000864f4?OpenDocument
6. ^ Students slashed in robbery, Kuala Lumpur, August 1, 2006, Phang Kar Wei, 23, was repeatedly assaulted and slashed three times on his hands and neck by two men on a motorcycle at 8.45pm in Taman Melati, some 2km from Wangsa Maju.

[edit] See also

• favela
• flophouse
• shanty town
• hobo
• ghetto
• Urban blight
• Kibera
• squatting
• colonia (border settlement)
• New Village
• Abahlali baseMjondolo

[edit] Literature

• Mike Davis (scholar):Planet of Slums London, New York 2006 ISBN 1-84467-022-8
• Elisabeth Blum / Peter Neitzke: FavelaMetropolis. Berichte und Projekte aus Rio de Janeiro und Sao Paulo, Birkhäuser Basel, Boston, Berlin 2004 ISBN 3-7643-7063-7

[edit] External links

• http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=131517
• South Africa slum dwellers' movement
• Slums of Victorian London
• Slums of New Delhi, India
• Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency warns; John Vidal; The Guardian; October 4, 2003.
• Mute Magazine Vol 2#3, Naked Cities - Struggle in the Global Slums