The United Nations agency UN-HABITAT defines a slum as a heavily populated urban area characterised by substandard housing and squalor. The term traditionally referred to housing areas that were once respectable but which deteriorated as the original dwellers moved on to newer and better parts of the city, but has come to include the vast informal settlements found in cities in the developing world.^[2] The word comes from "back slum," meaning back room and later "back alley." [1]

Although their characteristics vary between geographic regions, they are usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Slum buildings vary from simple shacks to permanent and well-maintained structures. Most slums lack clean water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services ^[3]

Slums may be distinguished from ghettos in that ghetto refers to a neighborhood based on shared ethnicity. Other terms which are sometimes used interchangeably with slum include favela and shanty town.

Characteristics

The characteristics associated with slums vary from context to context. Slums are usually characterized by urban blight and by high rates of poverty and unemployment. They are commonly seen as "breeding grounds" for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high rates of mental illness, and suicide. In many poor countries they exhibit high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care. A UN Expert Group has created an operational definition of a slum as an area that combines to various extents the following characteristics: inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowding; and insecure residential status.^[4] To these one might add the low socioeconomic status of its residents^[5].

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.

Growth and countermeasures

Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of slums as urban populations have increased in the Third World. According to a 2006 UN-HABITAT report, 327 million people live in slums in Commonwealth countries - almost one in six Commonwealth citizens. In a quarter of Commonwealth countries (11 African, 2 Asian and 1 Pacific), more than two out of three urban dwellers live in slums and many of these countries are urbanising rapidly.^[6]

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.

Income disparity

According to the UNDP 1997 Human Development Report,^[7] and the 2004 United Nations Human Development (UNHDP) report,^[8] 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,^[9][10] shanty towns and slums, and is also seeing an increase in criminal acts such as snatch theft,^[11] robberies, and rape.

Slums versus ghettos

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

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 tracts are used to determine if an area is a ghetto.

By contrast, identification of an areas as a slum is not based on the race, ethnicity or religion of the people in the area.

References

See also

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

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
• Floris Fabrizio Puppets or people? A sociological analisys of Korogocho slum, Pauline Publication Africa, Nairobi 2007.
• Floris Fabrizio ECCESSI DI CITTÀ: Baraccopoli, campi profughi, città psichedeliche, Paoline, Milano, ISBN 88-315-3318-3

External links

• 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
• Slums of Mumbai