Http://www.theatlantcicities.com/job-and-economy/amazing-endurance-slums/8129
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Sanitary station in Kenya
theguardian.com |
Why do, in the face of rapid urbanization and economic development, do slums persist. This is the question that Richard Florida, in his article for
The Atlantic Cities titled "The Amazing Enurance of Slum," considers for us. Mr. Florida reports that by 2050, the global urban population with rise to 6.25 billion, of that, 5.1 billion people will live in cities in the developing world. Of those 5.1 billion people, about two billion will live in slums. Historically, urbanization and economic development have gone together. However, the experience of the developing nation, in this context, has been mixed. In booming regions such as Beijing and Shanghai, urban growth has been associated with rapid economic development. Throughout the developing world, cities have greater levels of economic productivity in relation to their host countries. Nevertheless, in other situations, urbanization has accompanied low levels of economic growth, something Harvard economist Edward Glaeser refers to as "poor country urbanization."
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Rocinha Slum
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
urbantimes.com |
Richard Florida reports that new research from three MIT economists: doctoral student Benjamin Marx and professors Thomas Stoker and Tavneet Suri, can help us parse out the connections between rapid urbanization, economic growth, and booming slums. "The Economics of Slums in the Developing World," published in the
Journal of Economic Perspectives, analyzes the persistence of economic deprivation in slums. Slums defined as, " impoverished neighborhoods with low levels of human capital, poor housing,cramped living conditions, inadequate infrastructure and public services, and high levels of crime and deprivation." The authors of the study dissect what they call the "modernization theory" of urban poverty, which refers to slums as "temporary phenomena on the path of economic development." They argue that these "areas of depressed public and private investment are self-reinforcing 'poverty traps.'" For the slum dweller and growing cities, slums are neither temporary nor a stop along the road to greater economic opportunity.
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Dharavi Slum
Mumbai, India
blogs.artinfo.com |
Benjamin Marx and professors Thomas Stoker and Tavneet Suri note a general relationship between urbanization and economic development, their close look at cross-country research on the connection between the two and slum growth yields mixed results. The nations that experienced the fastest growth over the past twenty years were also those that managed to significantly reduce the proportion of people living in slum conditions. However, rapid urbanization was frequently NOT associated with improved economic growth, the result of the "push factors" that draw people to cities such as: war, natural disasters, and extreme rural poverty. They refer to this as "growth without growth."
To make their case regarding "heterogeneous experiences" of some of the nations with the biggest slum demographics, Mr. Marx and Professors Stoker and Suri included an excellent graph (see article) which combined the metrics of overall urbanization, the rise in slum population, and economic growth. The countries are listed according to proportional growth or reduction of slum dwellers between 1990 and 2007 shown as solid grey bars. The solid black line charts the overall urban population. Thus the countries where the gap between the space between the bars and the solid line is the greatest (India and Indonesia) demonstrates far more growth in non-slum areas. Whereas in countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, slum growth accounted for nearly all the urban growth during this period. The dotted line charted overall economic growth, measured by percentage increase in the Gross Domestic Product per capita ( divided by ten to fit on the graph).
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Karachi Slum
Karachi, Pakistan
homeless-international.org |
At the opposite end of the graph, countries such as Egypt, Mexico, and Indonesia, where slum populations fell, there were similar levels of GDP growth to slum population countries such as: the Philippines, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The matter is further complicated when we realize that any attempts to deal with these problems have little effect. For example, in 2009 the Indian government announced the creation of an urban investment plan with the bold goal of a "slum-free India" in five years. Two years later, the planned housing development was still in the conception stage, forcing the Committee on Slum Statistics to reconsider its estimates. The results were sobering, even with renewed efforts, by 2017 the country's slum population is expected to grow by twelve percent. Even more disconcerting is that any quality of life improvements could increase the speed of in-migration creating more overcrowding and a cycle of increasing poverty.
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Unidentified African slum
ujenzibora.wordpress.com |
Having said all this, Benjamin Marx and professors Thomas Stoker and Tanveet Suri note that all is not lost, there is hope. The solutions to the vexing problem problems of slums lie in good governance and stable, accountable, transparent institutions. Economic development can happen in poor urban centers with a great combination of policy and intervention. The key to achieving this is the right mix of holistic policies which encourage ownership and investment; improving the quality of life without transferring the benefits to slumlords or exacerbating population growth in these districts. The authors write:
Countries that managed to curb the growth of slums, such as Brazil or Egypt, indeed appear to be those where slum policy relied on a combination of instruments-including efforts to increase the transparency and efficiency of land markets, to improve local governance, to increase public investments massively, and to increase the supply of cheap housing. (Florida, 2014)
The holistic approach, cited by the Mr. Marx and Professors Stoker and Suri, require going beyond better housing and include consideration of how to adjust systems of land ownership, private savings, health, sanitation, and local governance. Genuinely functional cities are far more than groups of people. Functional cities have mechanisms and institutions which improve their productivity. Recent Western history has proven that the development of such institutions and population growth have gone hand-in-hand. Edward Glaeser explained in a recent study, new technology and global food supply have allowed for greater masses of people in less developed areas. The megacities in the developing nations are also home to the fastest growing slum populations, do not possess the strong, accountable, transparent state and market mechanisms to adequately deal with the challenges of a rapidly growing populations.
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Kibera Slum
Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
en.wikipedia.org |
Benjamin Marx and professors Thomas Stoker and Tanveet Suri also point out that even the simplest challenge prevent policy makers and social scientists from thoroughly addressing the issue of slum dwelling. There is a lack of the most basic data and tools needed to measure and understand these continuously poor neighborhoods. The metrics for this data is simply not available. For example, the Kibera Slum in Nairobi, Kenya, the slum population is estimated between 170,000 to over a million. The authors call for a major effort to develop more research and better data designed to quantify and understand the extent and challenges of global slums.
This is important. With global cities expected to rapidly grow, the world needs a major pus aimed at improving the institutions and policies of developing cities. Richard Florida suggests a first step of investment in creating and collecting better data in order to analyze which cities are progressing and which are not. Then, and only then, we can begin the important job of breaking the cycle of urban policy.
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