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The 2006 State of the World's Cities report revealed, for the first time, that slum dwellers are just as likely to suffer from hunger and malnutrition as are the rural poor.
"Women living in slums are more exposed to HIV and Aids than any other segment of the population and that child mortality is consistently high even in countries with robust campaigns and programmes to protect child health," said Anna Tibaijuka of the UN-Habitat at its 21st governing council session.
She also said slum formation was growing at the same rate of urban growth.
Probably one of the grittiest issues is unlawful eviction, not because dirty water and infant mortality are less important issues but because eviction is a contributing factor for many other problems. Last year millions of those living in urban slums were evicted forcefully from their homes, thereby furthering urban poverty.
The Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE) was created by UN-Habitat in 2004 to prevent unlawful eviction especially in urban areas.
But even though many governments are signatories to international covenants related to housing rights, the widespread practice of forced eviction works against sustainable urban development.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
State of the World's Slums
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7 comments:
"Many shack dwellers vigorously oppose the description of their communities as 'slums' arguing that this results in them being pathologised and then, often, subject to threats of evictions. Many academics have vigorously criticized UN-Habitat and the World Bank arguing that their 'Cities Without Slums' Campaign has led directly to a massive increase in forced evictions."
oh also look into Abahlali baseMjondolo if you haven't already. even just scanning the wikipedia page has a lot of useful information, and they're totally grassroots- no IO or NGO, but people driven
The UN probably uses "slum" not because they want to see the slums cleared out, but because the severity of the word draws attention to the cause. The campaign against "child soldiers" has worked better than others arguably because they didn't call it "underage fighters" or something less severe like that. They called them "child soldiers" (which on the one hand is *exactly* the issue) but the phrase is not de-sensitized by political correctness.
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/popheadline/312/art7.asp
The slum slogans eventually became the target, namely to eradicate the "slums" by evicting the inhabitants.
Robert Neuwirth talked about the English word "squatter" not sounding particularly nice either.
In other languages words with the same referents sound a lot prettier. The Turkish word for squatting literally means "it happened at night". Whereas in English it sounds like you're about to take a shit on the ground in someone's backyard.
I still use the word "squat" though. But the word "slum" has essentially no good use other than to draw government or activist/volunteer attention.
I think you may be missing the point; the word slum may make rich people/countries consider it a more severe situation, but it may also backlash on the people living there by compelling the government or property owners to evict them and develop the area, so they don't have the shame of a "slum" with all of its negative connotations, in their city. Just having "inner cities" doesn't carry to international stigma that having "slums" does.. and the argument is that this stigma, rather than compelling states to help the people, compels them to push them into even worse, more hidden places.
Obviously I think understating the problem is not a good idea- but I can see how finding a new characterization that has different implications could help trigger sympathy and change without also compelling a negative backlash. Some of the stigmas associated with slums are things like crime, graffiti, violence, lack of rule of law, drugs, etc, whereas a "hooverville" or shantytown or something like that can convey the economic desperation without necessarily suggesting that the people are criminals.
"I think you may be missing the point; the word slum may make rich people/countries consider it a more severe situation, but it may also backlash on the people living there by compelling the government or property owners to evict them and develop the area"
I didn't miss the point. I'm not sure what point you think I missed.
okay nevermind
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