tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/urban-slums-24807/articlesUrban slums – The Conversation2024-01-19T21:07:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213132024-01-19T21:07:32Z2024-01-19T21:07:32Z1 billion people left dangerously exposed to heat stress by gaps in climate monitoring<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570270/original/file-20240119-19-y6h5wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C7360%2C4891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ghaziabad-uttar-pradesh-india-may-12-2170143881">PradeepGaurs/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>2023 was the <a href="https://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-confirms-2023-smashes-global-temperature-record">hottest year on record</a>. <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/climate-change-humidity-paradox/">Humidity is rising too</a>. Heat and humidity are a dangerous combination, threatening all aspects of our lives and livelihoods.</p>
<p>Climate change is pushing humid heat dangerously close to the <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac71b9">upper limits of what people can survive</a>. Parts of the world are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg9297">on track</a> for conditions beyond the limits of human tolerance.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.12.005">our new research</a> shows poor weather station coverage across the tropics leads to underestimates of heat stress in cities. This means global climate change assessments probably overlook the local impacts on people.</p>
<p>Concentrated across tropical Asia and Africa, informal settlements, commonly known as “slums”, are on the <a href="https://unhabitat.org/pro-poor-climate-action-in-informal-settlement">front line of climate exposure</a>. The shortfalls in climate monitoring leave these communities dangerously vulnerable to rising humid heat. With few options to adapt, millions could be forced to seek refuge away from the hottest parts of the tropics.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="World map showing percentage of population living in informal settlements by country, with dots indicating weather station sites" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570282/original/file-20240119-15-ptsagy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A map showing percentage of population living in informal settlements by country. Dots indicate weather station sites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Ramsay</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/global-warming-now-pushing-heat-into-territory-humans-cannot-tolerate-138343">Global warming now pushing heat into territory humans cannot tolerate</a>
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<h2>Why is heat such a threat in these places?</h2>
<p><a href="https://population.un.org/wup/publications/Files/WUP2018-PopFacts_2018-1.pdf">Rapid urbanisation</a> that outpaces planned, formal development is driving the growth of informal settlements. Their residents usually lack infrastructure and services, such as electricity and water supply, that many city dwellers take for granted. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-11/">1 billion people live in informal settlements</a>. The United Nations expects this number to grow to <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2023/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2023.pdf">3 billion over the next 30 years</a>. In countries such as Kenya or Bangladesh, nearly half the urban populations lives in informal settlements.</p>
<p>Most informal settlements are located in the tropics. Here it is hot and humid year-round, but their residents have few options to adapt to heat stress. </p>
<p>Most households in these settlements are on low incomes. Many residents <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101401">must work outdoors</a> for their livelihoods, which exposes them to heat and humidity. </p>
<p>On top of this, because informal settlements fall outside official systems and regulations, we often lack data about the threats they face.</p>
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<img alt="A farmer works in a rice field next to an informal settlement" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570004/original/file-20240118-19-m8smxw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People who must work outdoors to make a living, such as many residents of this settlement in Makassar, Indonesia, are highly exposed to heat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments, Monash University</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-growth-heat-islands-humidity-climate-change-the-costs-multiply-in-tropical-cities-120825">Urban growth, heat islands, humidity, climate change: the costs multiply in tropical cities</a>
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<h2>What’s missing from climate data?</h2>
<p>Most of the world’s population <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac30c0">lives more than 25km from a weather station</a>. This means weather stations rarely capture the full range of temperature and humidity in cities, which are usually hotter than non-urban surrounds – the <a href="https://www.australianenvironmentaleducation.com.au/climate-change/urban-heat-island-effect/">urban heat island effect</a>. These gaps in monitoring are largest across the tropics where most informal settlements are located.</p>
<p>As individuals we experience heat on a local scale, which isn’t captured by sparse weather station networks or meteorological models. If your home is too hot, a weather report telling you otherwise offers little respite. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.12.005">Our research</a> compiled local climate monitoring data from informal settlements in seven tropical countries. We compared these data to temperature and humidity measurements at the nearest weather station.</p>
<p>We found weather stations severely underestimate the heat stress that people experience in their homes and local communities. This means global climate assessments and projections also likely underestimate local-scale impacts. </p>
<p>Although these data come from a relatively small number of studies, they highlight a major hurdle for climate adaptation. Without accurate heat stress data, how can we ensure the most vulnerable communities are not left behind?</p>
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<img alt="Looking along a water channel towards an informal settlement in Makassar, Indonesia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2835%2C1897&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570005/original/file-20240118-15-u3alzk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Lack of accurate local data means climate adaptation efforts could overlook communities exposed to extreme heat and humidity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grant Duffy, Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments, Monash University</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-40-c-is-bearable-in-a-desert-but-lethal-in-the-tropics-206237">Why 40°C is bearable in a desert but lethal in the tropics</a>
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<h2>Even if they get a heat warning, options are limited</h2>
<p>During a heatwave in Australia we are usually told to <a href="https://www.redcross.org.au/heatwaves/#:%7E:text=non%2Dperishable%20foods.-,During%20a%20heatwave,you%20don't%20feel%20thirsty.">stay inside and drink lots of water</a>. For residents of an informal settlement, this advice might actually increase their risk of health impacts.</p>
<p>Heat can be even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103248">worse indoors in informal housing</a> with poor ventilation and insulation. Very few households have air conditioning (or could afford to run it if they did). Residents might not have access to safe drinking water, adding to the health risks of heat stress.</p>
<p>What’s more, advice and alerts are unlikely even to reach informal settlements. A <a href="https://www.undrr.org/media/91954/download?startDownload=true">2023 World Meteorological Organisation report</a> found only half of the world’s countries have early-warning systems. </p>
<p>These systems are activated if forecast heat is above certain trigger levels. Health advice and alerts to the public can be backed by extra public health measures. <a href="https://www.icpac.net/">Regional climate centres</a> currently issue broad-scale alerts, but forecasts and responses need to operate at smaller scales to be effective.</p>
<p>And, as we have shown, forecasts are based on weather station data that underestimate heat in informal settlements. This means early-warning systems could fail to activate even though residents of these settlements will experience dangerous heat stress.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-will-the-tropics-eventually-become-uninhabitable-145174">Climate explained: will the tropics eventually become uninhabitable?</a>
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<h2>What can be done to protect people?</h2>
<p>Current climate monitoring efforts have left millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stress. This has direct <a href="https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000339">impacts on individual health and wellbeing</a>, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01859-7">broader knock-on effects</a> for societies and national economies. </p>
<p>Meteorological institutes in developing countries need urgent support to strengthen climate monitoring and improve early-warning systems. The new head of the World Meteorological Organisation has <a href="https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/celeste-saulo-of-argentina-takes-office-secretary-general-of-wmo">promised to do just that</a>. We need to ensure governments and agencies, such as development banks and NGOs, capitalise on this opportunity and include informal settlements in new monitoring networks.</p>
<p>Inequalities in resources and adaptive capacities must also be overcome. Community-based initiatives such as urban greening and improved housing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01209-5">show promise to reduce urban heat</a>. Investing in these solutions must be a priority of adaptation efforts. </p>
<p>The alternative to adapting is to move. Climate-related migration is <a href="https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ETR-2023-web-261023.pdf">already happening</a> due to sea-level rise and heat, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-16/climate-migrants-moving-south-to-tasmania/11800152">including here in Australia</a>. </p>
<p>People don’t leave their homes and uproot their lives without good reason. Finding solutions that help them adapt to climate change should be the priority. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climigration-when-communities-must-move-because-of-climate-change-122529">'Climigration': when communities must move because of climate change</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Ramsay received funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program and Monash University. This research was conducted as part of the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program, funded by the Wellcome Trust, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Asian Development Bank, the Government of Fiji, the City of Makassar and Monash University, and involves partnerships and in-kind contributions from the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, Fiji National University, Hasanuddin University, Southeast Water, Melbourne Water, Live and Learn Environmental Education, UN-Habitat, UNU-IIGH, WaterAid International and Oxfam</span></em></p>Most of the 1 billion people in informal settlements are in the tropics where the threat of humid heat is rising. Poor weather station coverage that misses local hotspots puts them even more at risk.Emma Ramsay, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Nanyang Technological University, and Research Affiliate, School of Biological Sciences, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130952023-09-08T12:49:39Z2023-09-08T12:49:39ZJohannesburg fire: there was a plan to fix derelict buildings and provide good accommodation - how to move forward<p>Thousands of Johannesburg inner-city residents occupy buildings in conditions like those that led to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/johannesburg-fire-disaster-why-eradicating-hijacked-buildings-is-not-the-answer-212732">fire at 80 Albert Street</a> that killed at least 77 people. They are living in derelict multi-storey buildings, former office blocks, sectional title buildings, tenements, warehouses and factories.</p>
<p>The residents are mostly informal, unsalaried or poorly paid workers. Some are unemployed or on welfare grants. They <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22019103849.16">can’t afford even the lowest priced formal rental</a> or social housing in the inner city. Even if they could, they would be excluded by high demand and low supply.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22019103849.20">The accommodation they can access</a> frequently lacks running water and sanitation, security, ventilation, lighting and formal electricity.</p>
<p>Rooms are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22019103849.21">subdivided</a> with wood or cardboard. Electricity cabling, candles, paraffin lamps and generators contribute to the ever-present pollution and risk of fire. Homes and families’ lives are carved in the shadows of failing or non-existent infrastructure.</p>
<p>We are academics in the fields of urban planning, architecture and housing. We’ve applied our expertise to questions of urbanisation, poverty, housing design and management, housing rights and the inner city over many years.</p>
<p>Various complex factors have led to the occupation of abandoned inner city buildings under precarious conditions. The city’s approach to this reality evolved into a sophisticated and nuanced <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/faculties-and-schools/-engineering-and-the-built-environment/architecture-and-planning/documents/jhb-innercity-housing-strategy2014-2021.pdf">housing plan adopted in 2017</a>. It was only partially implemented. While the city needs to refocus on this plan, immediate safety interventions are needed in occupied buildings. Many of them lend themselves to retrofitting or conversion. Existing management structures that involve residents offer lessons. </p>
<h2>Johannesburg’s intervention plans</h2>
<p>Constitutional jurisprudence protects what it calls “unlawful occupiers” from evictions that would lead to homelessness and requires the state to provide alternative accommodation. </p>
<p>Key to this jurisprudence, the 2011 <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.2989/CCR.2013.0011">Blue Moonlight case</a> put an end to the city’s policy of handing precariously occupied buildings to the private sector for profitable development.</p>
<p>The city has recognised that expansion of low-income housing is a critical part of the solution. In 2014 Mayor Parks Tau’s ANC administration <a href="https://www.gpma.co.za/news/ichip-presentation-2017/">commissioned a strategy and housing plan</a> which was approved by Herman Mashaba’s (DA-led) mayoral committee in 2017. The plan is concerned with the needs of the poor, though addressing all income groups. It takes an inclusive, contextual, practical approach that promotes choice.</p>
<p>The plan includes providing emergency services to critical buildings, and temporary emergency accommodation. It sets out strategies to increase supply of temporary and permanent housing by private providers, city entities and social housing institutions. This includes mechanisms for very low-income accommodation, including subsidised rental rooms.</p>
<p>The plan was well received but never adequately funded or <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-09-05-inner-city-housing-joburg-has-a-plan-it-just-hasnt-implemented-it/">carried out</a>. The projected budget for temporary emergency accommodation and alternative rental units for those evicted for 2017/2018 to 2021/22 was R561 million (US$29 million). Only just over one third was allocated.</p>
<p>In 2021, the city developed a <a href="https://joburg.org.za/departments_/Documents/Housing/TEAP%20Policy%20February%202021%20Approved.pdf">draft policy</a> for temporary emergency accommodation. It also reviewed the availability of such accommodation. Its housing department estimated it would need to provide 10,000 additional rooms or rental units to evicted communities. At the time under 2,000 units were already built, but mostly occupied or allocated. The city had projects to develop under 5,000 more units. Even if all current and future projects were fully funded and complete, which could take several years, they would cover less than half the existing need.</p>
<p>The approved plan acknowledged that criminals exploited residents by collecting rent in some buildings such as 80 Albert Street. The municipal-owned Johannesburg Property Company, which manages the city’s vast property portfolio, seemingly owner of several occupied buildings, has not released its inventory of properties.</p>
<p>Much of the housing plan’s analysis, approach and proposals remain relevant today. It has not been publicly available on the internet. We <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/faculties-and-schools/-engineering-and-the-built-environment/architecture-and-planning/documents/jhb-innercity-housing-strategy2014-2021.pdf">placed it</a> on the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/cubes/publications/media-articles-podcast-and-popular-press/">Centre for Urbanism & Built Environment Studies website</a> to inform ongoing responses to the inner-city housing emergency.</p>
<h2>A way forward</h2>
<p>As government departments seek to make funds available, solutions must build on existing knowledge and plans, local insight, expertise, experience and ongoing dialogue. We recommend a multi-pronged and coordinated strategy.</p>
<p>Supply of emergency and temporary accommodation alone cannot solve the crisis. Similarly, militarised police solutions are unconstitutional and incapable of addressing housing and safety in the inner city.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic triggered <a href="https://www.newframe.com/lockdown-forces-ministry-to-address-shack-settlements/">innovative ideas for retrofitting interventions</a> in informal settings, including safe access to water. The roll-out of water tank to areas with insuffucient water supply showed a capacity to respond to crises. With this hindsight, relevant government departments should focus their budgets on providing basic safety for occupied buildings in the immediate term.</p>
<p>Immediate responses should not involve removing occupants but enhancing safety through fire hydrants and extinguishers, emergency exits and clearing blocked access routes. Climate funds should be used to retrofit occupied buildings with solar panels, rainwater harvesting and other “green” measures.</p>
<p>Temporary containers can be placed alongside buildings for secure storage of items. In time, alternative partitioning materials must be introduced. Where one-way fire doors and fire wells exist, emergency LED lighting and mechanical door closers can be fitted.</p>
<p>Several buildings and communities are ready for these incremental improvements. Occupying communities are organised. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/p/Inner-city-federation-100069194417981/?paipv=0&eav=AfYM_UEIAaLdQqHtcbsI7GU7vCU8UVEhljOCeSUaUqwuOtFfXlAyGTH3eLsljeF6iv8&_rdr">Inner City Federation</a> already represents committees of over 70 buildings. They are mobilising to improve basic living conditions and to get rid of criminal syndicates. The <a href="https://icrc.org.za/">Inner-City Resource Centre</a> also has experience in community-based projects and engaging residents and the state. Collective tenure solutions such as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22019103849.18">community land trusts</a> can be considered.</p>
<p>Any accommodation with shared facilities requires high levels of management. Successful models include co-management with residents. These are already in place in several buildings. Where temporary shelters have become <em>de facto</em> permanent, urban management must adjust and not be abandoned, as at 80 Albert Street.</p>
<p>Opportunities for social housing and emergency shelter lie in the building register of the Johannesburg Property Company and other public entities. As <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/25/spatial-apartheid-housing-activists-occupy-cape-town-gentrification">activists</a> and <a href="https://housingfinanceafrica.org/documents/urban-land-reform-in-south-africa-the-potential-of-public-property-and-impact-of-public-investments/">researchers</a> have pointed out, underused or vacant publicly owned land and buildings offer potential.</p>
<p>Private sector and social housing companies already respond in various ways with <a href="https://afhco.co.za/to-let/residential/">well managed low-income rental models</a>. However, qualification criteria and rents may just be <a href="https://developingeconomics.org/2021/11/10/inner-city-pressure-and-living-somewhere-in-between/">out of reach</a> for those in need. Faith-based organisations and non-profits have much to offer.</p>
<p>The challenges are global and responses in other contexts offer useful insights. Metropoles such as São Paulo have <a href="https://www.academia.edu/45033377/Ocupa%C3%A7%C3%B5es_de_moradia_no_centro_de_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_trajet%C3%B3rias_formas_de_apropria%C3%A7%C3%A3o_e_produ%C3%A7%C3%A3o_populares_do_espa%C3%A7o_e_sua_criminaliza%C3%A7%C3%A3o">extensive high-rise housing stock</a>, partly unused and informally occupied. In 2018, a building in São Paulo occupied by 171 families collapsed after a fire, killing seven people. In response, a multi-sector task force produced <a href="https://polis.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Situacao-das-ocupacoes-na-cidade-de-Sao-Paulo.pdf">a report</a> calling for measures to increase safety in occupied buildings. In some buildings, housing movements trained residents in disaster readiness – <a href="http://www.labcidade.fau.usp.br/brigada-de-incendio-do-prestes-maia-e-organizacao-das-familias-evita-tragedia/">preventing another potentially catastrophic fire</a>.</p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40301289">London’s Grenfell Tower fire in 2017</a>, which killed 72 people, rules were amended governing surveys and plans, material flammability, fire safety equipment, signage and lights.</p>
<p>Architects have proposed <a href="https://normanfosterfoundation.org/?project=essential-homes-research-project">innovative</a> and just <a href="https://masteremergencyarchitecture.uic.es/blog/">solutions to crises</a> in other large metropoles. In Johannesburg, the current downturn in the building industry means new graduates are a potential workforce requiring practical experience. With state support, architects experienced in <a href="https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/05/20/marlboro_south.html">documentation</a>, <a href="https://docomomojournal.com/index.php/journal/article/view/167">renovation</a>, reuse of <a href="https://localstudio.co.za/architecture/multi-family-housing/">commercial</a> and <a href="https://savagedodd.co.za/Portfolio/slava-village-boksburg-johannesburg/">retail</a> space, and <a href="https://changebydesignjoburg.wordpress.com/change-by-design-2023-joburg/">participation</a> could mentor them.</p>
<p>We call for regular and institutionalised discussion forums in which academics, community leaders, NGOs and the private sector exchange insights with politicians and officials.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://affordablehousingactivation.org/experts/heather-dodd/">Heather Dodd</a>, a partner in Dodd + Savage Architects, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Huchzermeyer is a board member of the NGO Planact and a member of SACPLAN (the South African Council of Planners). She received funding from the NRF up until 2019. From 2016-2025 she receives funding from DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amira Osman receives funding from Amira Osman receives funding from The National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Tshwane University of Technology. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah le Roux receives funding from The National Research Foundation (NRF)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margot Rubin receives funding from the NRF through Off-Grid Cities project. I am also a visiting lecturer at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning and a visiting researcher at the GCRO.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon received funding from the Volkswagen Foundation "Knowledge for Tomorrow - Cooperative Research Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa" postdoctoral grant between 2013-2016</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane receives funding from Gauteng City Region Observatory Board, Wits university. He is affiliated with South African Council of Planners and the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Klug is a member of South African Council of Planners (SACPLAN) and the Centre for Urbanism and the Built Environment Studies (CUBES). He has worked for consultancies involved in low-income housing policy formulation, and contributed to the City of Johannesburg's Temporary Emergency Housing Provision (TEAP) policy as part of a consultancy led by Lawyers for Human Rights. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Harrison receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priscila Izar receives funding from the University of Witwatersrand Research Office and from the Urban Studies Foundation in Scotland. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Charlton has worked for consultancies involved in low-income housing strategy and policy, and contributed to the Inner City Housing Implementation Plan led by RebelGroup. She has received funding for research from the NRF, Volvo Research and Educational Foundations, British Academy and ESRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarita Pillay previously received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF), IJURR Foundation and the Canon Collins Foundation for her PhD research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Zack consults in the field of low-income housing and informality strategy and policy development, and contributed to the Inner City Housing Implementation Plan led by RebelGroup.</span></em></p>Armed police interventions are unconstitutional and incapable of addressing housing and safety in the inner city.Marie Huchzermeyer, Professor, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the WitwatersrandAmira Osman, Professor of Architecture and SARChI: DST/NRF/SACN Research Chair in Spatial Transformation (Positive Change in the Built Environment), Tshwane University of TechnologyHannah le Roux, Associate professor of Architecture, University of the WitwatersrandMargot Rubin, Lecturer in Spatial Planning, Cardiff UniversityMatthew Wilhelm-Solomon, Writing fellow at the African Centre for Migration Studies, University of the WitwatersrandMfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, Professor of Development Planning and Urban Studies, University of the WitwatersrandNeil Klug, Senior Lecturer, University of the WitwatersrandPhilip Harrison, Professor School of Architecture and Planning, University of the WitwatersrandPriscila Izar, Centennial Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Architecture and Planning, Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies, University of the WitwatersrandSarah Charlton, Associate Professor, University of the WitwatersrandSarita Pillay Gonzalez, Lecturer in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the WitwatersrandTanya Zack, Visiting senior lecturer, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1732552022-01-19T13:26:13Z2022-01-19T13:26:13ZAfrican cities, COVID and climate: public knowledge on urban planning is needed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441114/original/file-20220117-21-l52loh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A crowded marketplace amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Accra, Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CHRISTIAN THOMPSON/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African cities are rapidly <a href="https://population.un.org/wup/">urbanising</a> and already experiencing considerable <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-cities-face-unique-risks-what-can-be-done-to-manage-them-78419">negative impacts</a> of urbanisation. The production of urban spaces in African cities is frequently characterised as unsustainable. </p>
<p>This is due to factors such as slum proliferation, haphazard development and traffic congestion. And also because of evolving socio-economic activities associated with urban spaces, like unregulated informal activities and increased poverty. This situation is compounded by global health pandemics such as COVID-19 and climate change. These are predisposing African cities to increased vulnerability, including flood events.</p>
<p>Urban planning has been identified as having the capacity to support sustainable urban development in African cities. It can foster healthier environments and lifestyles. It can create healthy and resilient cities. Yet, it has also been blamed for adding to urban problems. It does so through neglect, segregation and non-participation. </p>
<p>If the purpose of urban planning is for human and planetary health, then why not adequately engage with it to address urban development problems in African cities? In a recent <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/08854122211055800">paper</a> I argue that citizen engagement is key to improving the way Africa’s cities are planned. </p>
<h2>Troubled history</h2>
<p>The history of urban planning in Africa indicates that it was introduced during colonisation to address health problems in cities. It was a highly specialised technical activity performed by experts from Europe. There was little or no involvement of the cities being planned for. Decisions were largely an imposition of colonial ideals. </p>
<p>While it produced some benefits, such as addressing sanitation concerns, it was also used as a colonial tool of domination and control. It contributed to spatial and economic segregation. </p>
<p>In Ghana, urban planning was used to develop the resource-rich south while the north was left undeveloped. Similarly, in South Africa, urban planning was used during <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> to create spatial segregation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-covid-19-inspire-a-new-way-of-planning-african-cities-145933">Can COVID-19 inspire a new way of planning African cities?</a>
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<p>After independence there was hope of reform. But unfortunately, colonial urban planning legislation and practices were adapted in post-colonial Africa to cope with the implications of burgeoning urbanisation, with limited practical reforms. </p>
<p>Today, most African cities are faced with the dilemma of developing more functionally integrated, spatially coherent, economically competitive, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive urban environments. In the shadow of rapid urbanisation, what has emerged is unplanned and unregulated city growth and expansion, and with it increased poverty.</p>
<p>Major urban planning conflicts revolve around haphazardly growing informal settlements. These are characterised by poor sanitation services, congestion and ramshackle housing, often surrounded by indescribable filth. These unplanned and unserviced communities house nearly <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/08854122211055800">three-quarters</a> of Africa’s urban population.</p>
<h2>New approach needed</h2>
<p>Yet effective urban planning still seems an appropriate way to address these many urban development challenges in African cities. Especially in this era of urbanisation, climate change and increasing urban poverty. </p>
<p>In theory, urban planning should lead to the creation of much needed socioeconomic opportunities, both locally and nationally. At the same time it should provide a strong incentive to manage nature’s strongholds in a way that conserves them. </p>
<p>In reality, though, urban planning practices remain relics of colonisation. They are elitist and demonstrate limited inclusiveness. </p>
<p>Colonisation, rapid urbanisation and limited resources are often identified as contributing to poor urban planning. A new approach to urban planning is needed to restore hope in African cities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-in-accras-slums-know-green-spaces-are-important-planners-should-take-heed-166296">People in Accra's slums know green spaces are important: planners should take heed</a>
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<p>There is limited focus on urban planning education among urban residents. There is limited public knowledge on what planning is and what benefits it offers. Similarly, research indicates poor public interest and participation in urban planning due to limited education. </p>
<p>My paper discusses three guidelines to improve planning knowledge among residents. These can help change the urban planning narrative on the continent.</p>
<h2>Three keys to a better future</h2>
<p><strong>1. Visibility</strong> </p>
<p>Poor visibility of urban planning is a major hurdle. Many ordinary residents in African cities do not know the value or purpose of urban planning. Agencies and city authorities should urgently improve urban planning visibility through mainstream and social media platforms. </p>
<p>For example, regular social media posts on the practice of urban planning in African cities can increase public knowledge. Mainstream media can support in educating the public on the importance of urban planning in local languages. A conscious engagement of local religious and tribal leaders on key issues can increase the knowledge levels and acceptance of urban planning in African cities. </p>
<p>It is only when urban residents understand urban planning that meaningful outcomes can be achieved.</p>
<p><strong>2. Local knowledge</strong> </p>
<p>Urban planning in African cities remains exclusionary. It is an act of the elites and practice of the professionals, with limited involvement of urban communities. This encourages apathy among residents. It puts them at the receiving end of whatever plans that evolved. </p>
<p>Valuing local knowledge and inputs in urban planning processes and practices means involving and respecting urban residents in all dimensions of urban development. It means reflecting community orientation in all its complexity. Especially those in informal settlements who often do not have an organised voice. </p>
<p>Valuing local knowledge and inputs in urban planning promotes transparency and accountability through collaboration. This is essential in addressing ongoing and emerging development issues such as climate change that affect all sectors of the urban economy. These sectors include social, economic, institutional, cultural, financial, environmental and physical or spatial components of the urban economy.</p>
<p><strong>3. The vulnerable</strong> </p>
<p>It’s important to identify and integrate vulnerable stakeholders and sectors in urban planning practice. This will improve public knowledge in two ways. </p>
<p>Firstly, it will ensure that all stakeholders receive adequate attention and become aware of urban planning capacity. Particularly the interests of weaker and vulnerable urban residents (like the elderly, the disabled and children) are often overlooked. Secondly, it will ensure adequate consideration for all sectors of the economy, including the informal sector, and will contribute to improved preparedness towards addressing critical challenges of climate change, urban poverty and rapid urbanisation. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-disconnect-between-research-and-urban-planning-in-africa-how-to-fix-it-157113">There's a disconnect between research and urban planning in Africa: how to fix it</a>
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<p>Addressing issues of rapid urbanisation, climate change and persistent urban poverty in African cities may lie in the involvement of residents and their support for inclusive urban systems. Residents support for, and understanding of urban planning would contribute to inclusive and spatially integrated cities, and would provide sustainable and efficient living and working environments. </p>
<p>Without strong resident support and involvement, African cities may continue to prove highly problematic and undesirable for habitation in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Brandful Cobbinah has previously received funding from Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, USA. </span></em></p>A new approach to urban planning is needed to restore hope in African cities. There are three keys that can help unlock this.Patrick Brandful Cobbinah, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676622021-09-12T08:19:06Z2021-09-12T08:19:06ZPasha 124: How Nairobi’s informal settlements got their names<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420274/original/file-20210909-27-tsua8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, started as a railway depot in 1899 and developed into a colonial administration centre, then into a commercial and regional hub. Informal settlements in the city grew in parallel, arising from colonial policies that excluded local people from permanent residence, and driven by demand for housing. </p>
<p>The names of these informal settlements – and the names of places within them – capture their history and act as a voice for their residents. Place names tell us about politics, culture and the challenges of people who live there. </p>
<p>In today’s episode of Pasha, The Conversation Weekly’s Gemma Ware chats to Melissa Wanjiru-Mwita, a lecturer at the Technical University of Kenya, about Nairobi’s informal settlements and how they got their names.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fascinating-history-of-how-residents-named-their-informal-settlements-in-nairobi-159080">The fascinating history of how residents named their informal settlements in Nairobi</a>
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<p><strong>Photo:</strong><br>
“Kosovo, the name of an area in an informal settlement.”
By Mélissa Wanjiru.</p>
<p><strong>Music:</strong>
“Happy African Village” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Bartmann/Public_Domain_Soundtrack_Music_Album_One/happy-african-village">FreeMusicArchive.org</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0 1</a>.</p>
<p>“Back To My Roots” by John Bartmann, found on <a href="https://freesound.org/people/frankum/sounds/393520/">Freesound</a> licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0">Attribution 4.0 International License.</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167662/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The place names of Nairobi’s informal settlements offer a glimpse into the realities of people who live there.Ozayr Patel, Digital EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662962021-08-25T15:20:41Z2021-08-25T15:20:41ZPeople in Accra’s slums know green spaces are important: planners should take heed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417189/original/file-20210820-27-1svj7uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C528%2C266&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jamestown, Accra. The city's authorities have done nothing to develop green spaces in the city's slums. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Urban green spaces like parks with lawns and trees have well-known benefits for people who live in cities. They help improve air quality, manage floods, reduce noise and keep temperatures down. The <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-71061-7_79-1">United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals</a> recognise the role of green spaces in creating healthy and sustainable urban life .</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-covid-19-inspire-a-new-way-of-planning-african-cities-145933">COVID-19 pandemic</a> has made this even clearer, as green spaces have been used for makeshift hospitals and allowing people to get outdoor exercise even in lockdown. </p>
<p>With so many benefits, it may be surprising that African cities aren’t doing much to provide and manage these resources. <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/26730/P148662%20Greening%20Africa%27s%20Cities_web.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y">Statistics</a> show an alarming rate of decline in green spaces in African urban areas. The blame is frequently put on rapid urbanisation, low public appreciation of green space, poor planning and weak law enforcement. In the discussions, the perspectives of one group tend to be missed: people living in informal and slum settlements.</p>
<p>It’s a big group: Africa accounts for about <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/745habitat.pdf">62%</a> of the estimated one billion slum residents in the world. Also, people in the informal sector contribute more than <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/097380101200600202">80% to Africa’s urban economy</a>, making their participation in urban development essential. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19376812.2016.1208770">city planning practices</a> in many African countries have neglected these dominant informal and slum communities, considering them as a nuisance in the cities. As a result, slum residents lack access to basic essential services, including parks.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.103094">research</a> in the Ghanaian capital Accra aimed to examine how access to, and the control and use of, urban land contributes to the decline of urban green spaces amid rapid urbanisation. We wanted to know what slum residents thought about the importance of these spaces, and how their perceptions informed their attitudes.</p>
<p>We found that most of the slum residents had some understanding of the importance of green spaces. This represents an opportunity for city authorities to do more to provide or improve green spaces in slum communities, as they are likely to succeed.</p>
<h2>Slum residents’ experiences and attitudes</h2>
<p>Accra is Ghana’s largest city, with rapid population growth and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-accras-property-boom-hasnt-produced-affordable-housing-165016">high land and housing prices</a>. This situation has resulted in the development and expansion of slums and informal settlements, and rapid loss of green spaces in the city.</p>
<p>Using two slum communities - Nima and Agbogbloshie - as case studies, we gathered views from 395 slum residents. These communities are among the largest slums in Ghana and are located in ecologically sensitive areas, such as nature reserves, wetlands and stream banks. They have poor sanitary conditions, limited essential services and sub-standard buildings. Their open spaces are in poor condition - including community parks without grass – and are used for activities like hawking. </p>
<p>The popular claim in the urban studies literature is that residents of slum communities are mostly concerned with finding space to live but not for recreation. Contrary to this, we found that 93% of the slum residents in our study demonstrated a reasonable understanding of the importance of green city spaces. </p>
<p>They acknowledged that these spaces made the environment look more attractive, minimised soil erosion and air pollution, and served social gathering purposes. The remaining 7% of respondents did not perceive green spaces to be important, because they did not have them in their neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>Despite these positive perceptions, we found that they did not translate into positive attitudes. The green spaces within slums are fast deteriorating due to interrelated management and behavioural failures. </p>
<p>Our research identified encroachment by slum dwellers (35%) and poor cooperation between residents and city authorities to maintain green spaces (54%) as the two major factors contributing to the loss of these areas. </p>
<p>On the one hand Ghanaian city authorities are focused on addressing problems of poverty, education and health rather than managing green spaces in slums. </p>
<p>On the other hand, many slum residents do little to protect these spaces. They dispose of waste indiscriminately and use the green space for other purposes, including building homes. </p>
<p>Our research showed that the slum residents who held positive views about green spaces also showed high interest in the need to protect them. Some had formed community associations such as “keep-fit clubs” and youth groups. However, out of the positive group, only 14% indicated that they actively did anything to help protect spaces in their communities. </p>
<p>The results contradict some earlier <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jum.2018.12.003">studies</a> that suggest residents demonstrate positive attitudes towards the management of green spaces because they understand their importance.</p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>The findings offer two policy insights. First, slum residents understand the importance of having a green neighbourhood. But they are under socio-economic pressures which make it hard to act accordingly. Second, the idea that slum residents do not appreciate green spaces has conditioned some of them to consider park management as the sole duty of government and therefore they do not provide any management support. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, city authorities can capitalise on the residents’ acknowledgement of the importance of green spaces to provide more education and management.</p>
<p>Accra and several other Ghanaian cities, troubled by <a href="https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0187-9.ch005">unprecedented urbanisation</a> and its associated impacts, are fast losing their green spaces, especially in slum and informal communities. The involvement and contribution of slum dwellers is critical. Although they are often neglected in mainstream planning practice and blamed for the rapid loss of green spaces in Ghanaian cities, our findings show they are willing to support initiatives.</p>
<p>It is important to pay attention to local perceptions and integrate them into plans, since such perceptions influence attitudes and participation in development initiatives. This can encourage a sense of responsibility for addressing critical urban needs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Brandful Cobbinah has previously received funding from Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, USA</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have previously worked for Transparency International Australia as a Research & Policy Coordinator</span></em></p>Ghanaian city authorities are focused on addressing problems of poverty, education and health rather than managing green spaces in slumsPatrick Brandful Cobbinah, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneMichael Odei Erdiaw-Kwasie, Lecturer , Business Sustainability, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442392020-09-23T14:25:54Z2020-09-23T14:25:54ZHow Accra tackled complex challenges in an urban slum<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358076/original/file-20200915-24-1spbyup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The settlement of Old Fadama has reinvented itself </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I first heard about the community of Old Fadama in Accra, Ghana, I recognised something. A Ghanaian Catholic sister who visited the green market weekly in that neighbourhood told me about it. She worried about a community of vulnerable migrant women known as “head porters” or kayayei, who earned a pittance transporting heavy items balanced on their heads. </p>
<p>Old Fadama reminded me of Appalachia, the part of the US where I grew up in the late 1970s. Nearly everyone in my county lived below the poverty line. We learned to work together to solve our own problems, building bridges, repairing roads after floods, installing water and sanitation and, when necessary, even digging outhouse pits. </p>
<p>Old Fadama was the site for my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/redefining-development/B94D9871A966F00DE3812B73C064DCB3">first global project</a> as a participatory action researcher. In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027795369500127S">participatory action research</a> , researchers and participants work together to define problems and formulate research questions and solutions. </p>
<p>We wanted to see how, given the opportunity and supported with the evidence, stakeholders in a developing country would approach and resolve complex challenges.</p>
<h2>The research project</h2>
<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/222765076">Old Fadama</a> was established in the 1980s by northern migrants fleeing tribal violence. It has grown steadily, with spikes from intense domestic conflict in 1994 and drought conditions in 2015. Since 2009 the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/EPoverty/Ghana/AmnestyInternational.docx">population</a> has grown from 80,000 to over 150,000. These include long-term settlers, multi-generational families, and seasonal sellers at the city’s largest green market. Migrants seek health care, education, and work. </p>
<p>In 2015, Old Fadama had virtually no water or sanitation. Excreta were collected in plastic bags and dumped in the river that bordered the slum, heavily silting a lagoon. Residents infilled the lagoon banks with waste materials to build housing on. This led to flooding that spread faecal matter to the green market. </p>
<p><a href="https://jhhsa.spaef.org/article/1915/Building-Cross-Sector-Collaboration-to-Improve-Community-Health">Outbreaks of cholera</a> were frequent in the area, resulting in hundreds of deaths. By 2015 the slum – locally known as “Sodom and Gomorrah” – had fallen into lawlessness and was a government “<a href="https://jphmpdirect.com/2018/06/04/qa-simpson-boateng/">no-go area</a>.” </p>
<p>To approach the problem, I looked for local organisations that were known for working on complex challenges. I was interested in scalability so I hoped that I could find local stakeholders with reach and access. The National Catholic Health Service and the municipal department of public health provided this. The public health department especially was interested in trying a new approach after the failure of the typical public health technical effort in the area.</p>
<p>Many short-term international development interventions had already failed. The stakeholders shared a different perspective that cut across technical sectors. Their goal was to address the root cause of the challenges facing the settlement. </p>
<p>Our process allowed government officials to interface with the elders of the 16 ethnic groups that made up Old Fadama. They identified the need to address sanitation, community violence, vulnerable populations of porters, solid waste management, and a clinic. </p>
<p>Every urban slum creates challenges too complex for governments to resolve when working alone. However, in cross-sector collaboration, communities and citizens articulate their needs and then partner with governments and NGOs to address these self-identified problems. </p>
<h2>A path to success</h2>
<p>The stakeholders identified multiple community needs, and reached consensus to focus first on installing community latrines. As one community member said, “cholera is killing us today.” </p>
<p>We convinced city authorities to grant permits for the latrines, not an easy thing since it involved changing policy. As local sanitation businesses, private sector companies in the business of providing public sanitation facilities in Accra, learned of our project, they saw it as workable and facilitated the policy change themselves. </p>
<p>On their own initiative and with their own resources, these businesses installed the first new public latrines and bathhouses in Old Fadama. All of our stakeholders contributed resources – enough that our sanitation project came in under budget. This early, visible success convinced people we were on to something, and it freed our stakeholders to address their next priorities. </p>
<p>Next the stakeholders worked together to scale up the participatory action research intervention. We applied it to a new challenge, head porters. Head porterage is a major form of transport of goods in Ghana. It is practised by young women and teenagers who are mostly migrants from the northern region of the country.</p>
<p>The research team used observation and continuous data collection and conducted interviews and focus groups. Strategies and projects were updated as new stakeholders joined the collaboration. </p>
<p>This process resulted in a programme of interventions to address the root causes of the challenges facing the kayayei. They included health screening, vaccination, school enrolment, microfinance and skills development.</p>
<p>The stakeholders invited clinic staff to be partners. The clinic bought vaccines at a discounted rate. Nurses from the Catholic Health Guild provided volunteer medical services. The National AIDS Control and Tuberculosis Control Programmes saw an opportunity to provide services to a population they had been unable to reach and shared some costs. </p>
<p>In this way, the collaboration expanded the number of beneficiaries from 300 to 1,534 head porters. The National Health Insurance Scheme was similarly invited to get involved and met some costs. As a result, instead of 300, 1,789 indigent kayayei were enrolled in national health insurance in three locations – Old Fadama, Madina, and Ashanti Region. Now, in all, more than 8,000 head porters have received essential services through this project. </p>
<h2>Opportunities for expansion</h2>
<p>No one sector – including government – can address these kinds of complex development challenges. Complex challenges are largely social, and affect many people, systems, and sectors. The challenges can seem difficult or impossible to resolve, and typical top-down intervention strategies are not sufficient. Incorporating multiple stakeholders and viewpoints is necessary to create effective solutions. </p>
<p>Our intervention method provides developing-country governments with a low-cost, locally designed process that dramatically improves participation and results in projects that impact the public good. As our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/redefining-development/B94D9871A966F00DE3812B73C064DCB3">evidence base</a> develops, it is clear that this approach is working. </p>
<p>The national government is poised to significantly expand the intervention on new complex challenges throughout the country. From a research perspective, it will be interesting to see if this approach works as well as the locally driven approach of the first five years of the project.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Kritz receives funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for the project in Accra described in this article. </span></em></p>In cross-sector collaboration, communities and citizens articulate their needs and then partner with governments and NGOs to address these self-identified problems.Jessica Kritz, Assistant Professor--Research Track, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459332020-09-20T07:47:47Z2020-09-20T07:47:47ZCan COVID-19 inspire a new way of planning African cities?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357703/original/file-20200911-24-76vj2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Makoko neighbourhood in Lagos, initially founded as a fishing village.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Health crises are not new in Africa. The continent has grappled with infectious diseases on all levels, from local (such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-115-years-of-data-tells-us-about-africas-battle-with-malaria-past-and-present-85482">malaria</a>) to regional (<a href="https://theconversation.com/ebola-in-the-drc-the-race-is-on-between-research-and-the-virus-112537">Ebola</a>) to global (<a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/covid-19">COVID-19</a>). The region has often carried a disproportionately high <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-health-research-needs-support-heres-one-programme-thats-working-144611">burden</a> of global infectious outbreaks. </p>
<p>How cities are planned is critical for managing infectious diseases. Historically, many urban planning innovations emerged in response to health crises. The global <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-cholera">cholera epidemic</a> in the 1800s led to improved urban sanitation systems. Respiratory infections in overcrowded slums in Europe <a href="https://thecityfix.com/blog/will-covid-19-affect-urban-planning-rogier-van-den-berg/">inspired</a> modern housing regulations during the industrial era. </p>
<p>Urban planning in Africa during colonisation followed a similar <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-legacy-of-apartheid-design-is-making-students-lives-unsafe-64770">pattern</a>. In Anglophone Africa, cholera and bubonic plague outbreaks in Nairobi (Kenya) and Lagos (Nigeria) led to new <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02665430902933960">urban planning strategies</a>. These included slum clearance and urban infrastructure upgrades. Urban planning in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19376812.2016.1208770">French colonial Africa</a> similarly focused on health and hygiene issues, but also safety and security. </p>
<p>Unfortunately regional experiences with cholera, malaria and even Ebola in African cities provide little evidence that they have triggered a new urban planning ethic that prioritises infectious outbreaks. </p>
<p>References are often made to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19376812.2016.1208770">historical successes</a> of urban planning in Africa. But colonial use of planning for cultural and structural isolation, as well as for socio-economic and spatial segregation, limited its capacity to respond to health emergencies. With the widespread nature of COVID-19, is it reasonable to argue that it could possibly be the pandemic that inspires a new way of “doing” urban planning in Africa? </p>
<p>Our recent research <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2020.1812329">paper</a> discusses three areas that can transform urban planning in the continent to prepare for future infectious outbreaks, using lessons from COVID-19.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aerial view shows a mass of shacks on one side and a green, spread out suburb on the other, divided by a wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357705/original/file-20200911-14-119xrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spatial inequality in Johannesburg, South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Integrating the informal</h2>
<p>The first relates to the integration of the city’s informal sector into the formal planning process. This is reflected in two ways. The first is the non-inclusion of informal settlements (mostly slums) in urban planning practice. The second is the lack of planning focus on the informal economy that results in <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-cities-must-address-social-and-economic-issues-when-upgrading-slums-97471">exclusion</a>. Yet this is a sector that constitutes more than 80% of Africa’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259331356_The_Informal_Economy_Worldwide_Trends_and_Characteristics">urban economy</a>. </p>
<p>In a time of COVID-19, <a href="https://theconversation.com/lagos-makes-it-hard-for-people-living-in-slums-to-cope-with-shocks-like-covid-19-138234">slums</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-how-the-lockdown-has-affected-the-health-of-the-poor-in-south-africa-144374">informality</a> are critical due to the sector’s vulnerability to transmission. It is challenging to deploy testing and contact tracing , as well as adhering to social distancing rules. Many slum residents in African cities lack access to basic essential services such as water, sanitation, housing and healthcare. </p>
<p>And, given that the informal sector is characterised by unregulated <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-brutalising-food-vendors-hits-africas-growing-cities-where-it-hurts-76339">economic activities</a> including uncontrolled hawking and unplanned open markets, overcrowding is impeding social and physical distancing rules in African cities. </p>
<p>Change is needed. Perhaps COVID-19 will be the wake-up call to spur the consolidation of existing and formal structures to becoming more responsive to managing health crises in slums and the informal sector.</p>
<h2>Geographic and economic imbalances</h2>
<p>Second, there are geographical and economic imbalances in urban planning in Africa. <a href="https://theconversation.com/megaprojects-in-addis-ababa-raise-questions-about-spatial-justice-141067">Investment</a> patterns and development mostly focus on the major cities with limited focus on its adjoining districts and regions. Yet what happens in cities does not stay in cities. </p>
<p>Infectious diseases often have <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-hard-to-stop-ebola-spreading-between-people-and-across-borders-118851">cascading effects</a> on adjoining districts and regions with functional relationships to major cities. COVID-19 has affected both cities and their adjoining regions. However, adjoining districts continue to receive limited investment in critical infrastructures such as health, housing and other essential social services. </p>
<p>Given the disruptions to the supply chain between major cities and the adjoining districts due to the pandemic, it’s about time that planning practitioners and educators learn to prioritise urban planning to reflect these imbalances. A poorly managed relationship between cities and adjoining regions can create inequality that may lead to unhealthy city-regional inter-dependencies, environmental damage and unmanaged waves of health crises. These can have ripple effects across the urban-rural spectrum. </p>
<p>Planning in Africa should ensure city-regions are more resilient by addressing imbalances to produce a more integrated city-regional planning around health, economies, transport networks and food production.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rusty signboard for Nairobi city in the foreground with a vast green park with trees behind it and the cityscape in the distance with high-rise buildings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357704/original/file-20200911-14-mmf63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">View over the city park towards the Nairobi skyline in Kenya. Green spaces are crucial to healthier urban planning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Forsyth/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Open spaces</h2>
<p>Third, public health matters should be considered in urban planning. Health outcomes traditionally do not drive urban planning practice in Africa. In our study, urban green spaces are used as an example because the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted their importance in managing emergencies. Literature evidence <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2020.1812329?af=R">suggests</a> that African cities are rapidly losing their green spaces. This is due to, among other things, poor urban planning. </p>
<p>A new approach should bring open spaces into the heart of how African cities are planned, and management systems for local green space must improve. Integrating larger open spaces within the urban fabric allows cities to implement emergency services and evacuation protocols during health crises. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-planning-needs-to-look-back-first-three-cities-in-ghana-show-why-144913">Urban planning needs to look back first: three cities in Ghana show why</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What frequently seems to be effective in advancing responses to health crises is an urban planning approach that integrates a range of infrastructure. This includes grey (such as treatment facilities and sewers), green (trees, lawns and parks) and blue (wetlands, rivers and flood plains) systems.</p>
<p>Although COVID-19 has profoundly transformed urban life globally, this article provides cautious optimism of its potential in managing future health crises in Africa. Going forward, urban planning in Africa needs to reflect the aspirations of urban residents and address multiple spatial inequalities, including access to better spaces in times of a pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Brandful Cobbinah has previously received funding from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellis Adjei Adams has previously received funding from the US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Odei Erdiaw-Kwasie works for Transparency International Australia. </span></em></p>If we learn from COVID-19, there are three key areas to tackle to make cities safer from outbreaks of future infectious diseases.Patrick Brandful Cobbinah, Lecturer, The University of MelbourneEllis Adjei Adams, Assistant professor, University of Notre DameMichael Odei Erdiaw-Kwasie, Research fellow, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1445822020-08-30T08:31:34Z2020-08-30T08:31:34ZKenya’s urban poor are being exploited by informal water markets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353178/original/file-20200817-22-1lxhw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Residents of Kibera slum carry jerrycans to fill them with water from a bowser. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gordwin Odhiambo/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Informal urban water markets – as opposed to piped water – have <a href="https://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10529IIED.pdf">long supported</a> many of Kenya’s urban areas. Those that use them are either unserved, or inadequately served, by public utilities. </p>
<p>A large number of people depend on them as only about <a href="http://extwprlegs1.fao.org/docs/pdf/ken180685.pdf">20%</a> of the Nairobi residents who live in low income areas have piped water. The rest depend on uncovered wells, rivers, open springs and informal water markets. </p>
<p>There are different types of informal water markets. Some sell water legally, some illegally. There are also different ways in which people buy water. If they have water storage facilities, and live in an area accessible to water vendors, water can be bought in bulk from vendors who source it from private boreholes. </p>
<p>But most people won’t have storage facilities and will usually buy water from water vendors and carry it home. These water vendors get their supplies from a variety of sources including; rivers, wells, households with connections, communal standpipes and water ATMs. Water ATMs, installed by NGOs, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33223922">provide users with</a> cheap, clean water on demand. They swipe a smart-card and collect.</p>
<p>Water vendors also sometimes get water illegally by cutting through municipal piped networks. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02508060.2020.1768022?needAccess=true">recent study</a> I looked at how informal water markets operate and how they serve the urban poor. My research focused on Mathare, a large informal settlement in Nairobi. About <a href="https://kenya.opendataforafrica.org/msdpnbc/2019-kenya-population-and-housing-census-population-by-county-and-sub-county?county=1003940-mathare">206,000 people</a> live there.</p>
<p>I found that – despite high water prices (in comparison to water sold in standpipes and water ATMs), poor quality and inconvenience – the urban poor continued to buy water from private vendors because it’s still their best option. The other options were either too unreliable or hard to reach.</p>
<p>Nairobi’s county government is taking steps to formalise informal water vendors as a way of providing more people with water. Though urban informal water markets have the potential to deliver water to the unserved poor, they can also trap the poor in highly unjust water delivery arrangements. More must be done to prevent this from happening.</p>
<h2>Last, better option</h2>
<p>Mathare is characterised by unsafe and overcrowded housing. Most people live in shacks made of corrugated iron and lack access to essential services, such as sanitation and electricity. Around <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d4504db8a79b27eb388c91/t/58e6a6991b10e38c7e857581/1491510980376/Mathare_Zonal_Plan_25_06_2012_low_res.pdf">90%</a> of residents do not have piped water. </p>
<p>I conducted interviews, surveys and focus group discussions with 258 households and 20 water vendors in Mathare in 2016 and 2017. I also interviewed six key government officials.</p>
<p>More than half of the residents from my survey accessed water from informal water vendors. And about 36% households depended exclusively on them. </p>
<p>But the quality of water was inconsistent. Residents I interviewed said they sometimes found debris in the water, or that it sometimes tasted bad. This could be because when vendors illegally cut municipality pipes, the water becomes contaminated. </p>
<h2>High prices</h2>
<p>The water vendors’ prices also fluctuated. They ranged from Ksh2 (US$0.02) to Ksh50 (US$0.50) per 20 litres depending on where the clients lived and the availability of alternative sources of water. During periods of drought, when their water supplies might run dry, vendors would recoup costs by driving up prices. </p>
<p>In some cases, high prices were artificially created. Water vendors sometimes cut municipal pipes to create artificial shortages or colluded with cartels <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d4504db8a79b27eb388c91/t/58e6a6991b10e38c7e857581/1491510980376/Mathare_Zonal_Plan_25_06_2012_low_res.pdf">who controlled</a> community yard taps. </p>
<p>The vendors also had erratic schedules. People would sometimes be late for work or miss work and forgo their daily wages to buy water. </p>
<p>While some clients reported having strong bonds with their vendors, the majority said they were rude and inconsiderate. </p>
<p>Differential treatment among different clients belonging to a particular tribe or of a particular economic status was another major bone of contention. Nevertheless, the customers were fearful about questioning the vendors. </p>
<h2>Last option</h2>
<p>There were several reasons why, despite these issues, people opted to use water vendors.</p>
<p>Water ATMs, though cheapest (about US$0.50 for 20 litres of water), were very few in number and located around the main road of the slum. It’s very difficult to carry heavy water over the undulating slum terrain. The ATM tanks <a href="http://www.ewra.net/wuj/pdf/WUJ_2019_22_01.pdf">were also often</a> empty, making them an unpredictable and unreliable supply source. As for the standpipes, they operated only twice or three times a week but with no fixed timing or price. </p>
<p>And, even if in-house municipality connections are available, many poor households cannot afford the initial set-up cost. A new connection fee <a href="https://www.nairobiwater.co.ke/index.php/en/watertariffs">can vary</a> between Ksh2500 (about US$25) and Ksh15000 (about US$150). The average household income in Mathare is <a href="https://knowyourcity.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Mathare_Zonal_Plan_25_06_2012_low_res-2.pdf">less</a> than US$3 a day. </p>
<p>Water vendors are a last option but residents depend on them. They’re more easily accessible and give people more control over their daily costs. For instance, people may use Mathare river to wash clothes or flush toilets, and buy water just for drinking and cooking.</p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>The main reason for the growth of the informal water market is government failure to deliver adequate public services. To address the deficit, private vendors are gradually <a href="https://iwaponline.com/wp/article-abstract/21/5/1034/69738/Can-shared-standpipes-fulfil-the-Sustainable?redirectedFrom=fulltext">being regulated</a>. Kenyan municipalities <a href="http://waterfund.go.ke/watersource/Downloads/National%20Water%20Services%20Strategy%20Draft.pdf">have asked</a> authorised private water providers to make supply arrangements in informal settlements a compulsory prerequisite for licence renewals. </p>
<p>But more must be done to prevent corruption and the creation of cartels.
Vendors must also develop their strength through association and business training to help them lobby and defend their rights. Creating a union will also create rules for water transactions and prices. </p>
<p>Finally, when providing licences, the government should demarcate the areas where vendors operate to reduce conflict between vendors. This will also make it easier for utility officers to monitor their prices and modes of water transactions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anindita Sarkar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite high prices, poor quality and inconvenience, Kenya’s urban poor continued to buy water from private vendors because it’s still their best option.Anindita Sarkar, Associate professor, University of DelhiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1425772020-07-29T14:14:43Z2020-07-29T14:14:43ZAfrica’s high density urban settlements: cut the red tape and slash the cost of housing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348373/original/file-20200720-18366-11dttb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">African urban dwellers pay 55% more in rentals than their counterparts in other cities in the world. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>The challenges of informal settlements have once again been thrown into the spotlight in the midst of the current pandemic. Research has shown that some of the most at-risk populations and therefore the <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/cities-crowding-and-coronavirus-predicting-contagion-risk-hotspots">potential hotspots</a> of COVID-19 are in informal settlements where density is above the threshold needed for social distancing. </p>
<p>The consequences of this have already become apparent. In the Western Cape province of South Africa, <a href="https://coronavirus.westerncape.gov.za/files/atoms/files/Suburbs%20towns%20cases%20-%203%20July%202020.Western%20Cape.pdf">informal settlements continue to exceed</a> residential suburbs in the number of COVID-19 cases. Nearly <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/coronavirus-pandemic-exposes-south-africa-brutal-inequality-200612161408571.html">12% of the province’s infections are in Cape Town’s largest low-income settlement of Khayelitsha</a>, even though it is home to just 6% of the population.</p>
<p>At the same time, some of the densest cities in the world, such as Singapore, have managed the outbreak the best. <a href="https://www.theigc.org/blog/in-defence-of-density/">The demon is therefore not density itself</a>. Rather it’s the fact that many African governments have not planned and made the investments in informal settlements to manage the downsides of density – including contagion. </p>
<p>This is particularly evident with water and sanitation infrastructure. Only an estimated <a href="https://www.oecd.org/water/GIZ_2018_Access_Study_Part%20I_Synthesis_Report.pdf">56% of the urban population across Africa</a> has access to piped water. This makes the minimum standard of <a href="https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/emergencies/WHO_TN_09_How_much_water_is_needed.pdf?ua=1#:%7E:text=The%20Sphere%20Standards%20suggest%20a,levels%20for%20health%20and%20hygiene.">20 litres per person a day</a> to attain essential levels of health and hygiene near impossible.</p>
<p>The South African government has allocated <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/covid-19-r2-billion-allocated-to-upgrade-informal-settlements-20200708">R2 billion</a> to upgrading slums to improve access to water and sanitation facilities. This could have a significant impact not only on the current pandemic, but <a href="https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/WASH-policy-brief_updated2020.pdf">on health</a> overall. </p>
<p>However, upgrading informal settlements may only be a temporary solution. For well-managed density, which will be crucial in preventing and fighting the pandemics of the future, governments across Africa must also tackle the regulatory environment that keeps the costs of building large-scale affordable housing high and thus restricts its supply.</p>
<h2>Bridging the gap between formal and informal</h2>
<p>Across the world, a house will often be the most important asset a family can own. Even when ownership is not an option, rent can make up a substantial portion of overall household consumption. This is particularly true for African cities, where urban dwellers face a <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/854221490781543956/pdf/113851-PUB-PUBLIC-PUBDATE-2-9-2017.pdf">55% price premium</a> on rent compared to other cities in the world. </p>
<p>This is driven by a number of factors, including poorly functioning land markets coupled with the fact that <a href="http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/854221490781543956/pdf/113851-PUB-PUBLIC-PUBDATE-2-9-2017.pdf">construction costs as well as registering property formally are more expensive</a> than elsewhere.</p>
<p>Governments have tried to address this in a number of ways, from housing voucher schemes, used frequently in the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/introduction-to-the-housing-voucher-program#:%7E:text=The%20Housing%20Choice%20Voucher%20Program,housing%20on%20the%20open%20market.">US</a>, which allows poorer households to select where they want to live, to large scale government public housing programmes, as is being undertaken in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/dec/04/addis-ababa-ethiopia-redesign-housing-project">Addis Ababa</a>. </p>
<p>However, there are often fundamentals that need to be resolved to make formal housing markets operate efficiently to better serve the urban poor. Land rights, and the ability of residents to use their property as collateral, are a distortion which limits private investment. Another is formal density restrictions, which are mostly far too strict in developing contexts, and push up the cost of housing prices. In Dar es Salaam, for example, <a href="https://www.wri.org/wri-citiesforall/resources/videos/opening-doors-world-can-african-cities-deliver-promise-growth">the minimum lot size is 375m²</a> – as compared to 28m² in Philadelphia, US, at early stages of development.</p>
<p>With the share of Africa’s population living in urban areas set to reach <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2015/06/01/urbanization-in-africa-trends-promises-and-challenges">50% by 2030</a>, the demand for housing is also rising quickly. The supply of an affordable and decent quality housing stock is not keeping up, resulting in the further proliferation of informal settlements.</p>
<h2>In-situ upgrading</h2>
<p>Informal settlements are often located quite centrally within cities. Research has shown that <a href="https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/GalianiShelterStorm.pdf">people often choose</a> to live in these settlements, rather than in others with better quality housing, because they are closer to economic activity. </p>
<p>Within these settlements dense social networks are formed and therefore in-situ upgrading schemes to improve liveability have the major benefit of maintaining locational and network advantages of settlements. At the same time, upgrading programmes can signal that governments are officially recognising settlements – an important (but insufficient) step to formalisation.</p>
<p>There are costs to in-situ upgrading too. Retrofitting permanent infrastructures where people have already settled can be up to <a href="https://www.theigc.org/research-themes/cities/cities-that-work/urban-land-use/">three times more expensive</a>. Furthermore, the central location of some of the land may mean that residential settlement is <a href="https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Franklin-igc_housing.pdf">not the most efficient use</a> of that land in a rapidly growing cities. And informal settlements may be located in dangerous areas prone to flooding or landslides. </p>
<p>In addition, upgrading increases the value of the land and property in that area. The unintended consequence of such schemes can be gentrification. This was the case with the attempts to upgrade the <a href="https://www.theigc.org/blog/kampalas-missing-houses/">Namuwongo slum</a> in Kampala, where higher costs forced residents to move and establish informal settlements elsewhere.</p>
<h2>The conditions of resettlement</h2>
<p>Where the challenges outweigh the benefits, and <a href="https://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/informal-settlements-policy-framing-paper-March-2019.pdf">there is clear economic and social reasoning</a>, relocation of people to greenfield sites is another option. But it’s important that these sites have been planned and serviced before people settle. This was done, for example, in various <a href="http://personal.lse.ac.uk/michaels/Michaels_Nigmatulina_Rauch_Regan_Baruah_Dahlstrand-Rudin_SitesServices.pdf">Tanzanian cities in the 1970s and 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>Residential plots on the outskirts of the cities were serviced primarily with water mains and roads. People were then invited to relocate to these plots for a fee. Interestingly, this was done at the same time as some informal settlements in other areas in Tanzania underwent upgrading programmes, allowing a comparison of both interventions to be studied 30 years later. </p>
<p>It is clear that the settlements receiving sites and services fared significantly better than those that were upgraded – they were better planned and currently have <a href="https://www.theigc.org/reader/informal-settlements-and-housing-markets/setting-the-right-regulatory-environment/">land values up to five times higher</a>.</p>
<p>Moving people to another site is not always feasible. In some cases, the land may simply not be available. More importantly, evidence shows that <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/app.20150397">even where relocation is voluntary, residents may not want to move</a>. </p>
<p>In Tanzania, the sites and services programme was actually stopped as the initial capital investments were high and could not immediately be recouped by the fees paid. </p>
<p>This comes back to the fact that the value of a home is far more than the bricks and mortar. It’s about proximity to opportunities and social networks. Governments need to find ways of making alternative options more attractive to residents, through strong dialogue and understanding of their priorities, as well as compensation which reflects that.</p>
<h2>The key is well-managed density</h2>
<p>Short-term measures to upgrade informal settlements as announced by the South African government are essential when thinking about tackling COVID-19. However, given that <a href="https://www.theigc.org/blog/in-defence-of-density/">emerging evidence</a> shows that the majority of the transmission is through extended contact of people in small spaces, longer term policy considerations and investments will be needed to ensure density is well managed across the board. </p>
<p>To increase the liveability and resilience of Africa’s cities over the long term, we don’t need to reduce density. We need well-managed density achieved by addressing the regulatory limitations that keep formal housing at unattainable costs, as well as those that prevent township residents from investing in their properties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142577/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Astrid R.N. Haas is affiliated with the International Growth Centre. The views represented here are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IGC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Delbridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The demon is not density but rather that African countries have not planned and made the investments necessary to manage the downsides of the type of density found in informal settlements.Astrid R.N. Haas, Policy Director, International Growth CentreVictoria Delbridge, Head of the Cities that Work initiative, International Growth CentreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1382972020-06-09T19:53:18Z2020-06-09T19:53:18Z‘Forced’ evictions eat away at a Manila community as developer spares the golf course next door<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340443/original/file-20200608-176538-x3vpnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C37%2C1576%2C1028&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the entry points to San Roque, with a makeshift guard shelter on the left. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Q – Ricky sits at one of half-a-dozen entrances to the San Roque settlement in Metro Manila’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Park_(Quezon_City)">North Triangle district</a>. Ricky (not his real name) is part of a large team that guards the settlement 24 hours a day with two specific tasks: to prevent the entry of any construction materials and to stop any building activity or repairs by residents. </p>
<p>San Roque is an informal settlement of about 30,000 people within walking distance of a major transport and shopping hub in Quezon City, in Manila’s north-east. While the settlement, which <a href="https://www.newmandala.org/peripheries-of-development/">dates back to the early 1980s</a>, is to be demolished for redevelopment, a golf course on state land across the road will remain untouched. The settlement <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/world/asia/manila-coronavirus-lockdown-slum.html">gained global attention</a> when 21 residents were jailed for protesting in April about a lack of promised aid amid a COVID-19 lockdown. </p>
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<p>The “<a href="https://www.ayalaland.com.ph/estate/vertis-north/">plan</a>” for the area is to build a new central business district for Quezon City. All forms of informality – settlements, street vendors and pedicabs – will be removed. The process has continued even through the pandemic.</p>
<p>While the original land title is <a href="https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/156843-part-2-ragua-heirs-quezon-city-land-dispute">contested</a>, the area falls under the jurisdiction of the <a href="http://nha.gov.ph/">National Housing Authority</a> (NHA). The state has <a href="https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/2321-can-informal-settlers-co-exist-with-the-rich-in-the-big-city">offered residents a path to secure tenure</a> in the past, only to withdraw it. In 2009, the NHA signed a joint-venture agreement with Ayala Land, a developer of shopping malls, residential compounds and private cities. </p>
<h2>Eviction house by house</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, the Ayala-NHA alliance has engaged in incremental coercive eviction. Home owners are offered a small compensation package plus relocation to public rental housing if they demolish their house and clear and vacate the site. The community is now pock-marked with vacant sites.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333943/original/file-20200511-49589-c2c97v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Houses are demolished and then fenced to prevent re-encroachment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Redento Recio</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>A census in 2009 counted about 9,000 households in San Roque. About 6,000 remain. Only about 2,000 of them qualify for relocation due to long-term residence and ownership. </p>
<p>The unqualified residents are the most vulnerable. If evicted, they will likely move to other informal settlements nearby. </p>
<p>Ayala Land claims to uphold the UN Sustainable Development Goals through developments that have a “<a href="https://www.ayalaland.com.ph/sustainability/#sustainability-governance">positive impact on the community</a>”. The NHA, in its charter to house the urban poor, is notionally committed to efficiency, social equality and justice.</p>
<p>The Quezon City mayor has agreed not to conduct “forced” evictions. She has called on the NHA to find a “<a href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1200337/belmonte-san-roque-residents-vow-to-find-win-win-situation?fbclid=IwAR1mjU651fJ0d79IufAKbYzAuhqbJgtbh7O5ThdMYVNjiL3EBvGbvpdJcfI">win-win</a>” solution.</p>
<p>Globally, forced eviction of informal settlements is now widely regarded as a violation of human rights, which mostly <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718516300458">results in new encroachments</a>. UN policy is to <a href="http://habitat3.org/wp-content/uploads/Habitat-III-Issue-Paper-22_Informal-Settlements-2.0.pdf">focus on on-site redevelopment</a>.</p>
<p>Informal settlements emerge where people can make a living. San Roque residents work as labourers, street vendors, informal transport operators, security guards – low-paid jobs that make the city work. When the state cannot build much-needed housing, residents build it themselves. </p>
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<h2>A plan that puts golf before people</h2>
<p>The relocations involve a long-term rental or mortgage agreement for a 24-square-metre dwelling of relatively poor quality and design. The housing is up to two hours away from San Roque. Along with losing the main asset they have invested in over many years, residents will lose access to jobs and income, and the social networks that help them cope with the daily grind of poverty. </p>
<p>Many will be left with rent and mortgage obligations they can’t afford. Little wonder some residents succumb to the coercion, demolish their houses, take the compensation and later return to rent rooms in other informal settlements. </p>
<p>From an urban planning perspective, moving the poor to cheap land on the urban fringe simply makes an already dysfunctional transport system worse. </p>
<p>Some will argue no other land is available for the market-led residential towers, shopping malls, casinos and walkable parks for the growing middle class. Yet just across the street from San Roque is an 18-hole <a href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1257376/sell-military-golf-courses-to-fund-covid-19-stimulus-package-says-lagman?fbclid=IwAR09kclE-NeF_Eeo6M4SF0dOmEBWF5RYc0q9L_TZvtdU9dPPmmCFcV-wUIA">golf course</a> on NHA-controlled state land that is ripe for redevelopment.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333944/original/file-20200511-49565-ea8txd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Why displace the urban poor when an 18-hole golf course occupies state land just across the road?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-sort-of-development-has-no-place-for-a-billion-slum-dwellers-120600">What sort of 'development' has no place for a billion slum dwellers?</a>
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<p>This is neither rational urban planning nor the result of villains in smoke-filled rooms. It is more about a lack of imagination and political will. </p>
<p>Most agents of this planning process are trapped within a system where “sustainability” and “social inclusion” are a legitimating facade. This is the ugly face of neoliberal planning: market-led development becomes its own justification and the state is left to socialise the cost.</p>
<h2>Bring in cheap labour, but remove their homes</h2>
<p>The role of Ayala guards in San Roque highlights the paradox of this approach. Flows of capital are at once generating work for the urban poor and stimulating the growth of settlements they are trying to erase. The massive construction projects require huge reserves of cheap labour in the very districts where affordable housing is being demolished to make way for those projects.</p>
<p>Ricky, the Ayala guard, is one of the residents who doesn’t qualify for relocation. He came to Manila over two years ago, escaping the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/insecurity-mindanao-conflict-and-state-sponsored-violence">violence in Mindanao</a>. San Roque offered cheap rental housing and work. His job is to paralyse any form of upgrading and so help to erase his own neighbourhood. </p>
<p>This is forced eviction made to appear consensual. Indeed, it looks legitimate from a middle class and elite perspective. Their livelihoods and lifestyles depend fundamentally on the supply of cheap labour. Yet, by displacing the urban poor, shopping malls and enclaves protect the middle class from everyday encounters with urban poverty. They can ignore the contradictions that saturate the city. </p>
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<span class="caption">A hotel, shopping mall and commercial offices tower over San Roque.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kim Dovey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-urban-poor-have-been-hit-hard-by-coronavirus-we-must-ask-who-cities-are-designed-to-serve-138707">The urban poor have been hit hard by coronavirus. We must ask who cities are designed to serve</a>
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<h2>There is an alternative</h2>
<p>San Roque has become divided between residents who believe they can resist and retain their livelihoods and those who feel they should take the relocation package before they are forcibly removed with nothing. </p>
<p>Every demolition weakens this community. However, the reduced density also makes on-site redevelopment more possible with NHA funding plus good design and planning. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SaveSitioSanRoque/">Save San Roque Alliance</a> – a group of architects, educators and artists – organised grassroots workshops that produced a <a href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1200337/belmonte-san-roque-residents-vow-to-find-win-win-situation?fbclid=IwAR1mjU651fJ0d79IufAKbYzAuhqbJgtbh7O5ThdMYVNjiL3EBvGbvpdJcfI">community development plan</a> for affordable housing and community infrastructure. After a ten-day intensive study project, urban design and planning students from the University of Melbourne have also offered <a href="https://www.infur.org/manila-studio-outcome/">design ideas</a>. </p>
<p>Effective on-site upgrading is clearly possible. The missing element is a commitment by planning authorities and Ayala to live up to the rhetoric of an inclusive and sustainable city. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/so-coronavirus-will-change-cities-will-that-include-slums-137072">So coronavirus will change cities – will that include slums?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Crystal Legacy has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Dovey and Redento B. Recio do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Besides battling the coronavirus pandemic, San Roque residents have long been locked in a bigger struggle for their very survival as a community in the face of home demolitions and relocations.Redento B. Recio, Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Informal Urbanism (InfUr-) Hub, The University of MelbourneCrystal Legacy, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of MelbourneKim Dovey, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1375042020-05-20T20:03:34Z2020-05-20T20:03:34ZHow Mumbai’s poorest neighbourhood is battling to keep coronavirus at bay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333924/original/file-20200511-49579-1y1vmrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1109%2C0%2C3942%2C2277&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial view of Shivaji Nagar.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Informal settlements are experiencing <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/16/are-slums-more-vulnerable-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-evidence-from-mumbai/">a greater surge in COVID-19 cases than other urban neighbourhoods</a> in Mumbai, India. Their high density, narrow streets, tight internal spaces, poor access to water and sanitation leave residents highly vulnerable to the spread of coronavirus. </p>
<p>One of Mumbai’s <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/dumped-by-the-municipal-body/story-QD7603JFG09pUVjHzS3NkO.html">poorest and most underdeveloped</a> neighbourhoods, Shivaji Nagar, is one of three informal settlements I have been studying. More than a month before the Indian government imposed a national lockdown, Shivaji Nagar residents, supported by the NGO <a href="https://www.giveindia.org/nonprofit/apnalaya">Apnalaya</a>, adopted their own measures to counter the pandemic.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333524/original/file-20200507-49573-3x2fll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satellite image of Shivaji Nagar and neighbouring areas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Earth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here, 600,000 people, <a href="https://apnalaya.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Situational-Analysis.pdf">11.5% of Mumbai’s informal settlement population</a>, are crowded into an area of 1.37 square kilometres next to <a href="https://thewire.in/environment/deonar-mumbai-slum-waste-dumping-ground">Asia’s largest dumping ground</a>. There is <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thane/raising-a-stink-145-people-compete-for-one-toilet-seat-in-govandi-slums/articleshow/66685546.cms">one toilet for every 145 people</a> and <a href="https://idronline.org/ground-up-stories/building-connections/">60% of residents have to buy water</a>. There is a <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/m-east-ward-records-highest-covid-19-fatality-rate/article31578172.ece">severe lack of health facilities</a>. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, residents’ health suffers. The settlement is a <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/in-tb-hotspot-m-east-ward-fear-of-more-lethal-covid-19-spread/article31334974.ece">tuberculosis hotspot</a>. Respiratory illness makes COVID-19 even more threatening for residents. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335762/original/file-20200518-83357-xrj25y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left: COVID-19 hotspots in Mumbai as of April 14 2020. Right: COVID-19 health facilities in Mumbai as of May 18 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/16/are-slums-more-vulnerable-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-evidence-from-mumbai/">Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Author provided</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By April 13, Shivaji Nagar had 86 COVID-19 cases – an increase of 30 in two days – making it one of Mumbai’s hotspots. As the virus started spreading rapidly, COVID-19 data for individual areas became hard to get. The release of cumulative data for the entire city was much less useful for understanding the growth in cases. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333955/original/file-20200511-49546-1iesjbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ward-level data was available until April 25 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The lockdown begins</h2>
<p>On March 24, the Indian government announced a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52698828">national lockdown</a>. Barricades were installed on Shivaji Nagar’s main streets to curb people’s movement. TV and radio broadcasts urged residents to stay at home, practise good hygiene and regularly sanitise shared toilets and main streets. </p>
<p>Once the first few COVID-19 cases were detected in Shivaji Nagar, the government shifted patients and their families to isolation facilities outside the settlement. Fever camps were set up in parts of the settlement to screen people with symptoms. While the lockdown allowed essential services to continue, vegetable markets were shut down as cases increased. </p>
<p>After facing a backlash for not considering the impacts on the poor, the government eventually announced a nationwide relief package. Residents could receive free food by producing their ration cards. </p>
<p>Some measures worked while others created new problems. Quarantining people outside the settlement was effective (since home quarantine was not possible), as was setting up fever camps. However, the stigma and fear of being COVID-19-positive stopped many people from coming forward. </p>
<p>The sudden lockdown and market closures left most residents without food, water and medicines. Some <a href="https://twitter.com/ApnalayaTweets/status/1258409949736112133">35% of Shivaji Nagar residents</a> didn’t have the ration cards needed to get free food. Enforcing social distancing and stopping people from venturing out of their homes, by beating them, didn’t work either. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1258409949736112133"}"></div></p>
<h2>NGO fills the gap</h2>
<p>The lack of official figures on case numbers and testing rates made it hard to track the spread of the virus in Shivaji Nagar. Volunteers working for Apnalaya kept track on the ground. </p>
<p>As early as the second week of February, before India’s borders closed, Apnalaya had decided to drastically reduce contact between the residents and outsiders. The aim was to minimise residents’ risk of contracting the virus. </p>
<p>Apnalaya enrolled 40-50 volunteers from the neighbourhood to distribute relief supplies instead of bringing in staff. It <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/caring-for-their-own-while-caring-for-others/article31561805.ece">arranged a year’s health insurance</a> for all volunteers. Elderly and pregnant women were encouraged to stay home and contact the volunteers for help with their daily needs. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1261335917186428930"}"></div></p>
<p>Even before the government announced its relief package, Apnalaya was providing food and essentials to residents. Distribution began within the containment zones, but later extended to the entire settlement. </p>
<p>Funds for these activities were raised in several ways: <a href="https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-people-of-shivaji-nagar?utm_source=shorturl">a crowdfunding campaign</a>, an <a href="https://twitter.com/ApnalayaTweets/status/1254718748453371907">alliance between multiple organisations</a> and collaboration with the government. </p>
<p>A dashboard was used to document, plan and monitor the distribution of relief supplies. As the government’s relief scheme excluded one in three residents, Apnalaya’s door-to-door relief delivery ensured no family was left behind. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333957/original/file-20200511-49546-w9637l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volunteers from the settlement distribute relief.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Apnalaya</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apnalaya’s permanent staff members were now managing everything from outside. The telephone became a medium to reach families who didn’t have a TV or a radio and to monitor the situation. Staff regularly phoned residents to give advice on hygiene and how to get essentials and contact doctors for other ailments. </p>
<p>Not everyone was in their database, but this didn’t matter. The residents played their part too. </p>
<h2>Community comes together</h2>
<p>As residents, the volunteers were committed to their community even when facing extreme hardships. Relief distribution was particularly tricky in areas where drains had overflowed on streets and foundations built on garbage had slipped. Yet these volunteers reached all residents, knowing they relied on their efforts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333961/original/file-20200511-49565-1onm7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Narrow internal lanes in the settlement.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The community even found a temporary way to deal with the water shortage. Parts of the settlement with piped water <a href="https://idronline.org/ground-up-stories/building-connections/">shared it with neighbours</a> who previously had to buy water from private suppliers. One supplier, a resident of the settlement, now <a href="https://idronline.org/ground-up-stories/building-connections/">provided water free of charge</a>. </p>
<h2>Lessons from Shivaji Nagar</h2>
<p>Shivaji Nagar’s story offers some important lessons. While the government acted pre-emptively, it failed to consider local conditions and needs. Apnalaya filled the gaps. </p>
<p>But the NGO’s reach was limited, too, and the resident volunteers became the missing link. Acting as community leaders, they took stock of the situation on the ground and reported back to the NGO’s office. </p>
<p>Some of the strategies that have worked have been tailored to local conditions and adapted to the evolving crisis. But the shortage of health facilities and lack of data transparency pose a great challenge. </p>
<p>Mumbai’s M East Ward, which includes Shivaji Nagar, now has the highest COVID-19 death rate in Mumbai. <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/m-east-ward-records-highest-covid-19-fatality-rate/article31578172.ece">At 9.7%, it’s more than double the city’s overall rate</a>. Can Shivaji Nagar withstand the storm?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ishita Chatterjee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Long before the Indian government responded to the threat of COVID-19 with a lockdown, residents of Shivaji Nagar, with the support of a local NGO, were protecting and helping one another.Ishita Chatterjee, PhD Candidate, Informal Urbanism (InfUr-) Hub, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370722020-05-12T03:04:33Z2020-05-12T03:04:33ZSo coronavirus will change cities – will that include slums?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332616/original/file-20200505-83757-1dzpbd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C11%2C1592%2C1037&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karail05.jpg">Aditya Kabir/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many commentators have speculated on <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200422183636-msd4g/">how the coronavirus pandemic will alter cities</a> and the ways they are planned and used. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has <a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1241750717939007490">tweeted</a>: “There is a density level in NYC that is destructive […] NYC must develop an immediate plan to reduce density.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1241750717939007490"}"></div></p>
<p>Articles about disease and cities have reported on how past pandemics led to civic improvements, such as public health pioneer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/mar/15/john-snow-cholera-map">John Snow’s use of cholera maps</a>, an early form of health-data gathering, to combat cholera in 19th-century London.</p>
<p>But these stories relate to cities in richer countries, which have enough funding and the political will to make changes. It’s hard to see how the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to any better outcomes for the close to a <a href="https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2017/12/the-worlds-largest-slums-dharavi-kibera-khayelitsha-neza/">billion or so people</a> who live in fast-growing, low-income, informal settlements, or slums, that cram cities throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. These settlements are some of the densest and most poorly serviced places on Earth.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-an-existential-threat-to-africa-and-her-crowded-slums-135829">Coronavirus an ‘existential threat’ to Africa and her crowded slums</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Density, the good and the bad</h2>
<p>Despite Cuomo’s statement, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/upshot/coronavirus-urban-density-risks.html">density for cities is good on the whole</a>. The world’s population is rocketing, with <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">most of this growth happening in cities</a>. Where else would we put all these people? </p>
<p>Density is good for innovation, socialising, economies of scale, fuel efficiency and economic growth. Density, though, is good only when managed and planned. New York’s governor may have a point if he was talking about de-densifying slums in Dhaka, Cali or Freetown. Slum density can be grim. </p>
<p>In these dense settlements, heat stifles, ventilation is rare, light is sparse and families share one room and basic services (thereby worsening the spread of respiratory disease). Density that prevents fire trucks reaching fires, or that lacks adequate drainage, sanitation or piped water supply, is not good.</p>
<p>Health services in cities across the world have ramped up in anticipation of the inundation of coronavirus patients. This has been based on modelling of health data across respective populations, much as Snow did for London. Combined with lockdown and other social distancing measures, there is evidence this has so far mostly worked well (though not a cause for relaxing). </p>
<p>Health risks in slums, however, have been <a href="https://www.iied.org/urban-risks-where-are-top-five-biggest-blind-spots">awful for decades</a>. We have little data on the health of slum dwellers, and health care is often out of reach for those who are sick. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/world/africa/africa-coronavirus-ventilators.html">paltry numbers of ventilators</a> in African countries attest to the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/africa/coronavirus-could-kill-up-to-190-000-in-africa-in-first-if-not-contained-who-20200508-p54qzx.html">shortage of equipment and support</a> – what chance if you’re poor?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-we-eat-indias-coronavirus-lockdown-threatens-millions-with-severe-hardship-135193">'How will we eat'? India's coronavirus lockdown threatens millions with severe hardship</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Disasters come and go for slum dwellers</h2>
<p>Will coronavirus have a lasting impact on urban planning and how we use cities? Perhaps. </p>
<p>Businesses might be asking why they spend so much on office space when employees have shown they can work from home. Many hitherto-polluted cities have enjoyed much cleaner air during lockdowns. Several European cities are considering lasting zoning <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200422183636-msd4g/?utm_campaign=coronavirus&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=mainListing&utm_content=link1&utm_contentItemId=20200422183636-msd4g">regulations to reserve streets for cyclists</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/physical-distancing-is-here-for-a-while-over-100-experts-call-for-more-safe-walking-and-cycling-space-137374">Physical distancing is here for a while – over 100 experts call for more safe walking and cycling space</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But again, for people living in slums, it may well be business as usual. The coronavirus will be just one more tragedy for many who live in slums. </p>
<p>Take the <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/en/">Ebola outbreak of 2014-16</a>, which killed over 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Dense, poorly serviced slums with people living cheek by jowl were particular hotspots. Ebola had <a href="https://www.alnap.org/system/files/content/resource/files/main/alnap-urban-2017-ebola-response-in-cities-learning-for-future-public-health-crises.pdf">devastating impacts</a> on economies, lives and health-care systems. </p>
<p>Yet evidence of post-Ebola improvements in urban planning are hard to find. When <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.SLUM.UR.ZS?locations=SL">three-quarters of a country’s urban population</a>, such as Sierra Leone’s, live in slums and confront other pressing matters of poverty and recent conflict, de-densifying and replanning slums equates to nirvana, at least in the short term.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332615/original/file-20200505-83779-1fjqsst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents of Freetown in Sierra Leone have no reason to believe this pandemic will lead to any more improvements than previous disasters did.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdinet/5866329636">Slum Dwellers International/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-novel-idea-integrating-urban-and-rural-safety-nets-in-africa-during-the-pandemic-137532">A novel idea: integrating urban and rural safety nets in Africa during the pandemic</a>
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<h2>Skin in the game</h2>
<p>As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, self-preservation is a great incentive to action. Lockdown requires individuals to consent for it to work. </p>
<p>Post-disease urban improvements also correlate to self-interest. London’s infamous “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/04/story-cities-14-london-great-stink-river-thames-joseph-bazalgette-sewage-system">Great Stink</a>” of 1858 of untreated sewage floating in the Thames led to the world’s largest sewer system. But it only happened once the smell reached the House of Commons. Something had to be done! </p>
<p>Unlike the Great Stink, which didn’t waft further than the capital, the coronavirus is a global concern. The world has shown it can mobilise resources as never before to tackle a threat. </p>
<p>Now is the time to add slum improvements to our post-pandemic agenda. The need is great – the number of people living in slums may <a href="https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/Challenge%20of%20Slums.pdf">double to 2 billion by 2050</a>. Given the world community’s demonstrated indifference to such places, even the confronting experience of COVID-19 might not be enough to lead to improvements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Sanderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many are speculating about the pandemic changing how we plan and use our cities. What they overlook is how many people live in unplanned settlements where it’s more likely to be business as usual.David Sanderson, Professor and Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair in Architecture, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263062019-11-14T12:59:24Z2019-11-14T12:59:24ZUrban unrest propels global wave of protests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301580/original/file-20191113-77291-1nxmrnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4176%2C2792&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chilean police clash with anti-government demonstrators during a protest in Santiago, Chile, Nov. 12, 2019. Santiago is one of a dozen cities worldwide to see mass unrest in recent months.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Chile-Protests/349587027bf24a9d9cb1d90de10bf884/11/0">AP Photo/Esteban Felix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/why-are-there-so-many-protests-across-the-globe-right-now/2019/10/24/5ced176c-f69b-11e9-ad8b-85e2aa00b5ce_story.html">Numerous anti-government protests</a> have paralyzed cities across the globe for months, from La Paz, Bolivia, to Santiago, Chile, and Monrovia, Liberia, to Beirut.</p>
<p>Each protest in this worldwide wave of unrest has its own local dynamic and cause. But they also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/25/global-wave-protests-share-themes-economic-anger-political-hopelessness/">share certain characteristics</a>: Fed up with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-50123743">rising inequality, corruption and slow economic growth</a>, angry citizens worldwide are demanding an end to corruption and the restoration of a democratic rule of law.</p>
<p>It is no accident, as <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-america-caribbean/2019-10-29/why-latin-america-was-primed-explode">Foreign Affairs recently observed</a>, that Latin America – which has seen the most countries explode into the longest-lasting violent protests – has the slowest regional growth in the world, with only 0.2% expected in 2019. Latin America is also the world’s <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/inequality-is-getting-worse-in-latin-america-here-s-how-to-fix-it/">region</a> with the most inequality.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/americas/evo-morales-bolivia.html">Bolivia’s once-powerful president</a>, Evo Morales – whose support was strongest in rural areas – was forced out on Nov. 11 by a military response to mass urban unrest after alleged electoral fraud. </p>
<p>In October, <a href="https://theconversation.com/lebanon-uprising-unites-people-across-faiths-defying-deep-sectarian-divides-125772">Lebanon’s prime minister</a> also resigned after mass protests. </p>
<p>One under-covered factor in these demonstrations, I would observe as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Dv_-dxQAAAAJ&hl=enhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Dv_-dxQAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of migration</a>, is domestic, rural-to-urban migration. All these capital cities gripped by protest have huge populations of desperately poor formerly rural people <a href="https://www.cairn.info/mediterra-2018-english--9782724623956-page-101.htm">pushed out of the countryside</a> and into the city by <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-making-soils-saltier-forcing-many-farmers-to-find-new-livelihoods-106048">climate change</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-struggling-agricultural-sector-what-went-wrong-20-years-ago-45171">national policies</a> that hurt small farmers or a <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-responsible-for-migrants-108388">global trade system that impoverishes local agriculture</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301593/original/file-20191113-77326-6t9jol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Backers of ousted Bolivian president Evo Morales march in La Paz, Bolivia, Nov. 13, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bolivia-Elections/bf7e9e9d1762473c952642cba48435d8/2/0">AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Rapid urban growth</h2>
<p>Cities worldwide have been growing at an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/12/urban-sprawl-how-cities-grow-change-sustainability-urban-age">unsustainable pace</a> over the past seven decades. </p>
<p>In 1950, the New York metropolitan area and Tokyo were the world’s only megacities – cities with more than 10 million people. By 1995, 14 megacities had emerged. Today, there are 25. Of the 7.6 billion people in the world, 4.2 billion, or 55%, <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">live in cities and other urban settlements</a>. Another 2.5 billion people will <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html">move into cities in poor countries by 2050</a>, according to the United Nations. </p>
<p>Most modern megacities are in the <a href="https://qz.com/africa/688823/80-of-the-worlds-megacities-are-now-in-asia-latin-america-or-africa/">developing regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America</a>. There, natural population increases in cities are aggravated by surges in rural migrants in search of a better life. </p>
<p>What they find, instead, are sprawling <a href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/south-america-drug-slums-jurisdiction-organized-crime/">informal settlements</a>, frequently called <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-humanitarian-summit-urban-crisis-idUSKCN0Y80GA">urban slums</a>. </p>
<p>These marginalized parts of cities in the developing world – called “favelas” in Brazil, “bidonvilles” in Haiti and “villas miserias” in Argentina – <a href="https://blogs.unicef.org/east-asia-pacific/the-dark-of-day-life-in-jakarta-urban/">look remarkably similar across the globe</a>. Ignored by the municipal government, they usually lack sanitation, clean drinking water, electricity, health care facilities and schools. Informal urban settlements are usually <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/massive-urban-slums-1435765">precariously located</a>, near flood-prone waterfronts or on steep, unstable mountainsides. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301583/original/file-20191113-77305-nugz0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An urban slum in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 3, 2017. Jakarta has seen regular outbreaks of protest since May 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Indonesia-Daily-Life/50adf90547c94f898ba7b39c5342e8b8/18/0">AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana</a></span>
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<p>Their economy and, to a significant degree, politics, are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/bringing-the-state-to-the-slum-confronting-organized-crime-and-urban-violence-in-latin-america/">infiltrated by gangs</a> – organized crime groups that profit off the illegal trafficking of drugs, people and weapons. These gangs, in turn, may be <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/massive-urban-slums-1435765">linked to political parties</a>, serving as their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40553119?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">armed enforcers</a>.</p>
<p>Many rural migrants, who lack identity documentation, social entitlements, housing and financial services, are forced to work in these illicit labor markets. </p>
<p>This system replicates in a predatory, illegal form the <a href="https://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100310810">patron-client relationship</a> still common in many developing countries, in which a rural economic elite provides employment, loans, seeds, cash or protection for farmers in exchange for “taxes” – usually a share of the farmer’s produce – and political fealty. </p>
<p>In the unstable market economy of the urban slum, <a href="https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/Challenge%20of%20Slums.pdf">gangs are the patron</a>.</p>
<h2>A staging ground for discontent</h2>
<p>The injustices of this daily life underlie the anger of many of today’s protesters. From Quito, Ecuador, to Beirut, the extreme marginalization of so many people living in big, dysfunctional and dangerous places has boiled over into deadly unrest. </p>
<p>In Haiti, for example, the majority of demonstrators who’ve staged <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/haiti-protests.html">nine straight weeks of massive protests</a> against documented official corruption, gasoline shortages and food scarcity are extremely poor Port-au-Prince residents. They are highly motivated to keep protesting because they are facing starvation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301591/original/file-20191113-77342-1krg6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">People in the Cite Soleil slum, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, wait for government-distributed food and school supplies, Oct. 3, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Haiti-Political-Crisis/0fab5cb697ef4794b291c63bd3f1a76f/1/0">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span>
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<p>Even Chile, which technically is the wealthiest Latin American country, has an awful lot of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-50123743">very poor people struggling to get by</a>. Its current protests, which began in mid-October with a hike in the Santiago subway fare, are disproportionately composed of youth and rural migrants from Santiago’s poor outskirts. Among Latin American countries, Chile has the second-highest rate of internal migration in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5362059/">all of Latin America</a>, second only to Panama. Bolivia ranks fifth in the region.</p>
<p>It is not the actual movement of rural people into cities that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0738894215581315">creates social upheaval</a>, according to a 2015 analysis of 20 years of data on internal migration, poverty and inequality for 34 cities in Africa and Asia. Rather, it’s the overall poor and unequal educational and housing opportunities that rural-to-urban migrants face in cities – coupled with their <a href="https://homerdixon.com/tag/project-on-environment-population-and-security/">socioeconomic marginalization</a> – that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0738894215581315">spurs urban discontent</a>. </p>
<p>People who fled impoverished countryside only to find poverty in the city, too, are demanding more. Two centuries after the <a href="https://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/EU/EU06-00.html">peasant rebellions that toppled monarchies across Europe</a>, cities have become the stage for the kind of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-50123743">resentment and frustration</a> that can destabilize entire nations.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry F. (Chip) Carey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Santiago and La Paz to Beirut and Jakarta, many of the cities now gripped by protest share a common problem: They’ve grown too much, too fast.Henry F. (Chip) Carey, Associate Professor, Political Science, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1206002019-07-31T20:05:05Z2019-07-31T20:05:05ZWhat sort of ‘development’ has no place for a billion slum dwellers?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285623/original/file-20190724-110195-102858e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Bangladesh government wants Karail, an established community of 200,000 people in the capital Dhaka, to make way for development.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/breadfortheworld/8227317908">Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a community of 200,000. Convivial, walkable, six times the density of Manhattan but with a smaller ecological footprint. It provides low-cost services and affordable housing mixed with productive uses such as recycling, farming and trading. It’s a city within a city.</p>
<p>But the streets aren’t wide enough to allow cars. The houses seem makeshift and the drains need work. The adaptations make it look like a place under perpetual construction. </p>
<p>In fact, the landlords and local leaders have incrementally built their houses and urban amenities over the last 40 years. They have self-organised to provide services such as gas, electricity and water. Non-government organisations (NGOs) have often provided extensive support to help with this process. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/design-in-the-hybrid-city-diy-meets-platform-urbanism-in-dhakas-informal-settlements-61661">Design in the 'hybrid city': DIY meets platform urbanism in Dhaka's informal settlements</a>
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<p>The only catch is this community has been built on unused public land. Now the residents face threats of resettlement to allow for “development” projects planned by the state. After spending six months in such a place, I can attest to their simultaneous desire to live their lives and the fear of uprooting that underlies their daily life.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285576/original/file-20190724-110158-11gasn9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sahajul, a local elder, recollects the struggles he faced to kick-start Karail as a place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mohammed Jilani/Open Studio</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The story of a billion people</h2>
<p>The place is Karail, the largest informal settlement in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhaka">Dhaka</a>, but the story is not particular to there. A billion people live in such places around the world. That number is slated to reach <a href="https://unhabitat.org/books/world-cities-report/">3 billion people in the next 30 years</a>. </p>
<p>This means informal settlements are one of the major ways developing cities are being produced. Conventional planning approaches such as slum clearance, cookie-cutter high-rises, peripheral resettlement and back-to-village programs have often failed to manage them. </p>
<p>UN-Habitat, the body with global responsibility for issues of urban growth, advocates city-wide <a href="https://www.citiesalliance.org/about-slum-upgrading#Why_not_tear_down">slum upgrading</a> and integration with metropolitan plans. Such programs are explicitly “<a href="http://www.monppab.org/content/libraryfiles/160.pdf">participatory</a>” and inclusive. Specifically, UN-Habitat <a href="https://unhabitat.org/quick-guide-for-participatory-city-wide-slum-upgrading-city-wide-slum-upgrading-for-sustainable-urbanization/">recommends</a> member states “recognise the rights and contributions of slum dwellers and change the view that they are illegal”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-habitat-iii-defend-the-human-right-to-the-city-57576">Will Habitat III defend the human right to the city?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, these recommendations are non-binding. It is up to the state and NGOs to implement policies on the ground. While funding agencies and local civic bodies have important roles too, they are ineffective in formulating the upgrading programs by themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285568/original/file-20190724-110187-1f79zyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An overhead view of Karail.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Earth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-planning-falls-short-the-challenges-of-informal-settlements-68982">When planning falls short: the challenges of informal settlements</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s the plan for Karail?</h2>
<p>In Karail’s case, the land belongs to the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology (MoSICT). It plans to establish a <a href="https://bhtpa.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/bhtpa.portal.gov.bd/page/fd2c28e6_99ab_43d4_8262_ff8d87165be7/Draft%20Feasibility%20Study%20Report-%20Mohakhali.pdf">software technology park</a> to replace the settlement. In 2014, several NGOs providing pro bono legal aid filed petitions in court challenging the authority to carry out evictions on such a massive scale. The final verdict is still pending, but the word on the streets in Karail is that the wheels are in motion to make the project happen by any means. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285624/original/file-20190724-110175-kuy1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The existing settlement and proposed development plan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanzil Shafique and BHTPA</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the project proceeds, the demolitions will begin soon. The resettlement plan for the project proposes six options, none of which are slum upgrading. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285573/original/file-20190724-110162-3hzn1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kurail is an established community that is home to at least 40,000 families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanzil Shafique</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the best-case scenario, about 6,000 economy flats (roughly 25 square metres) will be built on site. Remember, at least 40,000 families live in Karail. The other options – including off-site resettlement or cash compensation – are far worse. </p>
<p>The draft plan shows no understanding of the site as an existing city, nor are there any attempts to integrate slum upgrading into the project, as UN-Habitat recommends. Note that the objective of the project is “to establish knowledge-based industries contributing to the national economy and helping achieve the goals of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_2021">Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh</a>”. The project is predicted to <a href="http://www.theindependentbd.com/printversion/details/133535">create 30,000 jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Such is the cruel irony of “development”. For an estimated investment of <a href="https://bhtpa.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/bhtpa.portal.gov.bd/page/fd2c28e6_99ab_43d4_8262_ff8d87165be7/Draft%20Feasibility%20Study%20Report-%20Mohakhali.pdf">AU$300 million</a>, the project will generate <a href="http://www.theindependentbd.com/arcprint/details/113909/2017-09-14">30,000 future jobs</a>, replacing the estimated <a href="https://torturedocumentationproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/poverty-and-violence-in-korail-slum-in-dhaka.pdf">116,000 jobs that Karail supports</a>. The project will displace 40,000 families from their current affordable housing and build high-rise apartments to house only 6,000.</p>
<p>In a city already on the <a href="https://www.thedailystar.net/city/dhaka-traffic-jam-congestion-eats-32-million-working-hours-everyday-world-bank-1435630">verge of collapse with traffic congestion</a>, the project is set to attract more traffic to the centre. Vehicle-based infrastructure will replace the non-motorised walkable neighbourhood of Karail. The cost of losing the accumulated social capital of the people of Karail only makes it worse. </p>
<h2>‘Development’ that fails people</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285575/original/file-20190724-110166-1u7jv7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The housing in Bhashantek Rehabilitation Project exemplifies how not to resettle a community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanzil Shafique</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9564.html">development</a>” in pursuit of a techno-ideological spectacle, without a sense of equitable well-being, is empty and is particularly threatening to informal settlements due to land value. Even when the state operates with the best of intentions and provides off-site resettlement, it has proven to be disastrous in Bangladesh, as exemplified by the <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1080519.pdf">Bhashantek Rehabilitation Project</a>. </p>
<p>As Karail’s case shows, conventional “development” and policymaking do not know how to deal with such settlements. Planning is conducted with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649357.2015.1071870">half a mind</a> in the absence of empathy. “Inclusive cities” and “sustainable development” become empty motherhood slogans. </p>
<p>New practices can only emerge when we begin to learn how the other half lives and become allies in their struggle. Will Karail survive the onslaught of development? Well, it has survived decades of adversity so far and there is never any scarcity of hope.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285570/original/file-20190724-110162-1siaz6o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Karail is a place of learning to hope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanzil Shafique</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanzil Shafique does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A community of 200,000 in Dhaka faces eviction to make room for “development”. Is it time to rethink the concept, especially with a billion people now living in informal settlements worldwide?Tanzil Shafique, PhD Researcher in Urban Design, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108442019-02-11T11:43:14Z2019-02-11T11:43:14ZVenomous yellow scorpions are moving into Brazil’s big cities – and the infestation may be unstoppable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256870/original/file-20190201-112314-1eweye0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scorpions used to be a rural problem in Brazil. Now, residents of São Paulo and other urban areas are dealing with an infestation of these venomous creatures.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Brazil-BRAZ-/aa703178a0e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I live in São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil, home to some <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2018/08/29/cidade-de-sao-paulo-tem-122-milhoes-de-habitantes-e-e-a-mais-populosa-do-pais.ghtml">12 million people</a> – 20 million if you count the outskirts, which have been <a href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/003054-evolving-urban-form-s%C3%A3o-paulo">sprawling for three decades</a>. </p>
<p>That makes it a good place to observe the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hamilton_Carvalho/">phenomenon I research</a>: complex social problems. In academia, this concept refers to problems like corruption, crime and traffic – problems that, in practice, cannot be solved. They must simply be mitigated or managed.</p>
<p>São Paulo is a dense city, with scarce green space and little to no animal life – no squirrels, no raccoons, not even a lot of birds. So I was astonished when, in January, I learned that scorpions had infested my neighborhood. </p>
<p>It turns out, people across the city and São Paulo state were having the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/15/scorpion-deaths-rise-brazil-cities-urban-adaptation-risks">same problem</a> with these dangerous, venomous bugs. Statewide, scorpion stings have increased <a href="https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-46590813">threefold over the last two decades</a>. </p>
<p>Four kinds of scorpion live across Brazil, but historically only in rural areas. São Paulo residents are urbanites. We have conquered nature – or so we thought.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256874/original/file-20190201-112389-afp3md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">São Paulo is Brazil’s biggest city, with 12.2 million residents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/são-paulo-center-architecture-1194953/">Pixabay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Brazil’s urban scorpions</h2>
<p>Brazil’s scorpion infestation is the perfect example of how unpredictable modern life has become. It is a hallmark of what those of us in the complex problems field call a “VUCA” world – a world that’s <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you">volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous</a>. </p>
<p>Some <a href="http://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/2017/03/27/why-scorpions-are-now-more-worrisome/">2.5 billion people worldwide, from Mexico to Russia, live with scorpions</a>, which generally prefer <a href="https://www.ntnu.no/ub/scorpion-files/european_scorp.php">hot and dry habitats</a>. </p>
<p>But Brazil’s cities also provide an <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31001891/ija_2012_v1_n2_p3_15_23.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1549294871&Signature=EJ%2BkPRzn%2FeKEW3A0RQCvZuLMpOg%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DAbundance_of_scorpions_Tityus_serrulatus.pdf">excellent habitat for scorpions</a>, experts say. They offer shelter in sewage networks, plenty of water and food in the garbage that goes uncollected, and no natural predators. </p>
<p>Scorpions, like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2251,00.html">cockroaches they feast on</a>, are an <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1678-91992006000100005">incredibly adaptable species</a>. As the weather in Brazil gets hotter due to climate change, scorpions are spreading <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2019/01/ataques-de-escorpioes-aumentam-80-nos-ultimos-cinco-anos.shtml">across the country</a> – including into its colder southern states that <a href="http://www.saude.rs.gov.br/vigilancia-reforca-cuidados-de-prevencao-ao-escorpiao-amarelo">rarely, if ever, had reports of scorpions</a> prior to this millennium. </p>
<p>The number of people stung by scorpions across Brazil has risen <a href="https://g1.globo.com/ciencia-e-saude/noticia/2019/01/11/brasil-teve-mais-de-140-mil-acidentes-com-escorpioes-em-2018-veja-como-se-proteger.ghtml">from 12,000 in 2000 to 140,000 last year</a>, according to the health ministry. </p>
<p>Most scorpion stings are extremely painful but not fatal. For children, however, they are dangerous and require urgent medical attention. Eighty-eight people died from their wounds in 2017, <a href="https://g1.globo.com/ciencia-e-saude/noticia/2019/01/11/brasil-teve-mais-de-140-mil-acidentes-com-escorpioes-em-2018-veja-como-se-proteger.ghtml">Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reports</a>, highlighting the lack of adequate medicare care available in small towns. Many of the dead are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/15/scorpion-deaths-rise-brazil-cities-urban-adaptation-risks">children</a>.</p>
<p>In Americana, a city with about 200,000 inhabitants in São Paulo state, teams that perform night searches for scorpions <a href="https://g1.globo.com/sp/campinas-regiao/noticia/americana-envia-15-mil-escorpioes-ao-butantan-para-fabricacao-de-soro.ghtml">captured more than 13,000 last year</a> – that’s the equivalent of one scorpion for every 15 people.</p>
<p>Worse yet, the species terrorizing Brazilians is the highly dangerous yellow scorpion, or <em><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26522893">Tityus serrulatus</a></em>. It reproduces through the miracle of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236013685_Parthenogenesis_in_scorpions_Some_history_-_New_data">parthenogenesis</a>, meaning a female scorpion simply generates copies of herself twice a year – no male participation required. </p>
<p>Each instance of parthenogenetic reproduction can spawn up to 20 to 30 baby scorpions. Though most will die in their first days and weeks of life, ridding Brazilian cities of scorpions would be a herculean, if not downright impossible, task.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256873/original/file-20190201-103164-wwpriz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yellow scorpions have a venomous, though not often deadly, sting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/AFZwHY">José Roberto Peruca/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wicked problems in a crazy world</h2>
<p>Brazil’s urban scorpion infestation is a classic “<a href="https://theconversation.com/wicked-problems-and-how-to-solve-them-100047">wicked problem</a>.” </p>
<p>This term, first used in 1973 by <a href="https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wicked-problem/about/What-is-a-wicked-problem">design theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber</a>, refers to enormous social or cultural problems like poverty and war – problems with no simple or definitive solution, and which arise at the intersection of other problems. </p>
<p>Wicked problems are a symptom of numerous other related problems, both natural and human-made. In this case, Brazil’s urban scorpion infestation is the result of poor garbage management, inadequate sanitation, rapid urbanization and a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12002">changing climate</a>. </p>
<p>It is likely too late to stop the spread of scorpions across Brazilian cities. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you">VUCA world</a>, my <a href="https://www.poder360.com.br/author/hamilton-carvalho/">academic research</a> and <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you">other problem-solving studies</a> show, wicked problems should be identified and confronted as soon as possible, using an array of responses. </p>
<p>In a VUCA world, the more resources you throw at problems, the better. That could mean everything from public awareness campaigns that educate Brazilians about scorpions to exterminator task forces working to control their population in urban areas. Scientists should be involved. Brazil’s national public health system will need to adapt to this new threat. </p>
<p>Brazil’s government appears to be ill-equipped to tackle the scorpion infestation. </p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ciencia/2019/01/ataques-de-escorpioes-aumentam-80-nos-ultimos-cinco-anos.shtml">dogged press coverage</a>, federal health officials have barely spoken publicly about Brazil’s urban scorpion problem. And, beyond some rather tepid national and state-level efforts to train health officials in scorpion risk, authorities seem to have no plan for fighting the infestation at the epidemic level it is heading towards.</p>
<p>Nor are cities likely to see any federal money dedicated to fighting this scorpion infestation: Brazil has been in a deep recession since 2015, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/facing-unemployment-austerity-and-scandal-brazil-struggles-to-keep-it-together-71663">public health budgets have been slashed</a>. </p>
<p>Venomous yellow scorpions, I fear, have already claimed their place alongside <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/americas/brazil-murder-rate-record.html">violent crime</a>, <a href="https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_traffic/countrywork/bra/en/">brutal traffic</a> and other chronic problems that urbanites in Brazil must cope with daily.</p>
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<p><em>This article has been updated to correct errors of zoological language.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hamilton Coimbra Carvalho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brazil’s scorpion infestation, which is terrorizing residents of São Paulo and other major cities, is a classic ‘wicked problem.’ That means officials must think outside-the-box to fix it.Hamilton Coimbra Carvalho, Researcher in Complex Social Problems, Universidade de São Paulo (USP)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1077872018-12-24T18:37:52Z2018-12-24T18:37:52ZIndians promised benefits of 100 smart cities, but the poor are sidelined again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250787/original/file-20181216-185261-14z8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Residents of slums like Kamla Nehru Nagar, a kilometre away from Patna Junction, have yet to share in the promised benefits of smart cities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>India’s urban population is growing. More than <a href="https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/half-of-indias-population-will-be-living-in-urban-areas-by-2030-says-puri/article9891352.ece">50% of the country’s population</a> is forecast to be living in cities by 2030. This is a major challenge for government because the country’s cities lack the infrastructure (affordable housing, roads) and basic services (sanitation, water, health care) for existing inhabitants, let alone the influx of people over the next decade. </p>
<p>Globally, <a href="https://unhabitat.org/slum-almanac-2015-2016/">one in eight people live in slums</a> where they face issues of durable housing, access to safe drinking water and toilets, and insecure tenure. In India, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/india-census-says-1-in-6-lives-in-unsanitary-slums-1.1403897">one in every six city</a> residents lives in a slum. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-indias-experiment-with-smart-cities-tackle-poverty-or-make-it-worse-53678">Will India's experiment with smart cities tackle poverty – or make it worse?</a>
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<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251388/original/file-20181218-27749-y2xwnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Indian children are growing up in very disadvantaged circumstances. These two live in Mahmudi Chak slum next to Rajendra Nagar Railway Junction in Patna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, estimates of slum populations differ widely in many Indian cities due to differences in the counting criteria. For example, in cities like <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/62-of-mumbai-lives-in-slums-census/story-I3bUsll9w5f6ePEfuXJEbM.html">Mumbai</a> and <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Half-of-Delhis-population-lives-in-slums/articleshow/16664224.cms">Delhi</a>, it’s estimated more than 50% of the population live in slums, but the 2011 Indian Census put the figures at <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/17-of-urban-India-lives-in-slums-Census/articleshow/19118219.cms">41.3% and 14.6%</a> respectively.</p>
<p>Launching the national <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Cities_Mission">Smart Cities Mission</a> in 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/urbanisation-can-mitigate-poverty-says-pm-modi-at-smart-city-launch-2875814/">said</a>: “… if anything has the potential to mitigate poverty it is our cities”. He said the mission, which has a target of 100 smart cities, aims to ensure access to basic services for the people. This includes <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/pm-narendra-modi-launches-smart-city-projects/articleshow/52916581.cms">houses for the urban poor</a>. </p>
<p>The program aims to fulfil the aspirations and needs of the citizens through comprehensive development of <a href="http://smartcities.gov.in/content/innerpage/what-is-smart-city.php">institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure</a>. This comprehensive development would also ensure increased public participation, Modi said. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250789/original/file-20181216-185258-1vwf31b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Villagers migrated to the Danapur Block slum after the Ganga river flooded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Smart city plan has a dark side</h2>
<p>In one of the 100 cities selected for the Smart City Mission, <a href="https://patna.nic.in/history/">Patna (Bihar)</a>, I <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sujeetMSW/videos/10207722877944405/">witnessed</a> the flip side of the smart city. Patna, the state capital of Bihar, has a rich history, but <a href="https://www.theigc.org/project/understanding-slum-formation-and-designing-an-urban-housing-policy-for-poor-in-bihar/">63% of its population</a> lives in slums. And 93% of them are from the historically oppressed “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes">scheduled castes</a>” and “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class">other backward castes</a>” (based on data collected in 42 slums). </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251655/original/file-20181219-45408-1akxg5j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demolished homes at Meena Bazar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The city administration often demolishes slums <a href="https://www.pria.org/engaged-citizens-responsive-city/?p=1784">without following due process of law</a> in order to seize the land in the name of beautification and development of Patna. </p>
<p>In slums like Meena Bazar (near the famous Nalanda Medical College Hospital) and Amu Kuda Basti (near Patna Airport) people have been living there for generations in houses often partially funded by government housing projects. These have been bulldozed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251654/original/file-20181219-45416-1m7lu1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Riot police are on hand when slum dwellers’ homes are demolished at Amu Kuda Basti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The city administration usually makes ad-hoc loudspeaker announcements before bulldozing these settlements. A massive police presence and riot vehicles are on hand in case residents protest the demolitions. They use derogatory language and forcefully enter houses and thrash male members, say women in Amu Kuda Basti. </p>
<p>The government could have given them more time or relocated them elsewhere in the city, rather than just bulldozing their houses, which they had built with hard-earned money, the slum dwellers said. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250790/original/file-20181216-185240-1pf21z6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents of slums like Amu Kuda Basti say houses they built with their own hard-earned money are being demolished with little notice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is apparently reason to smash these homes. There always is. The usual arguments for demolition include: beautification of the city, construction of a government building or enterprise, extension of the airport, crime locations, governance, illegality, encroachment etc. The state says demolitions of such slums are necessary for the development of the city. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/smart-or-dumb-the-real-impact-of-indias-proposal-to-build-100-smart-cities-80458">Smart or dumb? The real impact of India's proposal to build 100 smart cities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2011, the state proposed a slum policy to relocate slum dwellers who had lived in the city for generations to the outskirts in a plan to develop Patna and make it a smart city, says <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Its-official-Parveen-is-AAP-candidate-in-Patna-Sahib/articleshow/32319707.cms?fbclid=IwAR0PcyrunUHqLwhuIX48z2oDh6sr66PhZ6sU-_nxUuasuH-y84g8NQb3B88">Kishori Das</a>, an advocate for the rights of slum dwellers for years. Faced with widespread protests, the state deferred the policy, but it is silently applying it on the ground, he said. </p>
<h2>Who speaks for the marginalised poor?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251656/original/file-20181219-45394-ljj4i3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These two leaders from Meena Bazar are among 84 community representatives, elected and non-elected, interviewed by the author.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Local and mainstream media are not reporting these demolitions and forced evictions, especially when it happens in non-metro cities like Patna. Civil society and advocacy NGOs also take little notice of these frequent demolitions, probably due to <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/patna/rti-activist-shot-dead-in-bihar-5224903/">threats to life</a> and, if not, then to co-option by the state. The roles of the ruling party and opposition are also dubious. </p>
<p>Bihar has been ruled by leaders who attracted votes by campaigning on issues of poverty, caste and social justice for the past three decades. In the early 1990s, the prominent leader Lalu Prasad Yadav mobilised the poor and the oppressed caste groups under the umbrella of “<a href="https://thewire.in/politics/why-development-in-bihar-is-about-social-justice"><em>Vikas nahin, samman chahiye</em></a>” (we want dignity, not development). The present chief minister, Nitish Kumar, also known as Sushaasan Babu (good governance man), adopted the slogan “<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/we-are-committed-to-development-with-justice-nitish-kumar/articleshow/63356710.cms"><em>Nyay ke saath vikas</em></a>” (development with justice).</p>
<p>However, the frequent injustices suffered by the urban poor negate the political commitment. These actions are also in conflict with the motto of the Indian Constitution, which frames justice as a balancing wheel between the haves and have-nots. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250791/original/file-20181216-185234-f6rcyo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Promises of social justice ring hollow for residents of bulldozed communities like Amu Kuda Basti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These challenges are not limited to one city. In the name of smart and developed cities, the government is not only <a href="https://www.deccanchronicle.com/141216/nation-current-affairs/article/indias-smart-cities-plan-risks-leaving-millions-behind">taking over urban land where millions of the poor have lived</a> for decades but is also <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/openindia/ayona-datta/smartness-inc">acquiring fertile land</a> and <a href="https://thewire.in/agriculture/why-dholeras-farmers-are-resisting-giving-up-their-land-for-a-shining-smart-city">violating the constitutional rights</a> of farmers, tribes and other indigenous groups in various cities. </p>
<p>These reports of struggle and forced evictions contradict the statements by Modi when he said smart cities development would strictly follow <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/pm-narendra-modi-launches-smart-city-projects/articleshow/52916581.cms">large-scale public participation</a> in preparing these plans. </p>
<p>Such demolitions reveal a dark side to making Indian cities smart and cast serious doubt on claimed government commitment to the urban poor. These actions hardly live up to the idea of the rights of the poor. It became more challenging when the head of the biggest democracy in the world denounces those who speak up for the poor, oppressed and voiceless as “<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/in-maoist-hotbed-pm-modi-slams-urban-naxals-congress/articleshow/66561700.cms">urban Naxals</a>”. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm">words of Abraham Lincoln</a>, democracy is “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. For India, this means the urban poor need help both from political parties and civil society so that their voice finds expression and their demands and concerns are heard and considered in public policy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251652/original/file-20181219-45400-8vm5ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children sleep out in the open in a slum area in Harding Park, Patna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sujeet Kumar</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sujeet Kumar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indians were promised they would be included in planning 100 smart cities and that everyone would benefit. But many of the millions of slum residents have had no say in their homes being destroyed.Sujeet Kumar, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1034742018-11-20T11:34:32Z2018-11-20T11:34:32ZParks help cities – but only if people use them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246025/original/file-20181116-194497-yevxad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tiny Paley Park, surrounded by skyscrapers in New York City, introduced the concept of a 'pocket park' in dense urban centers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/dwX26Z">Aleksandr Zykov/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In cities, <a href="https://www.cityparksalliance.org/why-urban-parks-matter">access to parks</a> is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380517/">strongly linked</a> with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204616302146?via%3Dihub%20https://www.urban.org/research/publication/public-value-urban-parks/view/full_report">better health</a> for both <a href="https://cityparksblog.org/2017/06/13/prioritizing-equity-in-planning-and-paying-for-city-parks/">people and neighborhoods</a>.</p>
<p>Children suffer higher rates of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380517/">obesity</a> when they grow up in urban areas without a park in easy reach. Because low-income neighborhoods have <a href="https://www.tpl.org/how-we-work/climate-smart-cities#sm.0000niw9z7p0fdvoqw42iqkpu4ko1">fewer green spaces</a>, poorer children are most likely to face other health problems, too, including <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2860857/">asthma</a> due to poor air quality. </p>
<p>But access to green space is not the only ingredient in creating healthy communities, my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18626033.2013.798920">research on urban landscapes</a> shows. Parks are good for people only if people use them. </p>
<p>And that’s a question of design.</p>
<h2>What is a park?</h2>
<p>The first truly public park – a green space paid for by public funds, on publicly owned land and intended to serve the public – was Birkenhead Park, near Liverpool, England. Designed by Joseph Paxton to improve the health of the poor, it opened in 1847 to <a href="https://www.birkenheadpark1847.com/park-at-war">a crowd of 10,000</a>.</p>
<p>When landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted visited Birkenhead in 1850, he was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14601176.2014.911577">inspired</a> to bring the idea home to “democratic America.” </p>
<p>In 1857, he and architect Calvert Vaux won the competition to create <a href="http://www.centralparknyc.org/visit/park-history.html">Central Park</a> in New York City. Their now iconic design – 750 acres of grassy lawns, trees and winding paths – came to define what Americans and Europeans alike have come to expect from a great urban park. </p>
<p>Olmsted would eventually design over 100 big, green parks, from Montreal and Buffalo to Louisville and beyond. </p>
<p>As cities commissioned ever more parks, an entire <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2">profession</a> grew up around them. </p>
<p>Landscape architects built parks in big cities worldwide, each modified slightly to reflect local culture. </p>
<p>Americans, in particular, embraced sociologist <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/the-great-migration-and-black-environmental-history-an-interview-with-brian-mccammack/">W.E.B. Du Bois’s</a> belief that green space would “restore the bodies, minds, and spirits of urban dwellers weakened by the city’s punishing environment.”</p>
<h2>Parks are not neutral</h2>
<p>Public parks can work their magic only if they give what people they need. That differs from population to population.</p>
<p><a href="http://drrobertbullard.com/">Scholars</a>, historians, feminists and <a href="https://www.naacp.org/naacp-leadership/jacqueline-patterson/">African-American leaders</a> have observed that people perceive and use <a href="https://www.aaihs.org/nature-and-the-great-migration-in-chicago/">green spaces</a> differently depending on their community’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2017.1385380?scroll=top&needAccess=true">historical experience</a> and cultural standards.</p>
<p><a href="https://archpaper.com/2017/10/renovations-halprin-freeway-park/#gallery-0-slide-0">Freeway Park</a>, opened in 1974 in Seattle, is a densely wooded urban landscape nestled between two highways. The park is seen by many as intimate and lush. But some women <a href="https://q13fox.com/2017/03/27/people-have-a-perception-that-the-park-is-unsafe-seattles-freeway-park-association-considering-changes-to-attract-visitors/">feel unsafe</a> walking alone there because, they say, they can’t see who is approaching or coming up behind them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244857/original/file-20181109-36763-1cqxm97.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seattle’s Freeway Park: Inviting or sketchy?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Freeway_park.jpg">Nmnmnm112211/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, African-Americans in the South may feel <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469614489/black-faces-white-spaces/">unwelcome</a> in parks named after Confederate generals and <a href="https://culturallandscapes.arch.virginia.edu/charlottesvilles-confederate-memorial-landscape">featuring large Confederate statues</a>. Generally speaking, black people are underrepresented as <a href="http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=f5076d65-d46e-4d52-84e7-4f37a5950be1%40sessionmgr4010">visitors to the U.S. National Park system</a>, a statistic experts attribute to the historic legacy of segregation in public spaces. </p>
<p>Similar segregated use shows up with New York’s Highline park. The park, first opened in 2009, runs through the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which is home to several public housing projects. </p>
<p>Nearly one-third of the area’s residents are people of color. <a href="https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2017/02/the-high-lines-next-balancing-act-fair-and-affordable-development/515391/?utm_source=nl__link3_020717">Highline visitors</a>, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly white. </p>
<p>In community forums, locals say they don’t perceive the park – a repurposed elevated railway – as having been built for them. If they don’t see people who look like them using it, they may stay away.</p>
<p>In other words, the mere existence of a park does <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2016/06/for-african-americans-park-access-is-about-more-than-just-proximity/485321/">not ensure that a community</a> benefits from it.</p>
<h2>Designed for easy access</h2>
<p>This fact has given rise to new kinds of parks – ones uniquely designed for local communities. </p>
<p>In 1967, the firm of Zion Breen Richardson Associates created the “pocket park” concept with <a href="https://tclf.org/landscapes/paley-park">Paley Park</a> in New York City. Small and privately owned but opened to the public during the work day, this park occupies just one-tenth of an acre and is surrounded on three sides by tall buildings. </p>
<p>Many downtown districts are now speckled with these tiny, often hidden, parks. There’s nothing grand about them, but for workers needing a break, they offer <a href="https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:4ef64e28-ae19-44df-9ac1-e4d3081f506b/datastream/OBJ/download">much-needed respite</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, when designers began work on San Francisco’s shorefront <a href="http://indiabasinsf.com/">India Basin Park</a>, the landscape architects on the team realized that access points had to be a design priority. Certain nearby residents – namely, those living in the predominantly black Hunters Point neighborhood – would struggle to use the park, despite its proximity. A shoreline road built decades ago had cut their upland community off from the water’s edge.</p>
<p>Rehabilitated walkways from Hunter’s Point to the waterfront, then, will inform the design of the park, which will be developed <a href="https://hoodline.com/2017/03/new-renderings-released-for-major-india-basin-housing-development">over the next 15 years</a>. The planned paths, stairways and crosswalks should offer their own type of “green” landscape, one that meets the needs of the current residents and is historically appropriate in hilly San Francisco.</p>
<h2>Cultural relevance</h2>
<p>Latino residents in southside Wenatchee, Washington, have also been teaming with designers to develop a new design that might attract more neighbors to their underused local park, the <a href="https://www.siteworkshop.net/copy-of-kitsap-county-administratio?lightbox=dataItem-jcb3f3g0">Kiwanis Methow Park</a>.</p>
<p>Drawing on Mexican influence, the transformed park will feature a “kiosko” pavilion that hosts mariachi music, dances and culturally significant celebrations. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244856/original/file-20181109-39548-1qtrh32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Washington’s redesigned Wenatchee Park features Mexican-inspired kiosks for music and celebration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephanie Bower</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dozens of “<a href="https://artofcommunityncw.com/2018/08/01/kiwanis-methow-park-hosting-a-community-celebration-thursday/">padrinos</a>,” or godparents, have signed up to maintain the park, whose new design was spearheaded by the Trust for Public Land and the landscape architecture firm <a href="https://www.siteworkshop.net/who-we-are">Site Workshop</a>.</p>
<p>Context-specific design crosses international borders in other ways. </p>
<p>In a shantytown outside Lima, Peru, residents teamed up with the University of Washington to build a <a href="http://sqwater.be.washington.edu/wp/primary-school-park/">school garden</a> that is also open to the public. </p>
<p>During school hours, the outdoor classroom teaches local students about local plants, including some that are edible. Other times, it doubles as a quiet place of respite for community members in this sprawling, dense and noisy neighborhood. </p>
<p>Frederick Law Olmsted and W.E.B. Du Bois were right: Cities need parks. But designers have come a long way over the last century in learning that green spaces can only help cities when residents embrace them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thaisa Way does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that access to urban green space makes people and neighborhoods healthier. But parks can’t work their magic if their design ignores the needs of nearby communities.Thaisa Way, Professor, Landscape Architecture, History, and Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031212018-09-26T12:57:46Z2018-09-26T12:57:46ZObesity and economic status: what we found in Kenya’s slums<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237292/original/file-20180920-129847-1vjxei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conditions in Kenya's slums like Mathare are not conducive to healthy life choices.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Daniel Irungu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa is experiencing a demographic and nutrition transition. More and more people are moving to urban areas. Slum communities currently constitute <a href="https://unhabitat.org/slum-almanac-2015-2016/">about</a> 56% of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s more than 200 million people, more than the entire population of Nigeria. </p>
<p>Even as under-nutrition or not getting enough calories and nutrients – continues to be a problem particularly among the poorest, overweight and obesity are growing challenges in poor urban areas. Being over a healthy weight invites a <a href="http://aphrc.org/post/research_taxonomy/infectious-and-non-communicable-diseases">host of non-communicable diseases.</a></p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/2046905514Y.0000000147">research</a> suggests that rapid increases in obesity are a result of complex interactions between factors such as people eating higher-calorie diets and engaging in lower levels of physical activity. Genetic and environmental factors also play a role.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-health-epidemiology-and-genomics/article/body-mass-index-and-wealth-index-positively-correlated-indicators-of-health-and-wealth-inequalities-in-nairobi-slums/14CD4E919261FBA59A647E2ABBCC7EDD">Our research</a> set out to establish the relationship between obesity and income levels in poor urban areas. </p>
<p>Previous research has established wealth as a potential <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15654409">risk factor</a>. But there have been questions about exactly what the link is, and whether income and obesity levels are linked even in urban slums where all incomes are very low, yet there is some variation in socio-economic status. </p>
<p>We set out to investigate the relationship further. Our aim was to gain insights that would inform strategies to manage obesity in Kenya’s poor urban areas.</p>
<p>Our research found that there was an association between relatively higher economic status and levels of obesity in a slum setting. The study suggests that obesity levels are higher in the higher economic brackets – and particularly among women. </p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>The study was done in two Nairobi slums, Korogocho and Viwandani. Data was collected between 2014 and 2015. More than 2,000 adults between 40 and 60 years of age were included in the study. Data on weight, height, and basic socio-economic variables were collected by experienced and trained field workers. </p>
<p>We examined the association between a measure of socio-economic status – calculated by combining information on living conditions and household assets – and body mass index which is used as a measure of obesity. </p>
<p>We found that one fifth of our study population was obese. And nearly six times more women were obese than men – 32.2% compared to 5.6%. </p>
<p>We found a strong association between body mass index and socio-economic status. Women higher up the economic ladder were more likely to be overweight. The association was higher for women than for men. </p>
<h2>Interventions</h2>
<p>The findings support the idea that economic status could potentially be used as a predictor of overweight and obesity in slum settings though this would need further exploration. Such predictors could prove useful for rapid assessments of health and socio-economic status in slum populations.</p>
<p>But policymakers must strike a careful balance. As incomes increase among the very poor, body mass index increases – which is good for those who are underweight. But for those who are already a healthy weight, increasing incomes mean slum dwellers have a higher likelihood of becoming overweight or obese. </p>
<p>Women are particularly at risk. This could mean that much needed socio-economic development in urban slums could also usher in unintended increases in overweight and obesity, putting slum dwellers at increased risk of non-communicable diseases – even as they continue to face threats from communicable diseases common to areas with poor water and sanitation facilities. </p>
<p>Because of this, interventions that aim to improve the socio-economic status of individuals in urban slums should, as a starting point, integrate health promotion programmes targeted at prevention of obesity. Future policies targeting the health of slum populations should prioritise interventions for overweight and obesity among higher income groups, and underweight for the poorest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A study in Kenya found that that there’s an association between relatively higher economic status and obesity in a slum setting.Shukri F. Mohamed, Research officer, African Population and Health Research CenterTilahun Haregu, Honorary Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974712018-06-06T14:01:36Z2018-06-06T14:01:36ZAfrican cities must address social and economic issues when upgrading slums<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220966/original/file-20180530-120511-vb5d25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People feel a real sense of community in slums like Kibera in Nairobi.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/DAI KUROKAWA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In sub-Saharan Africa, <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/">over 55%</a> of the urban population are estimated to live in areas categorised as slums and informal settlements. These slums and informal settlements are largely the physical manifestations of urban inequality, socially and economically. They embody the exclusion of poor urban households from cities’ formal economy and its environmental amenities like green spaces. </p>
<p>People living in these areas are also <a href="http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/12/09-073445/en/">more vulnerable</a> to the impacts of extreme weather events associated with climate change. </p>
<p>Waste collection is poor, so pollution levels are high. This means that slums have a negative effect on natural ecosystems. Their presence can cause environmental degradation and deplete natural resources such as timber. </p>
<p>In other words, slums represent an intertwining of the socio-economic and environmental problems of urbanisation. But many government attempts to upgrade slums in Africa focus largely on the environmental issues and ignore the social and economic dynamics. Studies in <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2273">Addis Ababa</a> and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/661163">Nairobi</a> have shown that people moved from slums into new housing experience a loss of community connection and in some cases cannot afford life outside the slum.</p>
<p>This was echoed in <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/22349">research I conducted</a> in an area called Cosmo City outside Johannesburg, South Africa. People who had been moved there from an informal settlement felt less safe and were battling financially. </p>
<p>My findings, and those from Kenya and Ethiopia, suggest that a community oriented approach is necessary. Merely moving people without taking their social and economic concerns into consideration is not the way to deal with the issue of urban slums.</p>
<h2>Case studies</h2>
<p>The Ethiopian government’s current approach is to clear slums and develop new housing in their stead. Households are relocated from shacks in slums to newly developed high-rise apartments. A <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1239">recent study</a> examined the environmental and social aspects of this clear-and-redevelop approach in Arat Kilo slum and the Ginfle high-rise apartments in Addis Ababa.</p>
<p>The study found that the move had some environmental benefits. It marginally reduced the amount of resources consumed by households, particularly water and energy (apart from gasoline). There was also a small reduction in the quantity of solid, liquid and gaseous waste generated. </p>
<p>But the high-rise apartments were strikingly less liveable. The study found that while 80% of those interviewed felt happy living in the slum, only 50% were happy in the high-rise flats. And 95% felt secure in the slum – but only 7% felt the same way in the new apartments. Trust also declined: 97% said they’d trusted their neighbours in Arat Kilo but only 34% trusted their neighbours in the new apartments.</p>
<p>Kenya’s government takes a similar approach to Ethiopia’s through its <a href="http://housingandurban.go.ke/kenya-slum-upgrading-programme-kensup/">Slum Upgrading Programme</a>. It constructs high-rise blocks of flats to replace slums. </p>
<p>Over the years, since 2010, portions of Kibera – which is Nairobi’s largest slum have been cleared and households relocated. Most recently, Kibera residents have been moved into 822 housing units within 21 blocks of 4-storey buildings in Soweto East, a zone of the slum. There are plans to develop another 2072 housing units on cleared parts of Kibera in the next few years.</p>
<p>But about half of those who officially received houses in the new apartments in Soweto East <a href="https://www.one.org/international/blog/why-residents-of-kibera-slum-are-rejecting-new-housing-plans/">no longer reside</a> there. These units have either been given away, sold or rented out. </p>
<p>One beneficiary told the study’s author that she still buys her groceries in the slum because it’s cheaper. She also spends her weekends in slum, visiting her friends and neighbours there. She has lived in the apartment for about three years and doesn’t know any of her neighbours.</p>
<p>This all suggests that Kenya and Ethiopia’s governments are ignoring social and economic factors when relocating people from slums.</p>
<p>In South Africa, where I recently conducted <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/22349">a study</a>, qualifying households within informal settlements are relocated to new fully subsidised houses on a serviced plot in newly established areas. </p>
<p>Beginning from 2005, almost 3000 households were relocated from Zevenfontein informal settlement to a new housing development called Cosmo City. The two areas are about 11 kilometres apart. I found that the residents loathed some aspects of the new neighbourhood. One woman told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Zevenfontein was better than Cosmo City because here money speaks… There, I can fetch wood from the bush and come to cook. Here, being unemployed is a challenge because you use electricity… Some people will say that Cosmo City is better because there is electricity here but the crime is too high. One is not free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her concerns were echoed by other people I interviewed. </p>
<h2>Community engagement</h2>
<p>Only the Addis Ababa case study showed some environmental benefits. All three examples came with social and economic downsides for residents. It is important for any upgrading of slums and informal settlements to not only improve environmental quality, but also to boost people’s overall quality of life. </p>
<p>One way to achieve this is for every slum upgrading project to be fair, inclusive, empowering and to include those it will affect. Productive community involvement is crucial. Empowering poverty alleviation programs are necessary as well as those which harness social capital in existing and new communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olumuyiwa Adegun receives funding from Guest Researchers’ Scholarship, Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala. Sweden. </span></em></p>Moving people without taking their social and economic concerns into consideration isn’t the way to deal with urban slums.Olumuyiwa Adegun, Lecturer, Department of Architecture, Federal University of Technology, AkureLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923802018-04-02T10:44:31Z2018-04-02T10:44:31ZMLK’s vision matters today for the 43 million Americans living in poverty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212746/original/file-20180330-189830-1qxubg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. displays the poster to be used during his Poor People's Campaign in 1968.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Horace Cort</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, while fighting for a <a href="http://media.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/iamaman/pitts.html">10-cent wage</a> increase for garbage workers. These efforts by King were part of a broader and more sustained initiative known as the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/a45497">Poor People’s Campaign</a>. </p>
<p>King was working to broaden the scope of the civil rights movement to include poverty and the end of the war in Vietnam. King and his leadership team <a href="http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/mlk-public-statement-poor-peoples-campaign">planned</a> to bring thousands of poor people to Washington, D.C., where they would camp out on the National Mall until Congress passed legislation to eradicate poverty. </p>
<p>King was convinced that for the civil rights movement to achieve its goals, poverty needed to become a central focus of the movement. He believed the poor could lead a movement that would revolutionize society and end poverty. As King noted, “The only real revolutionary, people say, is a man who has nothing to lose. There are millions of poor people in this country who have little, or nothing to lose.”</p>
<p>With over <a href="https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states">43 million</a> people living in poverty in the United States today, King’s ideas still hold much power. </p>
<h2>The Poor People’s Campaign</h2>
<p>In the last three years of his life and ministry King had grown frustrated with the slow pace of reform and the lack of funding for anti-poverty programs. In 1966, for example, King moved to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-martinlutherking-story-story.html">Chicago</a> and lived in an urban slum to bring attention to the plight of the urban poor in northern cities. His experiences in the South had convinced him that elimination of poverty was important to winning the long-term battle for civil and social rights. </p>
<p>It was also at this time that King began to think about leading a march to Washington, D.C., to end poverty. King explained the campaign <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oh3aCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA152&dq=We+poor+people+will+move+on+Washington,+determined+to+stay+there+until+the+legislative+and+executive+branches+of+the+government+take+serious+and+adequate+action+on+jobs+and+income.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-zIabkpLaAhUD0IMKHTQDC64Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=We%20poor%20people%20will%20move%20on%20Washington%2C%20determined%20to%20stay%20there%20until%20the%20legislative%20and%20executive%20branches%20of%20the%20government%20take%20serious%20and%20adequate%20action%20on%20jobs%20and%20income.%22&f=false">saying,</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Then we poor people will move on Washington, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action on jobs and income.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>King was assassinated before he could lead the campaign. And while the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VmmrBgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&dq=Martin+Luther+King+and+Resurrection+City&ots=hLvDuTsjU2&sig=zEx85btyyeGKvWzwROTnqdOdBlE#v=onepage&q=Martin%20Luther%20King%20and%20Resurrection%20City&f=false">effort continued</a>, the campaign could not meet <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6YwXAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=From+human+rights+to+civil+rights&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFv-CKmZLaAhUKiIMKHeXcDp0Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=From%20human%20rights%20to%20civil%20rights&f=false">King’s goals</a> of poverty elimination, universal access to health care and education, and a guaranteed income that would keep people out of poverty. </p>
<h2>Why it matters today</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212748/original/file-20180330-189813-1de83h7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A homeless person in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zeldman/15588411310/in/photolist-pKuFAf-6skT1s-b8wwix-ot1Pxa-94atvD-94dxRQ-81JCL1-7zshSC-94dwV5-edCza-6tGYu7-aeF62p-awcB6h-eqRLg3-dXMU9a-nZbE3v-7YgdZY-9ZYyS2-8erG6J-5rAbZX-jHpcC9-u5uoY-2VF9DW-fKzyTJ-6MB7Pm-8KWsf7-9rF73-9hcmUj-a33NBk-dJGN5a-9WFp2w-v7GTM-9cZZz7-9f9eHy-epUvyV-MCZtSu-8J3zZH-82fLDV-21aqhrs-a3h7Ax-9uD6iH-cSDEFS-93tKaD-6peUzs-iATobz-8uHb2U-8p2gsH-iyi6h6-6tCWkx-5dmzyy">Jeffrey Zeldman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a time when millions in the U.S. are poor and disenfranchised, the Poor People’s campaign remains as relevant for the U.S. as it was 50 years ago. Consider the evidence:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>At least 1.5 million households in the United States with about 3 million children <a href="http://www.twodollarsaday.com">are surviving</a> on cash incomes of no more than $2 per day. </p></li>
<li><p>A <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533">2017 United Nations report</a> found infant mortality rates in the U.S. to be the highest in the developed world. Children alone comprised 32.6 percent of all people in poverty.</p></li>
<li><p>The <a href="http://wid.world/country/usa/">World Income Database</a> found that the U.S. has the highest rate of inequality among all Western countries. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Making this situation worse, many of the welfare and poverty elimination programs have been cut back or eliminated. A recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/22/the-enduring-legacy-of-welfare-reform-20-years-later/?utm_term=.9af6edafdf7e">Washington Post investigation</a> found that extreme poverty has nearly doubled since major welfare reform efforts in the 1990s under then-President Bill Clinton. </p>
<h2>How can King’s ideas help today?</h2>
<p>At the core of King’s anti-poverty message were two key ideas. The first was a guarantee that the federal government would provide every able-bodied American with a job. The second was for the federal government to provide a national basic income that would ensure a minimum concrete sum of money for every American regardless of their employment status. </p>
<p>In his 1967 speech at Stanford University, <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/news/50-years-ago-martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-stanford-university">King argued</a> that the time had come to “guarantee an annual minimum – and livable – income for every American family.” The idea was to ensure every U.S. citizen would be able to live above the poverty line. King was assassinated before he could present a fully developed policy proposal. </p>
<p>Currently, several Nordic nations, most notably <a href="https://qz.com/876985/finland-hopes-to-dispel-one-of-the-biggest-critiques-of-a-basic-income/">Finland</a>, are considering such a proposal. Two economists, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-03-economists-minimum-income.html">Debraj Ray and Kelle Moene</a> have argued that a universal income has the potential to boost GDP and productivity. The premise is that if you give people who currently lack means more money to spend, they will contribute to the economy through increased <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9TtYDgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=argument+for+universal+income&ots=MPIToArBRN&sig=j0-89hZeg3DtQDlG4J1z-mJFnuw#v=onepage&q=boost%20consumption&f=false">consumption of goods</a> and services. </p>
<p>On the anniversary of King’s death, as Americans ponder the unfinished work of the Poor People’s Campaign, I believe a guaranteed national income is one idea that needs to be examined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92380/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King argued for a national guaranteed income that would keep people out of poverty. Fifty years later, the Poor People’s Campaign still resonates.Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/839492017-09-29T02:37:31Z2017-09-29T02:37:31ZWho are the real targets of Bogota’s crackdown on crime?<p>It was just before rush hour on Aug. 23, 2017, when the Bogota, Colombia, district police and SWAT squad <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/el-balance-del-distrito-tras-la-toma-de-el-cartuchito-en-kennedy-articulo-709781">came for the gangs of El Cartuchito</a>, an area with a potent illicit drug trade and open consumption of <a href="https://dialogo-americas.com/en/articles/bazuco-cheapest-drug-colombian-streets">bazuco</a>, a cocaine derivative similar to crack. Clad in anti-riot gear and armed with batons and tear gas, <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/despues-del-bronx-distrito-va-olla-cerca-de-corabastos-articulo-676337">police were sent in</a>, the city’s Department of Security later tweeted, to “reclaim” the area “for the citizens.” </p>
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<p>That was the spin. In practice, the police actually vacated not just the drug gangs but also people guilty of nothing illegal, namely homeless people, <a href="http://caracol.com.co/radio/2012/06/28/judicial/1340891520_713837.html">people who use bazuco</a> and garbage pickers. These activities, if socially frowned upon, are not crimes in Colombia, including <a href="http://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/RELATORIA/1994/C-221-94.htm">the possession of drugs for personal consumption</a>.</p>
<p>After forcibly removing everyone from El Cartuchito, the police gave residents a plastic snap-on bracelet, allowing them to return to the neighborhood.</p>
<p>The raid was just the latest aggressive operation to “clean up” Bogota. According to the city’s Department of Security, in 2016 there were <a href="https://twitter.com/SeguridadBOG/status/812102007876157443">15 such raids on three “ollas</a>,” or open-air drug scenes. Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who entered office in 2016, <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/10/enrique-penalosa-organized-crime-police/505208/">insists</a> that the crackdowns are a <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/penalosa-sostiene-operativo-el-bronx-no-fue-improvisado-articulo-653059">public safety necessity</a> because Bogota’s ollas have become “operating centers for organized crime” where children are subject to “massive sexual exploitation.” </p>
<p>It’s true that Bogota faces a real security challenge in places like El Cartuchito, where <a href="http://www.ideaspaz.org/publications/posts/1135">homicide rates are acutely high</a>. Alongside other researchers, I’ve been talking with people in the ollas for years about <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.23.1.0064?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">how the city could keep residents, including homeless children, safer</a>. But it’s clear to me that a strategy of violent displacement followed by <a href="https://twitter.com/SeguridadBOG/status/900463936214110210">investment and gentrification</a> is not the answer. </p>
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<h2>Uncovering the ‘olla’</h2>
<p>The El Cartuchito raid was mild compared to what Peñalosa’s administration unleashed last year in an area called El Bronx. In May 2016, <a href="https://apnews.com/34eb341149b1442d926628b397b6f10e/police-raid-drug-infested-bronx-colombias-capital">SWAT teams raided the downtown streets</a> in the middle of the night, joined by child protective services and other city agencies. </p>
<p>Rousing sleeping homeless residents, often violently, police rounded up at least <a href="https://www.vice.com/es_co/article/4wzy8j/dos-meses-intervencion-bronx-estanzuela-pealosa-olla-ambulante-balance-habitantes-calle-demolicion-efectos-bogota">2,000 people</a> (estimates <a href="https://www.kienyke.com/historias/donde-estan-los-habitantes-del-bronx">vary widely</a>) and herded them into trucks, headed to an undisclosed location.</p>
<p>Those who refused to go were gradually driven out of the area, first into a plaza, then into surrounding ollas and, eventually, into a canal bed on Sixth Street.</p>
<p>There, police kept hundreds of people contained for weeks. At night, Bronx exiles told me, the officers would form a cordon to keep them from leaving the canal. Every third night, according to testimonies, police forced this group to move up or down the canal, apparently arbitrarily. I spent a night in the canal and witnessed the containment-and-sleep-deprivation strategy firsthand.</p>
<p>During one big rainstorm, multiple homeless citizens <a href="https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/habitantes-de-calle-arrastrados-corriente-de-agua-cano-articulo-649714">were washed away</a>; one was <a href="http://caracol.com.co/emisora/2016/08/18/bogota/1471543447_193219.html">later found dead</a>. </p>
<p>Two local human rights organizations, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/cpatong.co/posts/">CPAT</a> and <a href="http://www.parces.org/">PARCES</a>, whose <a href="https://cerosetenta.uniandes.edu.co/destapando-la-olla-la-otra-cara-del-operativo-del-bronx/">May 2017 joint report</a> details the brutal treatment of El Bronx residents, filed a complaint against Peñalosa’s administration in the Inter-American Human Rights Court. The case is pending.</p>
<p>Just prior to the Bronx crackdown, in May 2016, the city had also cleared the Carrilera shantytown, <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/tras-desalojo-hasta-candela-le-prendieron-los-cambuches-articulo-630487">burning down cardboard homes and dismantling shacks</a>. “What are they doing? The government is trampling on poor people, on homeless people!” one witness said in an interview with El Espectador newspaper. “They gave us no alternatives, like a place to go, a place to live.” </p>
<p>Peñalosa’s slogan is “Bogotá, Better for All.” But <a href="https://colombiareports.com/bogota-mayors-crime-offensive-backfires-human-rights-violation-claims/">all these raids</a> have made <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/05/08/planeta_futuro/1494257631_771774.html">many</a> wonder: Is Bogota really for everyone?</p>
<h2>The right to the city</h2>
<p>This debate about who belongs in cities is longstanding. As the feminist geographer Melissa Wright has written, elite urbanites often equate progress with <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.09402013.x/abstract">the disappearance of particular social groups</a> who, in their eyes, degrade public space. </p>
<p>In 1990s-era New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/11/giul-n23.html">cracked down on “quality of life crimes” like prostitution</a>. More recently, the new mayor of São Paulo, Brazil, João Doria, <a href="https://theconversation.com/at-what-cost-gentrification-sao-paulo-expels-drug-users-and-razes-buildings-to-revitalise-crackland-78831">razed a major downtown crack scene and homeless encampment</a>.</p>
<p>Such efforts, sometimes called <a href="http://lasillavacia.com/historia/el-experimento-de-penalosa-para-reducir-homicidios-59007">broken windows policing</a>, reflect a <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/11/01/500104506/broken-windows-policing-and-the-origins-of-stop-and-frisk-and-how-it-went-wrong">belief</a> that, to improve safety and urban progress, “undesirable” people and low-level crimes must disappear. </p>
<p>In Brazil, the constitution recognizes the citizenry’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663907076529">right to the city</a>, so several city agencies have <a href="http://justificando.cartacapital.com.br/2017/05/25/em-nota-associacao-de-juizes-repudia-politica-higienista-de-doria-na-cracolandia/">questioned</a> the legality of Doria’s raids.</p>
<p>Colombians have no such constitutional right, and data measuring Bogota’s <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/multimedia/especiales/cifras-sobre-los-habitantes-de-calle-e-indigentes-en-colombia/16774657/1/index.html">homeless population</a> are out-of-date and <a href="http://www.bogota.gov.co/temas-de-ciudad/integracion-social/a-comienzos-de-2018-se-entregaran-resultados-del-censo-de-habitante-de-calle-en-bogot">incomplete</a> (a <a href="http://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/actualidad-dane/4242-censo-de-habitantes-de-calle-en-bogota-iniciara-en-octubre">census of street dwellers</a> is scheduled to begin in October). </p>
<p>People living on the streets of the capital routinely face <a href="http://www.tandfebooks.com/action/showBook?doi=10.4324%2F9781315797915&">harassment and police aggression</a>. The Cartuchito and Bronx raids drove homeless residents and sex workers from the ollas, where most Bogota residents never saw them, and scattered them (as well as <a href="http://www.ideaspaz.org/publications/posts/1467">the criminals who operated in the ollas</a>) throughout this city of eight million. </p>
<p>Many people <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/problemas-en-bogota-por-habitante-de-la-calle-38370">did not welcome their new neighbors</a>, the <a href="https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/components/com_booklibrary/ebooks/dcede2017-53.pdf">majority of whom are active drug users</a>. Locals <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/intervencion-a-habitantes-de-calle-en-barrio-veraguas-34373">filed complaints</a>, and there were reports of <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/bogota/casos-de-envenenamiento-a-habitantes-de-calle-en-bogota-31916">“donated” food being poisoned</a>.</p>
<p>But urbanists and scholars have long recognized the right of every citizen to occupy public space. In a seminal <a href="https://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city">2008 article in the journal The New Left</a>, the geographer David Harvey wrote that this is “one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.” </p>
<p>The right to the city was also a theme of last year’s <a href="http://citiscope.org/habitatIII/news/2016/09/historic-consensus-reached-right-city-new-urban-agenda">United Nations Habitat III conference</a>, which focused on developing a “new urban agenda” for the world.</p>
<p>There’s no quick fix for urban inequality, but there are ways to promote progress in cities while respecting the rights of the most marginalized. Programs that offer social services, <a href="http://canadianharmreduction.com/readmore/facts_crack2.pdf">health care</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395911001332">housing</a> and employment can help transform the lives of drug users. In the meantime, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cities-should-stop-arresting-crack-users-and-help-them-instead-67828">harm reduction services</a> like <a href="https://www.vice.com/es_co/article/vdawpa/as-es-el-centro-de-intercambio-de-jeringas-para-heroinmanos-en-bogot">needle exchange</a> and peer education can reduce risky behaviors.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/components/com_booklibrary/ebooks/dcede2017-53.pdf">report on El Bronx</a> released on Sept. 27 by the University of the Andes’ <a href="https://economia.uniandes.edu.co/centros-de-investigacion/cesed">Center for the Study of Security and Drugs</a>, the researchers consider what state-sponsored treatment options would be legally viable in Colombia and recommend exploring experimental health strategies tailored to the needs of Bogota’s bazuco users.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/03/colombias_controversial_cure_for_coke_addicts_give_them_marijuana.html">Such efforts</a> were starting to get underway in prior mayoral administrations, and from 2012 to 2016 the city operated <a href="http://www.druglawreform.info/en/publications/legislative-reform-series-/item/4212-bogotas-medical-care-centres-for-drug-addicts-camad">mobile health centers for drug users</a> in El Bronx. But Peñalosa quickly <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/bogota/acabaran-los-centros-de-atencion-drogadictos-bogota-articulo-597353">phased out</a> these projects. </p>
<p>Everyone ousted from El Cartuchito, El Bronx, and other “reclaimed” areas share one thing: they are all <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17441692.2016.1141971?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rgph20">street-connected</a>, meaning that their daily activities take place largely in public. In denying such people their right to the city, Bogota officials are essentially denying them their right to exist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Elizabeth Ritterbusch was a co-founder of the organization PARCES in Colombia, which in the past received funding from Open Society Foundations. </span></em></p>Bogota’s mayor wants to make the city ‘better for all,’ but repeated police crackdowns have displaced thousands of homeless Colombians. Are clean streets really more important than human rights?Amy Elizabeth Ritterbusch, Associate Professor, School of Government, Universidad de los Andes Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699392016-12-18T16:04:23Z2016-12-18T16:04:23ZSlum health is not urban health: why we must distinguish between the two<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148849/original/image-20161206-25746-t22o9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Just another day in Nairobi's Kibera slums. Slums are characterised by densely packed settlements with inadequate provision of services.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Noor Khamis</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We live in an urban century. Already more than <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/695_filename_sowp2007_eng.pdf">50% of the global population</a> lives in urban areas. The United Nations estimates that by 2030 <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/695_filename_sowp2007_eng.pdf">five billion</a> of the world’s population of eight billion will be urban. Most of the growth in urban areas is expected to occur in the developing countries of Africa and Asia, continuing a trend seen in the past decade. </p>
<p>Rapid urbanisation in developing countries has been characterised by an accompanying proliferation of slum areas. Cities such as Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are home to some of the world’s largest slum areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has an especially high number of slum inhabitants: <a href="http://www.unfpa.org/urbanization">62% of its urban population</a> lives in slums.</p>
<p>Slums constitute a large part of today’s urban reality and will likely persist as a significant feature in our urban future for decades to come. By 2030, projections indicate that <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)31650-6.pdf">two billion</a> of the global urban population will live in slums, mostly in Africa and Asia. </p>
<p>Despite increased global awareness about the presence and persistence of slums, the health of their inhabitants is a little-studied phenomenon. The health of the urban poor, people with low socio-economic status living in urban areas, is usually conflated with that of slum dwellers. However, health outcomes for these two groups of urban populations often differ given the spatial differences of the areas they live in. </p>
<p>Slums are characterised by densely packed settlements with inadequate provision of services and infrastructure. These include sanitation, water, electricity, waste management and security among others. These conditions expose residents of slum areas to the spread of disease and poor health outcomes that are fuelled by their intimately shared environments. </p>
<h2>Neighbourhood effects</h2>
<p>The mechanism through which densely packed environments affect slum residents’ health is termed neighbourhood effects.</p>
<p>The influence of neighbourhood effects may result in poor health outcomes for slum inhabitants in comparison to non-slum dwellers. Studies done by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) have shown that <a href="http://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ezeh_The_health_problems_of_people_who_live_in_slims_Lancet_2016.pdf">child mortality is higher in slums</a> than in non-slum areas and even in rural regions.</p>
<p>Residents of slums are also likely to <a href="http://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ezeh_The_health_problems_of_people_who_live_in_slims_Lancet_2016.pdf">experience higher rates of undernutrition</a> compared to those from non-slum areas. This may lead to stunted growth and development among children. There tends to be a high transmission rate of infectious diseases in these overcrowded areas because waste collection, water and sanitation are lacking.</p>
<p>However, neighbourhood effects may also exert a positive influence on health outcomes if harnessed appropriately. The high population density of slum areas offers opportunities for economies of scale in the implementation of interventions. This means that benefits arising from interventions can reach a high number of people in slum areas at a relatively low cost. </p>
<p>The existence of neighbourhood effects also means that slum areas can benefit from increasing returns on investments. A good example of this is seen in the <a href="http://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lilford_Improving_the_health_of_people_who_live_in_slums_Lancet2016.pdf">provision of sanitation</a>. As contamination from human waste is progressively reduced, the proportion of the slum population experiencing positive health outcomes increases at a faster rate. Where returns on investments in sanitation don’t increase, this failure may be attributed to the small scale of these interventions which do not take advantage of neighbourhood effects. </p>
<h2>Towards a better understanding of slum health</h2>
<p>The growth of slums is a dynamic process. It’s driven by the entry of migrants from rural areas and other city precincts. It is also driven by conversion of peripheral urban areas into slums and the natural increase from birth and deaths in those areas. The growth may also result from degradation of previously non-slum areas due to deterioration in the provision of urban amenities. Another factor is the growth of smaller towns into large cities without corresponding growth in investments in public infrastructure and amenities. </p>
<p>Efforts to curb slum expansion through the provision of low-cost housing, relocation of inhabitants and restriction of migration have been implemented with mixed success. Slums continue to expand in many developing countries.</p>
<p>More than 800 million people live in slum areas globally. And yet very little is understood about their health vulnerabilities. The impacts of neighbourhood effects require closer examination for the design and implementation of more effective interventions. Researchers and policy makers would do well to consider slum health as a distinct study area, based on the spatial differences between slums and non-slum urban areas. </p>
<p>The recently published <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/slum-health">Lancet series</a> on the health of people who live in slums showed this is a topic that has received little attention. A first step in addressing this would be the identification and inclusion of slums during censuses. This means that urban areas should include the category of “slums” during classification of census enumeration areas. </p>
<p>Some countries, such as Kenya and Bangladesh, already distinguish between slum and non-slum areas. <a href="http://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ezeh_The_health_problems_of_people_who_live_in_slims_Lancet_2016.pdf">Data from the two countries</a> confirm that health outcomes for urban inhabitants of slum and non-slum areas differ in many ways. Other developing countries would do well to adopt this approach as their urban areas and slum populations grow.</p>
<h2>New era presents an opportunity</h2>
<p>The world has embarked on the journey towards attaining <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/">Sustainable Development Goal Eleven</a>. It calls for inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities. This new era presents the opportunity to better understand slum areas as part of our urban reality.</p>
<p>Examining slum health, as a distinct subject that is separate from poverty and health, will help in the development of interventions that address the unique challenges to health arising from the shared neighbourhoods of these densely inhabited urban environments.</p>
<p><em>This article is based on the <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/slum-health">Lancet Series</a> on the health of people who live in slums, published in October 2016. Mwangi Chege, the policy engagement manager at APHRC, also contributed to this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite increased global awareness about poor conditions in slums, the health of their inhabitants is a little studied phenomenon.Alex Ezeh, Executive Director, African Population and Health Research CenterBlessing Mberu, Head of Urbanisation and Wellbeing, African Population and Health Research Center, African Population and Health Research CenterTilahun Haregu, Associate Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research CenterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672082016-10-25T06:12:48Z2016-10-25T06:12:48ZIs this the end of slum upgrading in Brazil?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142032/original/image-20161017-12418-k43htv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's favelas are famous, but so are its ambitious efforts to bring roads, water, electricity, and land rights to its informal urban settlements. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eflon/4404716468/in/photolist-7HejKo-e4K2Sk-e4QDS7-4KN9xj-6fcLM6-7V1PRy-92DKEA-qY8mfT-yCswq-92DKuL-zcRQ-5gcG-a2G7ob-6gkdZQ-e4K5Rr-5wGem7-4rLkD1-e4QmFQ-x2jXD-e4K55r-6giKuq-e4JLjn-e4QEEu-5Xeo2k-7VhRir-77HkBB-e4QAPo-5QgMvU-5QgL3s-e4JS8t-92DKKN-84kUAe-4AMfB3-e4Jv1R-ej9Jb8-e4JujF-5Us62f-e4JQPB-8r8cuD-e4JxaB-cuEssA-5Qcw4r-LvF8G-9BKoJr-4pbx1V-5UnHFF-7XR2NK-92ADxD-aEtMgN-92ABiZ">eflon/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Brazil’s ongoing economic and political drama, one of the latest developments is a congressional proposal to freeze federal funds at 2016 levels, adjusting the 2017 national budget only for inflation. This move would mean deep cuts to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/a-camara-votara-na-pec-241-que-obrigaria-cortes-drasticas-por-20-anos-sem-ouvir-especialistas/">spending on social programnes</a>.</p>
<p>Though such reductions would affect programmes that <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/Slum-Upgrading-Lessons-from-Brazil.pdf">launched millions of Brazilians into the middle class</a> and put the developing country <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/2015-un-millennium-development-goals-brazil-hits-target-others-failing-poverty-education-1467208">on track to meet</a> many of the <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/">Millennium Development Goals</a>, the senate seems likely to approve the budget freeze. </p>
<p>For Brazilian cities, this government belt-tightening promises a disquieting change: the possible end of the country’s <a href="http://www.iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2012-09-05/slum-upgrading-lessons-learned-in-brazil,10096.html">ambitious slum-upgrading programs</a>. Despite Brazil’s great wealth, many poor neighbourhoods known as <em>favelas</em> (slums or “informal settlements” in urban planning parlance) still struggle with inadequate construction quality, no sanitation, environmental risk factors and lack of the most basic infrastructure. </p>
<h2>The peripheral city</h2>
<p>In the past, the country has approached its slums in various ways, including razing them and displacing the residents. The focus on upgrading started in the late 1980s, aided by a new constitution in 1988 that included <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=25334">housing</a> as a right, alongside health, food, and education. The constitution also put the responsibility for urban development – meaning housing, sanitation and transportation – squarely in government hands. </p>
<p>This strategy replaced a century of mass displacement of poor people, from the “city beautification” movements of the early 20th century to real estate speculation in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1980s, the military government enforced <a href="http://www.observatoriodasmetropoles.net/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=442%3Aditadura-militar-e-favelas-estigma-ao-debate-sobre-a-cidade-1969-1973&Itemid=165&lang=pt">massive evictions</a> of poor residents living in valuable areas of the city. </p>
<p>As shantytowns were bulldozed to make way for high-end developments, poor people were forced to move increasingly far away from cities’ commercial centres. Today, Brazilian slums are most commonly found in the <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/CA_Images/CityStatuteofBrazil_English_Ch1.pdf">urban periphery</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to pushing the poor to the outskirts, such measures encouraged the sudden creation of entirely new neighbourhoods within cities. For example, Rio de Janeiro’s <a href="http://www.aldiadallas.com/2016/08/10/conoce-la-favela-ciudad-de-dios-en-rio-de-janeiro/">City of God</a>, <a href="http://www.revistadehistoria.com.br/secao/capa/cidade-de-deus-e-condominio-do-diabo">once so violent</a> it inspired a <a href="http://www.miramax.com/movie/city-of-god/">film</a> of the same name, dates back to 1960s removal policies that pushed out residents from 63 slums in the city’s southern zone – today the wealthiest part of Rio.</p>
<h2>Brazil’s urban reform movement</h2>
<p>By the late 1980s, cities were trying new strategies. Pushed by the powerful urban social movements of Brazil’s early democratic period and bolstered by the 1988 constitution, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Recife, among others, began to implement affordable and modest step-by-step upgrades to slums in partnership with residents. </p>
<p>They addressed the critical question of land tenure for those who’d built their homes on public land with <a href="http://www.ambitojuridico.com.br/site/index.php?n_link=revista_artigos_leitura&artigo_id=6570">Certificates of Real Right to Use</a>, which fell short of a title but recognised the slum-dwellers’ right to occupy. Cities also created new zoning laws that designated some neighbourhoods as having a “<a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00959913">special social interest</a>” – meaning, they must stay affordable for people in the lowest income brackets. </p>
<p>Feeling safe from the threat of eviction for the first time, locals began to invest in their homes, replacing precarious tin shanties with larger and higher-quality constructions. They opened small businesses in their neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>In 2001, the new <a href="http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/CA_Images/CityStatuteofBrazil_English_Ch6.pdf">City Statute</a> gave local governments a federal mandate to create concrete legal tools to address the problem of “irregular” urban property. Low economic growth and rising unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s had spurred more people to settle in slums; population density of Brazil’s informal settlements was now between <a href="http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/16/16137/tde-27042010-151732/pt-br.php">500 and 2,000 inhabitants per hectare </a>. </p>
<p>The problems facing these neighbourhoods had also become <a href="http://unhabitat.org/books/sao-paulo-a-tale-of-two-cities-2/">more complex</a>, and upgrading would require significant physical reworking of the area. These included building drainage, widening roads, building green spaces, and the like, all of which required more funding, generally obtained from international donors.</p>
<p>Successful examples such as <a href="http://www0.rio.rj.gov.br/habitacao/favela_bairro.htm">Favela Bairro</a> in Rio de Janeiro, are from this period. There, using funds from the <a href="http://www.iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2012-09-05/slum-upgrading-lessons-learned-in-brazil,10096.html">International Development Bank</a>, the city constructed a sewage system, implemented environmental risk control, channelled streams, and created parks.</p>
<h2>Federally funded slum upgrades</h2>
<p>Eventually, the government designated federal resources to help Brazilian cities fix up their slums, in the form of the <a href="http://www.pac.gov.br">Growth Acceleration Program</a> (PAC, in its Portuguese acronym). This is the program now endangered by budget cuts. </p>
<p>In 2007, 20.7 billion reals (approximately US$10 billion) in PAC funds supported <a href="http://www.rc21.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/D4-Petrarolli-Moretti.pdf">3,113 housing interventions</a>, including for cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants – a rarity, since Brazilian housing policy generally focuses on large cities. In 2010, a second <a href="http://pac.gov.br/sobre-o-pac/apresentacoes">PAC</a> allocated 17 billion reals for 415 projects, targeted at larger cities in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.</p>
<p>The PAC put slums <a href="http://www.ipea.gov.br/agencia/images/stories/PDFs/TDs/td_2174.pdf">at the centre of federal housing policy</a>. This focus has been decreasing since 2009, when the government launched its subsisided home-ownership program, <em>Minha Casa Minha Vida</em> (“My Home, My Life
”), but not since the 1980s has the future of poor urban neighbourhoods been so unclear. </p>
<h2>Exclusion upon exclusion</h2>
<p>This uncertainty is particularly concerning given the relationship between poverty, race and informal settlements in Brazil. Many slums originated after abolition in 1888, when freed slaves began to build their own homes the only way they could afford: constructing shacks in overlooked urban areas with less threat of eviction. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/rio-450-anos/noticia/2015/01/conheca-historia-da-1-favela-do-rio-criada-ha-quase-120-anos.html">oldest <em>favela</em></a> in Rio de Janeiro, <em>Morro da Providência</em>, was founded in 1905 on an unbuilt swath of the city bordered by factories, graveyards, and railroad tracks. Today, its population is still largely black and brown, and its problems have grown from insufficient infrastructure to serious gang-related violence.</p>
<p>Black and mixed-race people still make up the majority of residents in Brazil’s informal settlements. <a href="http://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=25311">New maps of Rio</a> reveal that the iconic beachside neighbourhoods of the city’s wealthy southern zone are 80% to 90% white, while people of colour live in the poorer north and west zones, with the highest concentration in <em>favelas</em>. The <a href="http://bit.ly/1PosJKu">project</a> was undertaken by a geography student and based on US maps that show how poverty, race and neighbourhood correlate in that country. </p>
<h2>Complicated times and an uncertain future</h2>
<p>Brazil’s current economic hardship and rising unemployment have sent more families to live in slum conditions, and more cities now have informal settlements than in previous decades. The latest census data show that (<a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">26.5% of Brazilian households</a>), or 13 million citizens, lack basic infrastructure.</p>
<p>Poor neighbourhoods are also <a href="http://portalgeo.rio.rj.gov.br/estudoscariocas/download%5C3190_FavelasnacidadedoRiodeJaneiro_Censo_2010.PDF">growing denser</a>. This reflects, in part, the difficulty that poor people face in finding urban housing, thanks to skyrocketing real estate prices (a relic of the country’s boom years). In São Paulo alone, the city <a href="http://www.habitasampa.inf.br/files/CadernoPMH.pdf">estimates</a> that it would need to construct 368,731 new homes to be able to fill its housing gap. There, some 811,377 households lack one or more basic urban service like drainage or sewage. </p>
<p>Thus, the slums are “<a href="http://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/stories/PDFs/livros/livros/160718_caracterizacao_tipologia_cap03.pdf">swelling</a>”. Their area does not increase, but the population does. Buildings are growing taller, making upgrades harder. </p>
<p>Even after 30-plus years of upgrading efforts, today, in some municipalities, <a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">nearly half of households</a> still lack basic infrastructure. Waste treatment and removal remains the <a href="http://www.fjp.mg.gov.br/index.php/docman/cei/informativos-cei-eventuais/634-deficit-habitacional-06-09-2016/file">greatest challenge</a>. And the poorest slums are situated in unsafe locations such as steep hillsides or flood zones, areas heavily impacted by climate change. This has caused dramatic <a href="http://www.anppas.org.br/encontro4/cd/ARQUIVOS/GT11-510-219-20080510105031.pdf">loss of life and physical property</a>. </p>
<p>Urban poverty isn’t just a problem for the people who live in such conditions: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/brazil-rich-zika-virus-poor">epidemics such as dengue and Zika</a> are attributed to the precarious urban-environmental context of Brazilian cities. </p>
<p>If Brazil moves forward with its proposed budget cuts, there is little hope that Brazilian urban households will overcome their challenges in the next two decades. The country can ill afford such savings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Rodrigues Samora has received funding from the Sao Paulo Research Foudation for her research.</span></em></p>For decades, Brazil has worked to improve conditions in its poorest neighbourhoods: building roads, drainage, lighting, and safer housing. Will budget cuts end its ambitious slum-upgrading efforts?Patricia Rodrigues Samora, Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of CampinasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641532016-08-25T01:41:39Z2016-08-25T01:41:39ZWhy 100 years without slum housing in Australia is coming to an end<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135236/original/image-20160824-30209-yw5dhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The rear of 30-32 Oxford Street, an area of Sydney affected by an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stables_in_Paddington,_Sydney_1900_(3100790867).jpg">Wikimedia/NSW State Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Truth be told, most Australians live in good housing. This is good news for all of us because our housing is a major determinant of our health and wellbeing. But our very recent <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10852352.2016.1197714">research findings</a>, published this month in the Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, and the lessons of history tell us this good news story is at risk.</p>
<p>Ideally, housing provides us with the secure, comfortable shelter that people and their families need to live healthy, productive lives. In general, we have a modern housing stock with good heating and cooling, few major structural problems and few problems with damp and mould. By contrast, bad housing makes it much more likely you will get sick and stay sick once ill. </p>
<p>In Australia’s early years, much of the housing stock was of poor quality, often overcrowded, and posed real risks to people’s health. Slums were common in the inner parts of the major cities and in many country towns. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AoYxCZiqAik?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Scenes from the Fitzroy slums in Melbourne in the early 20th century.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As late as 1915 <a href="https://www.emknowledge.org.au/resource/194/1900/epidemic---bubonic-plague-australia-wide-1900-1925">bubonic plague was a reality</a> in the poorer parts of our cities and other contagious diseases remained an ever-present risk. Numerous letters to the editor documented a real social concern with the housing standards of the poor. </p>
<p>Government intervention, economic prosperity and tenancy laws all improved housing conditions across Australia. Within a century Australia was defined by good housing and high rates of home ownership. The nation <a href="http://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/such-was-life/the-slums-of-melbourne/">saw off the last of its slums</a> in the late 1940s.</p>
<p>Now the same conditions that gave rise to substandard housing in the 19th century are returning in the 21st, with a likely similar outcome. Recently, the Reserve Bank governor acknowledged young Australians <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/rba-chief-glenn-stevens-says-children-need-help-from-parents-to-enter-sydney-property-market-20160816-gqu4wk.html">need their parents’ help</a> to buy a home in Sydney. But most Australians don’t have a wealthy and doting parent to fund them into the house of their dreams. </p>
<p>The alternative is to live in lower-quality housing and to make do with a home that is relatively inaccessible, fundamentally unaffordable or both. </p>
<h2>A million Australians on the housing brink</h2>
<p>The confronting reality is that poor housing conditions are more prevalent in Australia than we think. </p>
<p>We have a sizeable “hidden fraction” of Australians living in poor-quality housing. In particular, many of our most vulnerable have the double disadvantage of also having housing conditions that we might deem as falling below an unacceptable standard.</p>
<p>In one of the few contemporary analyses of this issue, we used the Household Income and Labour Dynamics (<a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/">HILDA</a>) Survey, a national longitudinal dataset, and find compelling evidence of a substantial stock of poor-quality housing in Australia. </p>
<p>The scale of our findings is somewhat surprising: we found almost a million Australians are living in poor or very-poor-quality housing. Within this total, more than 100,000 are residing in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict. </p>
<p>These simple findings are important. They show the existence of a significant (and currently little known) population of individuals living in very poor conditions. At the very least, we need to monitor Australian housing conditions in a systematic way if we are to avoid this problem worsening. </p>
<h2>Harms of poor housing multiply</h2>
<p>Poor-quality housing makes the already disadvantaged even worse off. Younger people, people with disabilities and ill health, those with low incomes, those without full-time (or any) employment, Indigenous people and renters are much more likely to be found in the emerging slums of 21st-century Australia.</p>
<p>Importantly, many of these groups are already disadvantaged and (most probably) have a pressing need for housing that improves or supports their health and wellbeing. People with an existing illness or disability, for example, are almost twice as likely to live in dwellings in very poor condition as people without a disability or illness.</p>
<p>These findings about the size and uneven distribution of the problem should force us to ask what effects poor-quality housing has on people – on their mental, physical and general health? It is clear from our analysis that such housing has measurable impacts on mental, physical and general health. This impact is large enough to be statistically significant.</p>
<p>Given the time it takes to reform policy and plan for our cities and regions, Australia urgently needs to face up to the dismal reality that once again many Australians are living in housing not fit for habitation. </p>
<p>Governments must take steps to ensure the supply of affordable housing of reasonable quality. Otherwise, we are destined to become a nation scarred once again by slums, reduced life chances and shortened lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Baker receives funding from the Australian Research Council </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Beer receives research funding from the Australian Research Council, local governments, not-for-profits working the aged care sector and has received funding from the Wyatt Trust. He is a Fellow and member of the Research Advisory Committee of the Regional Australia Institute, the Chair of the SA Government's Homelessness Strategic Group, a member of the Board of Shelter SA, the Chair of the Regional Studies Association and an Adjunct at the University of Adelaide. Andrew Beer also serves on the Advisory Panel of the Local Government Research and Development Scheme. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Bentley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>New research finds almost a million Australians are living in poor or very poor-quality housing, with more than 100,000 in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.Emma Baker, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of AdelaideAndrew Beer, Dean, Research and Innovation, University of South AustraliaRebecca Bentley, Associate Professor, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/614152016-07-26T04:51:23Z2016-07-26T04:51:23ZIn Rio’s bulldozed favelas, echoes of America’s shantytowns<p>The 500,000 tourists expected to attend the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will see a dazzling city, miles of sparkling beaches and an Olympic Park with nine venues, all presided over by the towering statue of Christ the Redeemer gazing down from Mount Corcovado. </p>
<p>But another, equally famous feature of Rio – its miles and miles of vibrant, urban slums known as <em>favelas</em> – won’t be on display. That’s because the Rio city government <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/6/27/12026098/rio-olympics-2016-removals-eviction">has spent months evicting</a> residents, demolishing their shacks and constructing miles of roadside walls to hide the shantytowns from view of arriving Olympic visitors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131663/original/image-20160722-26835-1ql038z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha favela.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/1_rocinha_favela_closeup.JPG/1280px-1_rocinha_favela_closeup.JPG">chensiyuan/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rio isn’t the only world-class city to hide or dismantle its shantytowns; poor people are considered unsightly wherever they go, and cities regularly exercise their power to expunge homemade shacks from the landscape. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-riots-idUSKCN0YF118">Demolitions of a shantytown</a> north of the South African capital, Pretoria, sparked riots earlier this year. Many <em>bidonvilles</em> in France – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/29/french-authorities-begin-clearance-of-part-of-calais-jungle-camp">most recently in Calais</a> – have been demolished in the name of public safety and order. In 2008, <a href="http://observers.france24.com/en/20100312-ones-got-left-behind-kigali-demolished-shantytown-expropriation-kiyovu">the Rwandan government bulldozed</a> the last remaining shantytown in its capital, Kigali.</p>
<p>The United States is no exception. Many think of shantytowns as a problem of the developing world. But America has its own untold history of shantytowns, which I detail in my recent book, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660458">“Shantytown USA: Forgotten Landscapes of the Working Poor</a>.” </p>
<p>While some persist today in the form of trailer parks and homeless encampments, their heyday was from the 1820s through the 1940s, when they peppered the nation, providing housing for the working poor, unemployed and destitute. But as in Rio, U.S. policymakers who claimed to be improving the lives of residents ended up dislodging most of these self-made, ramshackle communities that were, in many ways, havens for the poor.</p>
<h2>Vast, thriving communities</h2>
<p>In my book, I define shantytowns as communities of single-family dwellings built by poor working people for themselves from materials at hand. This separates them from housing built for poor people by others, like government-funded housing projects.</p>
<p>It’s hard to get a sense of what shantytown residents thought of themselves, but popular 19th-century songs and plays suggest that they saw shantytowns as symbols of hospitality, resourcefulness and self-determination.</p>
<p>Take “The Irishman’s Shanty,” a popular song from 1859 that reflects feelings of freedom and independence:</p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Did you ever go into an Irishman's shanty?
Ah! there boys you’ll find the whiskey so plenty,
With a pipe in his mouth there sits Paddy so free,
No King in his palace is prouder than he.
</code></pre>
<p></p><p></p>
<p>Workers who built shantytowns often designed small single-family homes with yards, porches and picket fences. Roads and pathways in shantytowns meandered, dipped and climbed in accordance with the topography, making them difficult for outsiders to traverse. This unpredictable design – which I call “oppositional planning” – made shantytowns areas of privacy and protection, places where dwellers could more easily move about freely and enjoy a measure of self-governance. </p>
<p>Shantytowns were also places of work: dairies, laundries, market gardens and hauling services operated within the communities. Residents belonged to churches, voted and went to court to protect their property rights.</p>
<p>The dwellings themselves varied considerably, from mud huts and teepee-like “pole shanties” in the 18th century to log and wood structures in the 19th, often (but not always) built by immigrants or African-Americans. They were usually located in low and swampy or high and rocky areas near owners’ workplaces. Surprisingly, shanty dwellers were not necessarily squatters: Many if not most 19th-century shantytown dwellers paid ground rent for the land where their shanties sat. </p>
<p>In the 20th century, the forces behind the development of shantytowns shifted a bit. The Great Depression rendered thousands jobless and homeless; left to their own devices, these people built shacks out of corrugated tin, linoleum, cardboard boxes and automobile parts. Called <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/depwwii/depress/hoovers.html">Hoovervilles</a> (after sitting President Herbert Hoover), these shantytowns were covered extensively by the media. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131658/original/image-20160722-26817-okuryr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the Great Depression, shantytowns – dubbed Hoovervilles – began appearing in many urban areas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Huts_and_unemployed_in_West_Houston_and_Mercer_St_by_Berenice_Abbott_in_Manhattan_in_1935.jpg">Berenice Abbott/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The view from above</h2>
<p>Initially, America’s middle and upper classes viewed shantytowns as a necessary – albeit temporary – condition of rapid industrial growth in the 19th century.</p>
<p>But poor laborers did not always move on. Those who remained, and the new arrivals who joined them, created shantytowns that lasted for decades in cities like New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. These self-built communities covered large swaths of major cities, including a 20-block stretch of Eighth Avenue in New York City, much of the Brooklyn waterfront and what is now Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>In a nation busily writing building codes and standardizing housing forms, shantytowns came to be considered civic embarrassments, impediments to progress and barriers to the beautification of America’s great cities – the same cities shantytown inhabitants helped to build.</p>
<p>Their dogged insistence on staying put annoyed and frightened their better-heeled neighbors. Middle-class observers often thought of shantytowns as slothful, depraved “dens of vice and wretchedness.” Newspapers and magazines depicted them as breeding grounds for crime and violence, places that were “foreign,” uncivilized, even bestial. There were bursts of nostalgia in the 1880s (an article in Scribner’s praised their “disreputable freedom”) and again in the 1930s, when movies like “Sullivan’s Travels” and “My Man Godfrey” championed the common man. But in general, the middle class denigrated shantytowns and shanty dwellers as “un-American.” </p>
<h2>Clearing the slums</h2>
<p>Shantytowns didn’t disappear after the Great Depression, but tightening zoning and building codes, combined with public housing schemes that provided ostensibly better housing for the poor, drastically limited their growth. </p>
<p>In these well-meaning policies, we see the rights and independence of the poor being suppressed. Before, the poor had been able to exercise a measure of control over where they lived; shanties, though modest, were single-family residences that were often located close to where inhabitants worked. Now they were told to navigate bureaucratic hurdles while being shepherded into multifamily apartments located in sections of cities that were often much further from workplaces. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128767/original/image-20160629-15271-2g34wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Squatters of New York.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92522165/">D. E. Wyand; wood engraving in Harper's Weekly, June 26, 1869, p. 412. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because Shantytown residents felt a sense of community as strong as their middle- and upper-class neighbors, they consistently – sometimes violently – resisted attempts to demolish their homes. </p>
<p>The effect could be humorous. On one occasion in 1880, The New York Times reported that a deputy distributing eviction notices along Manhattan’s 81st Street “was seized, and a milk-can, half-filled, was turned over his head like a hat.” Other times the attacks were more serious, like when residents unleashed dogs “kept for the purpose of harassing bailiffs.” </p>
<p>But police were responsible for most of the violence, such as the time a deputy “bound a [resident], carried him to a distance and hitching horses to a cable thrown around the dwelling, dragged it to the ground.” In another instance, a resident who refused to move out was literally dynamited out of his shack. According to The New York Times, “the workmen blasting rock finally approached so near that they were afraid of destroying the lives of the inmates.”</p>
<h2>Same story, different city</h2>
<p>These descriptions from 19th-century American newspapers are quite similar to media reports of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/forced-evictions-vila-autodromo-rio-olympics-protests">forced evictions</a> in Rio in the run-up to this summer’s Olympics. In both cases, poor people tightened their grips on their self-built homes as they squared off against a state that claimed to be committed to improving their lives. </p>
<p>Rio resonates in yet another way with American shantytowns: Residents have repeatedly rejected government offers of “better” housing at sites far removed from their current neighborhoods. </p>
<p>In 1931, residents of a Phoenix shantytown built with “pieces of cartons, old tin, bits of carpet or gunny-sack – anything that can be had” astonished Red Cross workers by refusing offers of better housing. That same year, residents of a Brooklyn shantytown known as Hoover City were asked to explain their preference for shantytown life; they cited a sense of personal freedom,“ independence, and the very practical advantage of living close to work. </p>
<p>Those same values appear to have motivated 20 of the 600 original residents of the Vila Autódromo <em>favela</em> to resist growing government pressure to leave their shantytown next to the site of the Olympic Park. After months of sometimes bloody resistance, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/26/rio-de-janeiro-favela-change-vila-autodromo-favela-olympics">they wrung a promise from the mayor of Rio to rebuild their houses on the same site</a>. </p>
<p>Like their American counterparts decades earlier, Brazilian government officials and private developers have disparaged the poor as a tactic to deny them their rights to the city. Last year, Carlos Carvalho, the Brazilian real estate tycoon who owned much of the land where the Olympic Park was built, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/04/rio-olympic-games-2016-property-developer-carlos-carvalho-barra">touted the "new Rio” that would emerge in advance of the Olympics</a> – a new Rio for “elite [people], of good taste” full of “noble housing, not housing for the poor.”</p>
<p>Early in my research for “Shantytown USA,” I came across the minutes from an 1830s meeting of the Manhattan Board of Assistant Aldermen. Members who had decided to demolish blocks and blocks of downtown shanties all of a sudden wondered: “Where are the poor to go?”</p>
<p>Where indeed, in 19th-century New York City or in 21st-century Rio. In 2016, more than 77,000 <em>favela</em> residents were evicted from their homes to make way for the “new Rio” built for Olympic visitors. Many were rehoused in government-built housing, but not all – <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/brazils-olympic-catastrophe.html?_r=0">and thousands decried the relocation</a>. </p>
<p>Where can the poor go? Given a choice, many choose shantytowns over other available options. Shantytowns are proof of the inability of institutions to keep up with the demand for affordable housing for the poor. But they also express a working-poor vision of community that elevates values of resourcefulness and reinvention over the middle-class fixation on property and profit.</p>
<p>Where should the poor go? If only the answer were up to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Goff receives funding from Smithsonian Institution, ACLS/Mellon, Gilder-Lehrman Institute. </span></em></p>Like Brazil’s favela dwellers, America’s working poor felt a sense of pride and community in their shantytowns – and desperately resisted the powerful interests that sought to demolish them.Lisa Goff, Lecturer of English, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.