Slums
Introduction
A Slum refers to informal settlements within urban areas or cities. The informal settlements depict inadequate housing and miserable condition with reference to living standards (Meade p 43). In the slums, numerous individuals seek housing facilities within small living spaces. The slums also lack basic local authority services such as sanitation, collection of waste, water, drainage systems, street lighting, and emergency roads. Most slums also lack schools, hospital, and public places that might offer adequate environment for social amenities. The experience of France illustrates the essence of slums within the modern society (Oberti p 58). Crime and unemployment are on the rise within the slums because of the poor
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Relocation of the residents expresses elements of high economic and social costs with reference to disruptions. The main beneficial aspect of slum upgrading is that the citizens enjoy fundamental right to live under decent conditions. Slums upgrading enables the city to address crucial challenges such as legality and social protection. The act is also essential in encouraging the development of the economy. This is in relation to minimization of the unemployment elements within the urban areas. Upgrading of the slums is also noteworthy in relation to the achievement of quality life. Slum upgrading also aims at reducing the level of criminal activities and unemployment from the economy. The governments need to restructure and change social paradigms in order to maximize the outcome of slum upgrading.
Conclusion
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.
Works Cited
Meade, Eric. "Slums: A Catalyst Bed for Poverty Eradication." Futurist 46.5 (2012): 43-45.
W.L. "The Factors That Create a Slum."
Slums are defined as an area of a city where poor people live and are characterized by bad conditions. Their own homes in three words was said to be “ill-aired, damp and cold” (Document 12). With a quick glance, it would appear that these homes were in an even worse condition than the industries. They were very cramped, dark and sometimes whole families would fit inside one room. Friedrich Engels depicted them in detail, recalling a time when he had visited such a place.
Gentrification systematically displaces the most vulnerable population from their resident communities. It is not matter of relocation for the vulnerable population, but in most instances, the exposure to a more exacerbated disparaging community and shelter source, homelessness and/or, health and behavioral issues. The costs of gentrification is that it displaces the poor and unstable along with small and unique businesses located in the community and replaces them with the wealthy.
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
Some people attracted to living a long time in their communities. As a youth, I’m scared to see one day our cities will be full of homeless people, armed robbers, jobless citizen etc. All this is in the name of gentrification. Gentrification is the way of renovating and improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small business. After the renovation, some people thought that the wealthy people will come and occupy the districts. So the low-income people decided to fight for their community. Nowadays, people who live in their communities for a longer period of time find an interest of staying
The first normative theory that came to mind when watching the situations happening in these slums was the Ethics of Care. The reason being is because one of the principles of ethics of care is to do what is the greater good for others than oneself. The government should try to make some type of relation with these citizens and ask what they think would make their lives easier. When building a relationship with these citizens it gives them a sensation of security and that they are being cared for especially living in the conditions they have. Based on this theory, the government should be worried more of where are these citizens are going to live or finding a solution for these citizens.
The first step taken by the Councils was to carry out Comprehensive Redevelopment. This means demolishing and rebuilding slums. Many slums were removed from areas such as Gorbals, and roads new roads were also built to improve transport links. To re-house all of the people made homeless from the demolishing of the slums, many cheap tower blocks were erected for people to live in. However these came with their own set of new problems.
Gentrification has been a controversial issue both in urban planning and politics primarily due to the displacement of poor people by the rich folks (Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Many individuals have viewed gentrification as an illegal act that should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, another group of people believe that gentrification is the way forward to promoting growth and development. With such contrasting ideas, this paper is going to take a look at gentrification from a positive and negative perspective, its effects, and how it can be prevented or contained. Apart from this, the paper will also address the following questions.
According to Newman (2008), housing of the poor has to allow for economic independence and self-care while providing a safe and adequate place to live. The debate about decent housing alone is sufficient to provide a healthier living environment has its roots in the late 1920s, when the unhealthy environment of the slums was associated with numerous social ills. The hands-on approach of the housing and social service agencies was
Rapid urbanisation has caused a variety of problems, including transport congestion, lack of sufficient homes and living conditions, sanitary and health care issues, and crime. For all these problems, city planners have attempted potential solutions, each with varying degrees of success. Cities including London, Manila and Mumbai have several of the aforementioned problems, and have each tried their own potential solutions. This essay will discuss how successful these schemes have been in resolving these issues.
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
Homeless should not be allowed to set up “shanty towns” anywhere they please. There is no debating that not all homeless are angels, many are in their current position because of lifes of crime, and drug abuse. Homeless coming into our neighborhood and setting up camp is mainly unacceptable for that reason, crime rates, and drugs. Next I personally along with many of my fellow neighbors believe the “shanty town” in our community is an eye sore. Torren up tarps, makeshift lean to’s, and homeless people legs sticking out of the bottom of boxes is ugly, and unsanitary. In our specific case this “shanty town” is set up in the neighborhood park. I don’t wish to send my children there anylonger as I used to love to let them hang out there. As
Due to the progressive development of human societies, their ecological and environmental influence has been steadily increasing. The spatial expansion and higher population and housing density of cities with its multiplier effect on land use and land cover change (LUCC) have been recognized as the most important aspects of cities climate change which is triggered by the need for urban services provision for the influx of human population. The shortages of housing in particular, and other urban services provision is the fundamental cause and effects of development of illegal and informal settlements. With analysis from empirical study in Eldoret town, the study discusses the need for urban land regularization as a requisite to combat the driving forces for formation of informal settlements and its impacts on cities climate. After presenting a series of concepts and definitions related to urban land informality and illegality, standardization and tenure security from the literature, we then discuss the data methods for the study. A detail of the research results focusing on the nature and the impacts of informal and illegal settlement in both the city centre and the hinterlands using the UN-Habitat Slum indicators is presented. We conclude on implication cities’ climate change dynamics
Most urban poor live in various part of slums settlements and work in the informal sector . The location of the poor to resettlement takes them far from area of economic activity in the city, accordingly making it impossible Domestic Workers: Conditions, Rights and Responsibilities for them to try and gain reasonable employment. In this setting, it has been all around reported that the procedure of movement and removal has driven to issues of maintained access to work, instruction, fundamental administrations and medicinal services where women endure the most. Building a house in the resettlement area takes up a huge part of the family 's income . Even they work after migration, living on the migration of the city implies
The process of people moving into cities, which is called urbanisation, was happening around the world in past decades. It causes cities to have more labourers and resources than before. This makes a big contribution to the social development of cities. Thanks to these social developments, public services are becoming better in these areas. Citizens can enjoy a better life by access these public services such as better medical care, more education resources and well-built transport. It means an equitable society can be created. An equitable society means citizens can have more opportunities to access social resources and to live a better life. This essay will argue that
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