Book Review Of Mike Davis's 'Planet Of Slums'

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) define the characteristics of slum housing as nondurable drinking water, insufficient domestic space, lack of drinking water, lack of sanitation, and tenure security. Based on this definition provided by the MDG, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Cuba can be classified as countries that are on track with the reduction of slum housing, for example. On the other hand, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Paraguay are stabilizing. All other Latin American countries and Caribbean countries are at risk or off track (Smith 76). Although Brazil’s condition is stabilizing, there is still a heavy amount of improvement necessary before we can deny the significance of the issue. Sao Paulo is still plagued by the slum houses and the favelas and awareness needs to be constantly shed on this issue. There is still a lot of work to be done and solely because the conditions may seem to be “stabilizing,” it is still not safe to assume that Brazil will be alright. The housing conditions of Brazil need to be more than alright, they have to be more than satisfactory; the conditions need to reach high levels of success so that the cities and the citizens living within will

Presently, low-income occupiers are in deeper poverty because of the dislodgment caused by gentrification. Furthermore, a lack of resources plagues low-incomes families and forces them into shelters. Current actions taken by city officials are a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, by including more voices in urbanization of cities in the future, the advancement of cities can include all members rather than just the wealthy.

The book The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century by Robert Roberts gives an honest account of a village in Manchester in the first 25 years of the 20th century. The title is a reference to a description used by Friedrich Engels to describe the area in his book Conditions of the Working Class. The University of Manchester Press first published Roberts' book in the year 1971. The more recent publication by Penguin Books contains 254 pages, including the appendices. The author gives a firsthand description of the extreme poverty that gripped the area in which he grew up. His unique perspective allows him to accurately describe the self-imposed caste system, the causes and effects of widespread poverty, and the

The author Mike Davis has done countless research on the topic of urban poverty. In his studies he collects and receives his information from other sources. Perhaps this is the reason why he has a negative view on slums. This is illustrated in his piece “Planet of Slums” as he discusses the politics, urban development, and methods within the slums population. According to Davis, slums and urban poverty have and will continue to significantly increase. While doing so, the gap in exclusion and inequality will grow. As a result, this will weaken urban elites in their work to utilize cities as engines of growth. Slums and slum population are classified as those who are living below the poverty lines, all while, being associated with overcrowding, having poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure. This is being recognized as an international phenomenon. To emphasis this phenomenon, approximately half of the slum population in most

Thirteen million refugees and about 100 million immigrants have moved across borders within the last several decades (Potocky-Tripodi 2002). Global changes that have currently occured account for an unprecedented movement of individuals across the world in search of better opportunities and conditions.

In conclusion, Migration is still a big part of our world because young adults will go off and find their way, foreign exchange students migrate from across the world, and people just travel and have to go where the jobs are or just to be close to family.And some people are forced to move like the joads but most now days choose to move. Migrating today is way easier than back in the dust bowl days. Most people do move at least once in their life, so when you do just be glad you don't have to travel like the

In the first part of the article Major Brown discuss development in the world were people constantly are moving into cities. Major Brown explains that the growth of cities and megacities in general will happen in their slums, and that future conflicts will take place were

As city populations rise, wealth inequality also rises. Rich areas become richer and poor areas become poorer. Spreading the wealth sometimes requires takeover and renovation of lower-class

Gentrification is a process in which wealthier people move into an existing urban community. As rent and the price of living goes up, lower income people who cannot afford to live in the community anymore are driven out. Neil Smith, in his essay Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy, argues that gentrification has evolved from an unplanned and haphazard process and into a ‘crucial urban strategy’ that capitalistic urban governments utilize for the convenience of capitalist production.

Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, predicts the direction in which the world’s cities are headed, and how the changes in living conditions are only going to deteriorate if certain trends continue. The title of his book explains Davis’s vision for the future of cities as he feels there is enough evidence pointing towards an exponential rise in slum populations across the world’s largest cities. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on many issues regarding the rapid rise in developing cities’ slum populations, although he offers very one-sided arguments geared towards those who feel the current system is causing more problems rather than improving current conditions. This causes Davis to overlook the problems of slums as resolvable through different modes of assistance such as international aid programs. Instead, he views aid programs as the root cause of imbalance created during industrialization. Throughout the book, Davis presents information that confirms his preconceptions towards the slums. Therefore, all the evidence that is presented by him portrays confirmation bias as Davis fails to mention anything about the resolution of the problem of the growing number of slums and instead sees this problem as unavoidable. Particularly, Davis’ writing, although intended for the general population, is more geared towards critics who have similar ideas. Instead of providing the means through which the economy could be improved and the problem of slums could be resolved, it is

With most urban growth in the developing world concentrated in the squatter settlements, it can be contrasted to the masses of growth received and predicted in developed countries. Numerous factors draw people towards cities such as; better employment and educational opportunities, hospital and health care facilities and overall better living standards. With interconnected challenges constantly arising, many ambitious planning and development schemes are projected to the government. Many inhabitants lack belief in these authorities; hence Roosevelt devised a rule for unrestrained reform, which emphasised, “that undivided power helps to prevent the forces that benefit from the status quo from blocking change” (Glaeser E., 2011). Although often-forceful

“As of 2011, approximately 13% of the U.S population, 40 million people, was born outside of the United States.”. (Winter, 2005). This has caused a big issue for United States given the impact of humans bean will affect the countries. Americans today tend to believed back in 2000’s this has caused a big issue for Japan and European areas because the population has increased over time. Japan and European had no control over the amount of migrants that took land in the area of living. However, it causes a lot of issues with formal residents because the living. Living in Canada allowed the residents to have a valid opinion about migrants resigning in their location.(Winter

The urbanisation is happening because people think that they will be able to get a better job in the city but most of them never reach the city but end up in one of the many slum located around the city where the poverty is way worse than in most rural areas. In this report I am going to show you how we can spend the 10 million pound in the most effective so that we have the most positive impact possible on the people currently living in the Kibera slums.

Urbanization causes financial problems to the overwhelming majority of the people. This is because problems with money are widespread in urban areas. First of all, urbanization leads to the extreme growth of unemployment. For instance, as reported by the International Labour Organization, International unemployment rose to 210 million people in 2010 (David & Vicente 2012, p.154). According to David & Vicente (2012, p.156) vast amounts of unemployment results in human resources not being used efficiently across cities which cause social inequality. This evidence shows that urbanization causes unemployment. Urbanization leads to significant overpopulation in the central cities, which causes high competition and as a result lower job opportunities for most people in the labor market. As businesses and governments cannot produce enough jobs to meet the demand of a fast-growing population, a lot of individuals are faced with a shortage of employment and deprived of a vital source of income. As a result, lack of revenue leads to inequality in society. Secondly, urbanization leads to a lack of affordable housing for the overwhelming majority of urban people. According to Gan (et al., 2017, p.427) in the forthcoming future, the global urban population will reach around 6.3 billion people in 2050, and about 94% of them will be in developing countries. Furthermore, approximately 828 million people from developing countries currently live in inadequate housing and this number will rise

Slums are hindrance to the achievement of economic growth and development. It is the duty of the government to plan effectively towards the achievement of quality life within the cities. Slums contribute towards the presence of criminal activities within the cities and unemployment hence a significant force towards the overall economic development. Upgrading of slums is vital in the process of offering economic, social, institutional, and cultural services to the city dwellers like other citizens.