Slum (EN)
The Slums of the world: symbol of social inequalities
(edit by Rainer Maria Baratti)
We live in the era of cities, but the process of urbanisation has led to the emergence of slums, multi-faceted places where human rights and access to basic services are not guaranteed. Slums symbolise the deep social inequalities within the world's cities and have become increasingly important. The term 'Slumisation' has now been coined to refer to the costs of urbanisation.
What is a Slum?
A
slum (or bidonville, favelas, barriadas, shantytowns, etc.) is an
urban settlement characterised by overcrowding and poor or informal housing facilities with inadequate access to drinking water and sanitation, as well as poor security of tenure. In other words, when we talk about slums, shantytowns or slum areas, we refer to degraded suburbs that are an expression of urban decay but above all of social injustice. We also speak of
megaslums when slums and squatter communities merge into continuous bands of informal habitation and misery.
Most of the world's slums have developed since the 1960s, but accurate figures are difficult to come by today because slum populations are often deliberately underestimated by the authorities. However, the definition of slums offered focuses on the physical and legal characteristics of the settlement and does not take into account the social dimensions of the phenomenon. From a social perspective, slum dwellers face challenges due to inadequate infrastructure and housing, dangerous locations, social and economic exclusion, as well as violence and insecurity. Therefore,
the significance of slums lies in the risk of creating “spatial poverty traps” resulting in an unacceptable waste of human potential through social, economic and political exclusion.
Terms such as slums or favelas did not originally have a meaning related to the urban environment, as slum simply meant “space” and favela is a small white-flowered shrub common in some South American regions. To these have been added terms such as bidonville (city of bins, a term invented by a French doctor to describe a neighbourhood in Tunis),
Pueblos Jovenes (term used in Peru) and
Villas de emergencia (term used in Argentina) to connote not so much a type of settlement as a general condition of poverty, confusion and lack of rules. Often these terms were coined through nicknames used in a derogatory manner by the classes living in the so-called “uptown”.
Urbanisation and Shifting: two phenomena with the same meaning
In the last two centuries, the process of urbanisation has been rapid and large, leading to the emergence of new
megacities with populations of more than 8 million and
hypercities with more than 20 million inhabitants.
Megacities are defined as a growth pattern whereby as the division of labour and functions increases, the expansion of cities intensifies. Usually,
megacities have a precise geographical or regional unit, but the expansion of cities is creating, especially in developing countries, phenomena known as
extended metropolitan regions, i.e.
interwoven networks, corridors and urban hierarchies between multiple cities. As a result,
urbanisation is understood as a process of transformation taking place along all points of an urban-rural continuum (a tightrope)
in which rural populations migrate and settle in or towards cities. It should be noted, however, that the
costs of today's
urbanisation consist of inequality within cities and between cities of different size and economic specialisation.
We can therefore find a
second meaning of urbanisation by referring to the so-called Slumming process. This phenomenon has mainly involved countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and much of South Asia, where we see
urbanisation without development. Most of today's megacities of the global south show common trends in the process of city extension: a relatively slow growth regime and a sudden acceleration to rapid development in the 1950s and 1960s when rural migrants found refuge in the peripheral slums of the cities.
In general, the
megacities of the global south have common features such as:
1) strong population growth due to immigration and high birth rates; 2) a disorganised urban structure; 3) the formation of large agglomerations; 4) strong inequality in the distribution of wealth. Indeed, we can see that cities such as Kinshasa, Luanda, Khartoum, Dar-es-Salaam, Guayaquil and Lima continue to grow despite the disastrous state of import-substitution industries, downsized public sectors and a downwardly mobile middle class.
Urbanisation in developing countries is increasingly induced by global forces that “expel” people from the countryside. These are forces such as mechanisation of agriculture, food imports, civil wars, drought and industrial scale agribusiness. As a result,
the process of Slumming has become the only means for the poorest sections of the population to provide a partial answer to their needs and to be able to achieve minimum resources. In fact, the choice of housing in developing countries is the result of a difficult calculation of trade-offs between the optimisation of housing costs, the security of home ownership, the quality of shelter, the journey to work and personal safety. Often being located close to the workplace is more important than having a home.
Where are the Slums located? Who lives there? Why were they born?
Rapid urban growth in a context of structural adjustments within states was a recipe for the mass production of Slums. In these areas, "
squatting" such as the possession of land without sale or title,
was allowed by governments to provide free housing to the poorest. However, this form of squatting is rarely free of charge and often in developing countries occupiers find themselves paying bribes to politicians, the underworld or the police to gain access to areas or to avoid forced eviction. To this must be added the cost of using a home without services and far from an urban centre.
Currently,
slums are built on low-value urban land in marginal situations such as floodplains (flat space between the bank of a watercourse and its embankment),
hills, marshes or contaminated industrial land. For example, in Buenos Aires most of the
Villas de emergencia, often occupied by Bolivian and Paraguayan migrants, are located along the banks of the Riò de la Reconquista and Riò de la Matanza. The whole area is characterised by stagnant areas and untreated sewage, and is also overrun by rats, mosquitoes, flies and other insects. This situation poses serious health risks.
The World Social Report 2020 points out that
more than a billion people live in slums while working informally or under exploitative conditions.
Those living in slums are often refugees or internally displaced persons as huge refugee camps have turned into slums on the edge of cities. For example, this is the situation in Gaza, Dadaad in Kenya, Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the four camps in the desert outskirts of Khartoum in Sudan and the Slums above the hills of Kabul in Afghanistan.
The world's 10 biggest slums
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Rocinha is a favela located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro and has the distinction of being the largest slum in the country. Rio de Janeiro is number 34 in the ranking of the world's largest cities with its 2,020 km² and number 20 in the ranking of the world's cities by population with 13,458,075 people. One of the characteristics of Rocinha is that it is located close to wealthy neighbourhoods, marking a deep urban contrast in the landscape and becoming a symbol of the deep social inequality in Brazil.
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Makoko, also known as Black Venice or Venice of Africa, is a shanty town on the outskirts of Lagos. It was founded in the 18th century as a fishing village and consists of houses built on stilts and connected by walkways. The settlement is mainly inhabited by people from Togo and Benin. Lagos is number 76 in the ranking of the world's largest cities with 907 km² and number 16 in the ranking of the world's cities by population with 14,368,332 people.
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Cité Soleil is an extremely poor and densely populated slum located in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince. Until 2007, the area was ruled by a series of gangs, each of which controlled its own sectors. Government control was re-established after a series of stabilisation operations with the cooperation of the United Nations and the local population. Port-au-Prince is number 169 in the world's cities by population with 2,773,553 people.
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Petare is a slum to the east of Caracas. Organised crime and numerous gangs fighting each other create a high rate of armed robberies, kidnappings and murders. The Petare slum is known to be one of the most violent and corrupt areas in the entire city. Caracas is ranked number 158 in the world's cities by population with 2,938,992 people.
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Dharavi è una baraccopoli situata a Mumbai ed è considerato uno dei più grandi slum al mondo e compre un area di 1,7 km². Mumbai è la numero 101 della classifica delle città più estese del mondo con i suoi 546 km² di estensione e la numero 9 della classifica delle città del mondo per popolazione con 20,411,274 persone.
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Khayelitsha is a slum in Cape Town. In the 1950s, South African cities were declared 'white zones' by the government and black people were not allowed to live in the cities, so they moved to the fringes of the cities and built agglomerations like Khayelitsha. The slum grew when apartheid ended in 1994 as thousands of people came to Khayelitsha to find work. Cape Town is number 81 on the list of the world's largest cities with 816 km² and number 85 on the list of the world's largest cities by population with 4,617,560 people.
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Manshiet is one of the slums on the outskirts of Cairo and a reminder that Egypt is one of the poorest Arab countries. Regarded as one of the causes of the January 2011 revolution, poverty has increased due to the economic recession, rising unemployment and low wages. Cairo is number 38 in the ranking of the world's largest cities with 1761 km² and number 7 in the ranking of the world's cities by population with 20,900,604 people.
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At the time of its inception in 1965, Orangi Town was designed as a planned neighbourhood built to house some of the millions of Muslim refugees who left India in 1947 and was located on the edge of the city to provide labour for an industrial district nearby. To date, however, Orangi Town has expanded uncontrollably to accommodate successive waves of migration from Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Karachi is number 71 on the list of the world's largest cities with 945km² and number 11 on the list of the world's largest cities by population with 16,093,786 people.
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Kibera is a slum in the city of Nairobi and consists of 12 villages. Due to the extreme poverty of the settlement, hygiene conditions are critical, and there is a high percentage of people living with HIV. Nairobi is number 100 in the ranking of the world's largest cities with 557 km² and number 82 in the ranking of the world's cities by population with 4,734,881 people.
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Neza-Chalco-Itza is a slum located in the northern suburbs of Mexico City. Until the beginning of the 20th century the area was occupied by Lake Texcoco, then government intervention drained the water and the land was sold to private owners. The government has tried to improve the quality of services within the slum but the situation remains critical. Mexico City is number 32 in the ranking of the world's largest cities with an extension of 2072 km² and number 5 in the ranking of the world's cities by population with 21,782,378 people.
Health risks and the Covid danger in slums
When we talk about the so-called Bidonvilles of the world we are confronted with a variety of cases in terms of property rights and forms of housing which consequently cause very different ways of perceiving their own interest by the people living there. As we have been able to mention also with regard to rights we are faced with a considerable variety of unguaranteed human rights such as the right to health.
For example,
during the health emergency linked to the coronavirus, a global team of experts raised the alarm about the situation in the slums. As we have seen Slums are overcrowded and densely populated areas where there is no adequate ventilation and no health infrastructure and basic services. As a result, informal settlements around the world risk becoming a major reservoir for the transmission of infectious diseases. In India, for example, the authorities have tried from the outset to set up barricades and containment zones, as well as to ensure that anti-covidence regulations are implemented. However, it has been difficult, if not impossible, to ensure social distancing and frequent handwashing within slums. Despite the measures put in place, more than 650 cases and 20 deaths were confirmed in the Dharavi Slum in May 2020.
The issue of slums therefore emerges as an important contemporary challenge, and studying it could offer important programmes of action for poverty reduction.
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