Transcript McCabe_POSTER - Arizona State University

Slum-dwellers in South Asia & sub-Saharan Africa
Brian McCabe
A Study of Human Vulnerability
Introduction
This poster examines how three global macro processes conflate to
increase the vulnerability of slum dwellers in two of the world’s
poorest and most populated regions. These two regions are South
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Approaching this issue from the
perspective of slum dweller “vulnerability” serves this discussion, in
several ways. To begin with, breaking down global economics,
urbanization, and climate change would be a massive undertaking.
These global processes are all individually complex and require a
comprehensive evaluation and a transdisciplinary assessment of
countless factors. Additionally, there are no known formulae that can
be utilized to universally illuminate the impact of the accretion of
these processes on humanity. It is therefore the goal of this
discussion to examine these issues from the perspective of those who
have been impacted most: the urban slum dwellers from key major
cities in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
In this discussion, I will attempt to argue the following points:
1. How the uneven nature of globalization make the poor in these
regions vulnerable to changing economic conditions.
2. How climate change and local anthropogenic environmental
conditions directly impact the urban slum dweller.
3. How rapid urbanization exacerbates poverty and encourages the
emergence of mega-slums in many of these region’s cities.
What are slums?
According to the United Nations, there are five key indicators that
define an urban settlement as a slum:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Inadequate access to safe water?
Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure?
Poor structural quality of housing?
Is there overcrowding?
Insecure residential status?
Globalization
Urbanization
We often hear that the world is shrinking. This assumption seems
rational from the perspective of an American or European living in a
society where both information and goods and services are readily
accessible. However, from the perspective of over one billion people
living in developing world slums, this is hardly true, at all.
Economic globalization describes a set of processes whereby
production and consumption activities shift from the local or national
scale to the global scale (O’Brien, K., Leichenko, R. 2005). This
process of internationalizing production, services, and consumption
largely benefits “Triad” nations (US-Can, EU, Japan-Korea). South
Asia is home to 22% of all humanity, but only receives 1.1% of world
direct foreign investment. Sub-Saharan Africa, likewise, is home to
10% of humanity, but only receives 1% of direct foreign investment
(World Bank, 2003).
Climate Change
In the 20th century, sea levels rose by and estimated 17 centimeters,
and global mean projections for sea level rise between 1990 and
2080 range from 22 centimeters to 34 centimeters. The lowelevation coastal zone – the continuous area along coastlines that is
less than 10 meters above sea level – represents 2 per cent of the
world’s land area but contains 10 per cent of its total population
and 13 per cent of its urban population (UN Habitat, 2008).
Flooding in Bangladesh
Recently, humanity has experienced an epochal event that very few know
about: more people live it cities than a rural setting, for the first time in
history. But of these urban residents (around 3 billion), one in three is a
slum-dweller living in squalid, unsafe conditions, with minimal or no
public services, access to fresh water, or sanitation. And this number is
growing. In the next 50 years, it is projected that more than 95% of the
net increase in the global population will be in cities of the developing
world, which will approach the 80% urbanization level of most
industrialized nations today (Grimm, Faeth, et al, 2008). By 2015, it is
projected that there will be over 550 cities with populations greater than 1
million (Davis, 2006). Furthermore, the urban make-up varies
significantly from developing to industrial nation. In industrialized
nations, urban poverty (slums) makes up only 6% of the city population,
whereas they constitute a staggering 78.2% of urbanites in the least
developed countries (Davis, 2006). These are sobering statistics for a
very real issue.
Urban Growth Figures
City
1950
2004
Mumbai
2.9 million
19.1 million
Delhi
1.4 million
18.6 million
Dhaka (Bangladesh)
0.4 million
16 million
Karachi
1 million
13.5 million
Kinshasa
0.2 million
8.2 million
Lagos
0.3 million
15 million
Slum Ecology/Typology
In order to better understand slums and their residents, you must be
able to identify what type of land in which slums are located. There
are three different types of slum dwellings:
1. Pirated Urban Land: These slums (example; the Orangi slum of
Karachi with nearly 1 million residents) is land obtained by a cartel
through “peri-legal” negotiations with corrupt city officials. These
cartels, then, provide marginal utilities and residential security in
exchange for rent.
2. Squatter settlements: Low worth or worthless urban land is often
squatted on by the poor. They construct what domiciles they can out
of refuse, but are frequently subjected to natural and anthropogenic
calamities, such as flooding.
3. Dilapidated Urban Housing Stock: In the post-colonial period,
many cities in these regions built marginal, low square footage
housing units to accommodate immigrant urban laborers. In
Mumbai, the chawls, which represent over 70 % of urban housing,
transformed into slum-dwellings.
Ecology/Conclusion
It is difficult to quantify the condition of the slums dweller. They
have little or no access to services, live around enormous
agglomerations of human excrement, and are subjected to both
environmental catastrophe and the impacts of climate change. It can
be argued that urbanization only exacerbates their condition and they
simply try to survive while the world shrinks for the relative few
(explain formula: a – bc = x). However, slum-dwellers, though
increasingly vulnerable to these three macro processes, have learned
to survive and are now beginning to receive the recognition from the
rest of the world that may change their condition, a little at a time.
CHART or PICTURE
Key References
CHART or PICTURE
Bloom, David, et al. 2008. Urbanization and Wealth of Nations. Science 319,
772
UN-Habitat. 2008, Twenty First Session of the Governing Council. Kenya
Slum Upgrade Project.
UN Habitat. 2008, State of World Cities. Africa at a Glance.
UN Habitat. 2008. Twenty First Session of the Governing Council. Past
response & Interventions to Slum Proliferation in Kenya.
UN Habitat. 2008. State of World Cities. Slum households and shelter
deprivations.
O’Brien, K., Leichenko, R. 2005. Double Exposure: Assessing the impacts of
climate change within the context of economic globalization. Global
Environmental Change. Vol. 10 . Pg. 221-232