Slum Development Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The book highlights important urban development issues in Punjab such as urbanisation, slums, housing, poverty, urban governance, development, infrastructure/ services etc and suggests major reforms to improve quality of life in urban... more

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- Urban Geography, Housing in Developing Areas, Poverty, Infrastructure Planning

Burgeoning megacities is one of the fascinating realities of the 21st century global development. A huge chunk of individuals across the cosmos continue to crave for expansion of megacity space. Thus, living in a megacity is nothing short of psychosocial nirvana of many in the 21st century. With the growing appetite for increase in the number of megacities emanates issues of conterminous slumhood, gentrification, poverty, increasing crime rate and general hazards for lives and property. It is pertinent not to view megacity as an isolated phenomenon without considering its indelible flipside – megaslum. This article is devoted to intense analysis of pros and cons of the emergence of megacities using secondary data that were analysed in a triangulated manner. Pictorial data further complemented both theoretical and statistical information related in the work. Thus, using Lagos as an example, this article engaged the use of sociological imagination to x-ray how survival of megacities d...

- by olayinka akanle
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- Popular Culture, Urban Planning, Gentrification, Urban Studies

Drawing from the problem of typology creation in its current forms that can be found mainly in policy papers, Berescu offers a critical overview of some of the ways in which the places where impoverished Roma live are named, then labelled and categorized. The delimitation and counting of extreme poverty areas is a highly contentious issue in itself, but admitting that racial segregation exists is an even more difficult one. This is why official documents tend to circumvent the problem of slums and ghettos in Romania and, to a lesser extent, in Eastern Europe. By analysing the underlying methods and the language of reports and strategies we can comprehend the ways in which new ghettos are formed and concealed, and how they will be governed.

- by Catalin Berescu
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- Poverty, Urban Planning, Urban Studies, Poverty Reduction Strategies

Aqui, trataremos mais especificamente da improvisação do espaço sob o ponto de vista da cultura e do lazer. Ou seja, focaremos na capacidade de transformação, através do uso cultural ou de novos modos de vida, de locais inicialmente pensados para abrigar outras atividades – desocupados, escondido ou desapercebidos em meio à paisagem urbana. Para além da riqueza natural carioca, dos monumentos e de alguns exemplos emblemáticos de arquitetura celebrados como parte essencial do imaginário local, encontram-se estes espaços esquecidos, que configuram “brechas” – vazios urbanos, recortes adjacentes ao traçado viário, estruturas obsoletas, abandonadas ou desocupadas. Um exemplo é o Parque Sitiê na Favela do Vidigal no Rio de Janeiro.

- by Claudia Seldin
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- Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning

Millions of street children in both developed and developing countries are left to survive on their own. They are
ill-treated, half-starved, ruthlessly abused, exposed to the elements of nature, socially deprived and abandoned
and denied affection, education and assistance. Street children often arrive in this dead end with poor health
generally. This accrual, in combination with the inconsiderate circumstances of street life, soon contribute to the
child's lowered immunity, morbidity, ill health and eventually, the child's exposure to health problems. Street
children are one of the new categories of social actors resulting from the rapid urbanisation of cities of the South.
Among the numerous problems they have to face daily, there are also obstacles related to disease and access to
healthcare. This was a qualitative study conducted from late October to November 2014, on the streets and in
market places of Accra. The sample size was fifteen (15) street children selected using a non-random snowball
sampling technique. The findings on the diseases that the street children experience by living and working in the
streets of Accra such as injuries and minor accidents could be due to the nature of their work and the
environment (hawking goods on the busy streets of the city and carrying heavy loads. The findings of the study
indicate that the health conditions of working street children are miserable and majority of the available health
services are out of reach of street children and there are multiple obstacles faced by street children in accessing
health care services. Various strategies should be applied in bringing about a social change, a major one being
“Empowerment”. This can be achieved through activities aimed at providing better economic opportunities
through improved vocational and other skills leading to ‘economic empowerment’ of the child and improved
savings skills.

- by Emil Fiasorgbor and +1
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- Slum Development

This essay elaborates a magical realist reading of urban dispossession and the displacement of slum dwellers in contemporary New Delhi. More generally it argues that realist descriptions of the magical and magical descriptions of the real can help us sense and engage the multiple, fractured temporalities of the postcolonial city. The essay foregrounds an impending slum demolition in postcolonial Delhi’s (in)famous magicians’ ghetto in the heart of the city, excavating a concept of ‘moving slums’ from Salman Rushdie’s classic magical realist text Midnight’s Children. The interpretive concept of ‘moving slums’ describes the precarious temporality of slum demolition and re-settlement in postcolonial Delhi, juxtaposing dominant urbanist ideologies with everyday experiences and narratives of urban change. In societies deeply marked by the historical violence of uneven development, moving slums index the haunted morphology of the postcolonial city.

- by Rohan Kalyan
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- Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, Postcolonial Studies

According to Un-Habitat statistics, by the end of 2008 the number of people living in urban areas exceeded rural population for the first time in human history. In 2013, at least 25% of world population lives in settlements definable as slums.
The title “Scrap Cities” refers to the common perception of slums as subproducts of urbanization that should be removed as soon as possible and at the same time evocates the smart inventiveness of the slum dwellers, capable to rethink public spaces and to recycle all kinds of materials creating original urban patchworks.
In a certain way we can consider slums as the main expression of a purely African “urban way of life”, based on strong social bonds, informal economy, self-organized communities and self-built environment.
An approach to upgrading and development programs that focuses on the environment without involving slum dwellers may cause the demolition of those fragile social bonds, which matter more than a safer environment for the daily life of the residents.
The research focuses on the case study of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, a city founded by British philanthropists in 1789 as home for freed African slaves.
Freetown’s slums have been mapped and analyzed in their main formal elements, giving rise to handbooks that describe all the different typologies of public spaces and housing frames found in the settlements and to collections of all the building technologies, materials and solutions commonly adopted by the dwellers.
Those records led to an approach which refuses the imposition of strategic development plans made by foreign architects or planners.
Practice has shown that slums don’t need “big ideas”: they already contain smart and brilliant solutions, based on low technologies, cheapness and self-building capacity.
The proposed model of improvement tries to set up the conditions for a community-driven micro-planning of the slums, aimed to strengthen self-organization and improve the environmental safety and housing quality without passing through legalization processes or municipality actions.

- by Federico Monica
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- Africa, Sierra Leone, Slum Development, Slums, Favelas, and Shanty-towns

This paper describes the findings of an eight-year study on human health and community engagement in Anjukudisai, and 'objectionable' slum in Chennai. It shows that human behaviour, constrained by socio-economic factors, often leads to ecosystem degradation and frequently causes reactions that jeopardize people's health. Furthermore, institutional structures often prevent holistic integrated thinking and action. Urban health issues are closely linked to both environmental and socio-economic conditions. The impact of environmental degradation is often most severe on the poorest segments of society: slum dwellers, women, children, and the elderly.

- by Martin J Bunch
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- Social Change, Health Promotion, Social epidemiology, Participatory Research
- by Jaap Evert Abrahamse
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- Urban Geography, Urban History, Urban Regeneration, Architectural History
- by Bharat Dahiya and +1
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- Urban Geography, Urbanization in Developing Areas, South Asian Studies, Urban Planning

A truth we know and a truth we don't see: The Past, The Present and The Future

- by Shanto Baksi
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- Urban Planning, Slum Development, Slums Studies, Kolkata

Chandigarh, the first planned city of North-west India saw the growth of slums and segregated growth of the poor settlements in the past. Although Chandigarh has been taking some initiatives to provide housing and basic services to the poor, it was only recently, the city took very drastic steps to enhance the access to housing and basic services to the poor living in segregated settlements. It has implemented an ambitious housing project in the city which has demonstrated positive results. The paper is an effort to highlight how and what kind of efforts have been taken by Chandigarh city to include the excluded by providing housing to the slum dwellers. An effort has also been made to know the perception of the beneficiaries of the housing programme to suggest a suitable strategy for similar initiatives elsewhere.

This paper investigates how slums are made into a tourism attraction. We focus in particular on the role of tour guides and tour guiding operations in this process. In tourism literature in general tour guiding has been subject to much reflection and debate. However, tour guides’ role in enabling tourism in new places, in the making of attractions has not been discussed much. Also, in the emerging research on slum tourism little attention has been given to tour guides and their roles. This paper addresses both research gaps in providing insights into tour guiding in slum tourism, and by addressing the roles of tour guides in attraction-making through a comparative analysis of tourism in two slums, Dharavi, in Mumbai, India, and Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya. Based on empirical research of tour guiding operations we found that different levels of formality in tour guiding co-exist across destinations. Formal tour guiding operations are more successful in establishing a slum as an attraction as they enable significant growth in tourist numbers. However, formal tour guiding operations and strong international participation in their foundation are factors that seem to undermine to some extent the creation of intimate and authentic encounters in tour guiding, preferred by some tourists. This leaves space for more informal tour guiding, with strong local ties, which are better placed to produce intimate experiences.

- by Fabian Frenzel and +1
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- Tourism Studies, Destination Image, Sustainable Tourism, Slum Development

Stefano Portelli è un antropologo, che vive a Roma. L'ho incontrato per la prima volta il 15 agosto 2015 durante la Processione dell'Assunta all'Idroscalo. Uno di quegli incontri in cui la curiosità verso il prossimo scatena quel feeling... more

The last two decades have witnessed momentous shifts in the policies of urban development in India. For instance, the earlier policies of 'slum removal', 'slum relocation', and 'slum resettlement' have, in theory, been remodelled as in-situ redevelopment and in-situ up-gradation. This shift corresponds to similar policy changes in many other countries of the global south, notably in Latin America, South Asia and Africa which underwent transition to a neo-liberal model of urban redevelopment. This shift was largely guided by the dominant international discourse advocating the 'formalising of informal' and 'legalising of illegal'. With respect to the housing for urban poor, it translates into providing them with security of tenure and ownership rights. In India, the 'Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission' (JNNURM) was launched by the UPA government as a key driver to push the neo-liberal agenda of creating slum free cities in 2009 which was reintroduced by the NDA government in 2014, with a new nomenclature, the 'Smart City Mission'. In 2008, a flagship housing scheme, viz., the Rajiv Ratn Awas Yojna (RRAY) was pre-launched under the aegis of JNNURM with the explicit purpose of rehabilitating the slum dwellers in Delhi. Based on a long ethnographic study and 'right to the city' perspective (Harvey, 1982 and Lefebvre 1991), my paper narrates the experiences of the beneficiaries of this housing scheme, resettled at Bawana Industrial District on the North West periphery of Delhi. It also, revisits Delhi's slum rehabilitation policy timeline to contextualise these experiences in a state sponsored neoliberal urban regime. The paper, thus, deconstructs the 'myth' of rehabilitation in the urban planning and policy discourse.

- by Kulwinder Kaur
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- Urban Planning, Urban Studies, Slum Development, Urban Sociology

Slum tourism has become extremely popular in the 21 st century. It is mostly prominent in developing countries across the globe, however in Mumbai it is still a relatively new industry. With its escalating use, slum tourism has generated a heated and critical debate especially concerning ethics. However, scholarly research on slum tourism remains limited and fragmented, especially in Mumbai. With this, very often the community which is directly impacted by slum tourism rarely get to voice their opinions in the debate. Therefore, in collaboration with and specifically looking at Reality Tours and Travel and its affiliated NGO Reality Gives, this report will provide a valuable contribution and analysis into the perceptions of the Dharavi community using a qualitative empirical approach.

- by Rudra Rhodes
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- Entrepreneurship, Tourism Studies, Development Studies, Poverty

Pada latar belakang sebagaimana yang ada didalam kerangka acuan kerja (KAK), pada paragraf pertama disampaikan bahwa hal penting dilakukannya pekerjaan ini adalah adanya amanat dari blue book 2015-2019 Kementerian PUPR yang memuat empat kegiatan dan satu diantaranya adalah kegiatan Regency Infrastructure Development (RSID).
Pada paragraf kedua, terlihat PPK menguatkan substansi pada paragraf pertama dengan pernyataan bahwa slum area atau kawasan kumuh di perdesaan diakibatkan oleh karena kemiskinan, keterbatasan lapangan pekerjaan, tingkat fertilitas yang tinggi, kualitas dan kuantitas infrastruktur yang buruk, sarana sosial, ekonomi, pendidikan, dan kesehatan yang buruk sehingga berdampak pada kualitas permukiman menjadi kumuh berat.
Pada paragraf ketiga, PPK memberitahukan bahwa kementerian pekerjaan umum dan perumahan rakyat telah menjalankan program kegiatan penanganan infrastruktur perdesaan sebagai upaya untuk mengentaskan kawasan permukiman kumuh perdesaan menjadi layak huni dan berkelanjutan dan keluar dari status kumuh berat/sedang/ringan. Kegiatan pemerintah tersebut berupa membangun infrastruktur pedesaan pada kawasan dan membangun konektifitas antar pusat-pusat pertumbuhan wilayah sekitar sehingga menjadi terbuka dan terhubung dan terjadi interaksi sosial dan ekonomi yang lebih luas. Tidak ke kawasan perkotaan, tetapi konektivitas kepada kawasan peri-peri sekitarnya. Keterhubungan ini diharapkan dapat membentuk keterkaitan ekonomi, sosial dan budaya yang kuat sehingga tidak ada tarikan yang kuat kepada wilayah perkotaan.
Pada paragraf keempat, terlihat lebih kuat dan mantap pernyataan dari PPK yang menyatakan bahwa program RSID adalah program intervensi pemerintah pusat untuk membendung arus urbanisasi ke pusat kota karena kemudahan aksesibilitas dan ‘giur’ kesempatan kerja yang cepat dan mudah sehingga berdampak pada lemahnya posisi kawasan pedesaan atau KSK dan Peri-KSK terhadap Perkotaan/Pusat Kota. Program membendung urbanisasi ini dilakukan melalui intervensi langsung pada permukiman kumuh perdesaan dengan cara membangun infrastruktur dasar sebagaimana yang diatur didalam komponen program kegiatan PISEW-RISE.
Pada paragraf kelima terlihat bahwa ada amanat yang disampaikan oleh PPK bahwa desain program RSID harus lengkap memuat: ruang lingkup program, seluruh persiapan pelaksanaan, Operation and Effect Indicators (OEI), komponen program, pedoman umum sebagai dasar pelaksanaan program, mekanisme monitoring dan evaluasi, mekanisme pengelolaan pengamanan konstruksi, mekanisme sosialisasi dan publikasi program, mekanisme peningkatan kapasitas pemerintah daerah dan pelaku program, penyusunan jadwal pelaksanaan program, identifikasi kualifikasi tenaga ahli sesuai dengan lingkup pekerjaan pelaksanaan program dan prosedur seleksi konsultan, dan mekanisme pelaporan Program serta profil lokasi sasaran program per tahun pelaksanaan diperlukan untuk diidentifikasi dan ditetapkan berdasarkan hasil studi kelayakan tim penyiapan desain program, meliputi kriteria pemilihan lokasi, indikasi kesiapan pemerintah daerah sasaran program, dan indikasi kesiapan masyarakat kawasan sasaran program.

- by Tiar Pandapotan Purba
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- Slum Development, Slum upgrading, Kumuh, Permukiman

Slum upgrading is accepted as a priority for sustainable development. While there are clear challenges to upgrading, local support and community engagement are seen as essential to success. Typical " top-down " approaches led by institutions with power and resources may fail to generate local engagement. Conversely, initiatives led by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs) or other self-help groups may garner good community support but may lack institutional and material resources to meet objectives. A hybrid approach that engages the community while mobilizing the resources of governments and large agencies can overcome some of these limitations, but it is not without complications. We examine the process and impact of a slum upgrading pilot project in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya, that operationalized this hybrid approach by adopting an adaptive management model to promote community engagement. The project was part of the Government of Kenya's Kenya Slum Upgrading Program and involved the Kibera Water and Sanitation Project led by UN-Habitat's Urban Basic Services Branch. The project showed significant early success in building community engagement, but it also encountered significant challenges. We assess the project's success in building community engagement by (a) analyzing documents that reflected the institutional discourse related to the project, (b) examining the record of the implementation of the project, and (c) conducting field surveys and interviews to assess community perception of the project. Survey results show that critical infrastructure in the community has improved over the course of the project and expectations for continued improvement in the future have developed. The study concludes that using an adaptive management approach and strongly promoting community involvement should be the aim of institutions delivering slum-upgrading projects and that this can result in effective, successful development outcomes. While the approach does present significant risks of creating unrealistic expectations, the benefits to project management are clear.

- by Melanie C MacDonald and +1
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- Urban Geography, International Development, Sustainable Development, Urban Planning
- by Pallavi Shrivastava
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- Urban Studies, Urbanism, Slum Development, Slums Studies

Slums in a city reflect islands of poverty or failure of the government to provide basic amenities to its citizens. Slum improvement programmes unfortunately have not been able to reduce the number of slums in Andhra Pradesh. More and more slums are adding to the list year by year with Slum Improvement Programme. Not a slum has been denotified even after four decades. Living in an area called slum condemns the inhabitants to invest own resources for basic amenities like drinking water, sanitation, housing among other facilities. Slum inhabitants are forced to invest one's meager resources, often mobilized from informal sources at high interest rates. They also run the risk of insecurity of demolition of their shelter and relocation in many cases. Slum residents are denied of basic comforts and lead lives of deprivation and pain. Ill health due to unhygienic conditions and heavy expenditure on health care is one form of price they pay for living in a slum. They pay more for the basic amenities like drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel, food and nutrition because they don't have entitlements. Life for slum residents is more expensive than their counterparts in non –slum areas. Slums perpetuate poverty!

- by Bharath Bhushan Mamidi
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- Indian studies, Urban Planning, Migration, Housing

The street constitutes the main public space in informal areas. While they usually emerge spontaneously, and in an unplanned way, their examination allows us to understand that there are spatial patterns of organization. Physical and spatial aspects that make these urban spaces become different types of urban places. Through the understanding of these patterns of organization and by street-based upgrading strategies, urban places can be formally set, making the streets not only spaces for mobility, for accessibility or for the pipelines, but also productive spaces where local economies and social and cultural activities can be promoted, and where the sense of community is enhanced. Recent approaches to the regeneration of low-income and informal settlements are evolving into strategies characterized by improving their existing conditions, minimizing relocations of their inhabitants. This on-site approach together with street-based upgrading constitutes an effective eviction alternative that facilitates the regeneration of informal areas. This paper shows how the improvements in low-income and informal settlements based on the understanding of physical organization patterns and on street-based upgrading constitute very powerful catalysts for the revitalization and regeneration process of informal areas, preserving the social organization network of communities and securing land tenure rights. This conclusion will contribute to the urban regeneration strategies for planning informal areas based on streets and public spaces, and to its transnational applicability.

- by Oscar Carracedo
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- Urban Planning, Sustainable Urbanism, Urban Regeneration, Urbanism

The living conditions in slums represent the worst of urban poverty. Individuals
and communities living in slums face serious challenges in their efforts to
survive. Depending on their particular circumstances, the lives of slum dwellers may be
threatened by floods, landslides, diseases, exposure to toxic industrial waste, and
indoor air pollution. The lack of access to roads, footpaths, street lighting,
drainage, electricity, garbage collection, and socio-economic assistance – also
contributes significantly to the vulnerability of slum dwellers. Women and
children are especially affected by poor sanitation, indoor air pollution, and the
burden of excessive time spent on collecting water and fuel. The list of
challenges faced by slum dwellers is long, and many of these disadvantages
reinforce each other in a vicious cycle....

- by Margaret A Rugadya
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- Urban Studies, Uganda, Slum Development, Urban And Regional Planning

""Although slum tourism has been around for more than 20 years, it is still considered a new trend. In Dharavi, Mumbai, this trend is younger and less developed compared to slum tourism in Brazil or South Africa. Critics regularly question its social responsibility. As it is a new trend, these debates are fought with information from a small collection of sources or from sources based on less homogeneous situations. Ironically, the smallest collection of sources is that which voices the thoughts of the host community within the slum. This means that one of the most important stakeholders has had very little opportunity to join in on this debate.
This thesis aims to give more insight into the perceptions that community members have on the issues that critics propose. The results from this case study, gathered from 74 interviews conducted in the most visited areas, show that the issues which are presented in debates are not perceived similarly by the Dharavi community. The difference in perception reveals that norms and values cannot be generalized according to those of critics outside the host community. The community perceives slum tourists more as respectable guests and they generally do not think extensively about the effects of their presence. However, a responsible, social and humanitarian approach is proven to be greatly appreciated by the community.
Hence, with the results of this research, readers can be helped in taking a more accurate stance in the slum tourism debate and perhaps influence the development of this trend.
""

A defesa da urbanização de favelas como forma de efetivação do direito à moradia adequada para todos é o mínimo do exercício de cidadania que se espera de todos os profissionais e instituições comprometidas com a transformação social. Sem dúvida, diante das limitações enfrentadas pela população residente nestes assentamentos, isso significa uma reivindicação legítima perante o estado para que incorpore a pauta em sua atuação. Em outras palavras, trabalhar “Por uma agenda pública permanente no campo dos assentamentos precários”, como afirmava o tema do III UrbFavelas (principal evento no tema no Brasil) em 2018.
Enquanto acadêmicos, é possível contribuir para tanto através da reflexão sobre os processos políticos e sociais que atravessam as experiências de urbanização de favelas, tentando compreender os reais limites e potencialidades do estabelecimento de uma agenda pública no campo. Usa-se aqui a noção de “agenda pública” ou “agenda governamental” aquele delimitado por Kingdon (2003) e Capella (2015), o qual abrangeria “o conjunto de questões relevantes para os formuladores de políticas governamentais e grupos próximos a estes” (CAPELLA, 2015, p. 60). Trata-se, portanto, do conjunto estabelecido, dentre o grande volume de questões às quais o estado poderia/deveria enfocar, daqueles temas que gozarão de atenção e prioridade no âmbito do governo.
Esta pequena reflexão busca, com base em tese apresentada à Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (IACOVINI, 2019), justamente levantar questões sobre os elementos da economia política da urbanização de favelas no Brasil e na Colômbia que ora empurram a agenda da urbanização de favelas mais para o centro da atuação pública, ora afastam o tema da lista de prioridades governamental. Em função da limitação do presente espaço, serão enfocadas principalmente as conclusões apresentadas naquele trabalho, devendo o leitor remeter-se a ele caso deseje se aprofundar nas bases teóricas, empíricas e documentais que as fundamentam.

- by Marie Sagnières and +1
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- Architecture, Urban Planning, Irregular/Informal Settlements Studies, Slum Development

The main objective of the study is to find out the difference in career aspiration of school going slum adolescents in relation to their self-concept. Survey method has been used. The investigator has selected 200 school going slum adolescents from 10 secondary schools by using purposive sampling technique. For collection of data, the investigator has used, self-concept questionnaire by R. K. Saraswat and career aspiration scale constructed by the investigator. For analysis of data the t-test and co-efficient of correlation were calculated. The finding of the study revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between self-concept and career aspiration among school going slum adolescents.

Urbanization has been recognized as a symbol of development as well as a burden over resources. The latter dimension is particularly so in developing countries since the process of urbanization is very rapid. The main reason for rapid urbanization is natural growth, migration from rural to urban areas, and small cities to large cities. It leads to many issues like haphazard urban growth, overcrowding, lack of essential services, ill health, unemployment, inadequate housing facilities, and others. Such problems in developing countries, especially in India, may become acute from its current state of being chronic. Therefore, present research work is an attempt to understand the level, trend, and pattern of urbanization and growth of slums in India during the 2001-2011 census years. Moreover, to examine the association between urbanization and growth of slums in India during the last two decades. In India, the rate of urbanization and slum growth is not equally proportionate. Some states/UTs have a high urban percentage, but a low slum growth rate has been registered, i.e., Chandigarh followed by Pondicherry, Goa and Mizoram. In comparison, some states have low urban population growth, but a high percentage of the slum population is emerging.

- by Dr. Nitin Mundhe
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- Human Geography, Population Geography, Urban Geography, Demography

Rapid urbanisation has shifted the course of individuals from small towns and villages towards the cities for jobs and making their living. This has led to the solution which we recognise as a negative element of the society and name them “Slums”. This plight of poverty in urban areas needs habitable atmosphere, whish is the right of every individual. This paper discusses Slum Areas Act, 1956 and the role of architects behind it, who are to be held equally responsible for the increasing failures in slum redevelopment schemes and projects since the Act came into existence. In spite of many slums got notified by the government, one tap is shared by more than thousand people in some of the slums as compared to average of 52 persons per tap. One third of the households have no access to electricity and most of them are sharing community bathrooms and toilets. This shows that a lot of work is still left to be done and the architects need to focus on this part of society in a dominant way.

- by Shivansh Singh
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- Architecture, Slum Development, Slums Studies, Legislation

This article puts forward two main arguments. First, it highlights the relation between different phases of neoliberalism in Morocco together with the specific methods and techniques of urban government that were deployed in efforts to govern the slums and their populations. A period of roll back neoliberalism during the 1980s generated reforms that tried to increase government control over the urban territory to compensate for the negative social outcomes of structural adjustment. The subsequent period of roll out neoliberalism coincided with the attempt to manage and regulate the slum population as such, through new modalities of state intervention. Secondly, while evolutions in neoliberal government reflected a gradual process, this transition in Morocco was accelerated by security concerns following two severe moments of urban violence: the 1981 riots and the 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca. Therefore, Morocco’s recent political transformations cannot be understood in terms provided by the mainstream narrative linking economic liberalization to democratization. Rather, it reflects a profound shift towards intrinsically authoritarian modalities of neoliberal government which are clearly revealed at the urban scale.

- by Koen Bogaert
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- Critical Theory, Entrepreneurship, History, Political Sociology

Starting from the observation of the paucity of comparisons between Northern and Southern squatting, this chapter analyzes the obstacles to such comparisons and tries to open pathways to develop a comparative research agenda beyond regional studies. Squatted settlements are bigger in the South, squatting policies are much more institutionalized in the South, forms of collective action diverge, and local contexts are extremely different. However, we believe that conceptual, methodological and contextual problems can be overcome by adopting a political economy approach emphasizing toleration and formalization policies as a common point of departure in order to address the puzzling question of persistence of illegal housing in both hemispheres. We identify three main reasons that explain the persistence of squats and slums in the 21 st century, not only due to policy failures. Firstly, public administrations contribute to create illegality by planning the city for growth and attractiveness. Secondly, they strategically tolerate illegal housing to defend economic and political interests. Finally, both Northern and Southern squatters collectively organize to resist evictions and to survive in cities in times of crisis. Behind these common results, we argue that each research tradition can learn from the other and their synthesis mutually contributes to the improvement of our knowledge of illegality, informal housing and urban policies.

- by Thomas AGUILERA
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- Social Movements, Anthropology, Urban Politics, Land and Property Development

In the recent decades, the Government of India has implemented a unique approach to the problem of slum proliferation in Mumbai. By providing an innovative cross-subsidy to private developers, the administration has created a working model for Public-Private-Partnership in Slum Rehabilitation. This
Report traces the evolution of this model through an extensive literature review of the preceding schemes. It also critiques the models on its impact on public life and provides recommendations for future policy decisions.

- by Rohit H Jagdale
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- Public Administration, Construction Management, Urban Planning, Slum Development

In Bangladesh, urbanization has started growing fast since the eighties, with the poor people subsisting on very poor or low public utility services. Around 4 million people are living in nearly 400 urban slums in Dhaka. The causes for the ineffectiveness of slum improvement projects are relevant to implementation, lack of coordination and financial support of the government, and implementation problem due to poverty and migration. From all the viewpoint, this project is incorporated with the existing socio-economic and spatial condition, the physical infrastructure and environmental condition of the slum area and some proposals for improving the overall condition of Kallaynpur Pora Bastee.

- by Shariful Islam
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- Slum Development, Urban Poor, Basic Services for Urban Poor

How often does an oppressed subject get to see, view and claim his/herself on the screen? The appropriation of the subjectivity by the material usurper — the Other — the oppressor re-shifts the locus upon him/herself to grant the agency and power to the oppressed subject on the oppressors’ terms. In this power play the oppressed is forced further downwards to the most vulnerable position giving little or no escape from the thralldom.

- by Suraj Yengde
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- Poverty, Slum Development, Dalit and other marginalized communities, Dalit studies
- by Dr.Narendranath Guria
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- Geography, Urban Geography, Urban Planning, Design Research

This paper presents the results of a workshop held in August 2002 in support of an action-oriented program of research that adopts an ecosystem approach to human health in Chennai, India. The workshop brought together stakeholders and potential participants in the research program in a collaborative environment to explore environment and health relationships, identify key actors and stakeholders in managing for human health, and develop a conceptual model of environment and health in Chennai. The workshop also introduced the ecosystem approach to workshop participants and explored the feasibility of applying the approach in Chennai. This paper is intended to highlight the use of a stakeholder workshop within an ecosystem approach, as well as techniques employed in the workshop’s working sessions. Influences on the workshop come from soft systems methodology, adaptive management and participatory action research. Working sessions were oriented to problem identification and framing, system conceptualization and visioning. Workshop participants developed a diagrammatic expression of environment and health in Chennai known as a ‘rich picture.’ Important themes in environment and health were drawn from this expression, such as: slums as locations of most -vulnerable populations and objectionable conditions; surface water quality and water bourne disease (e.g., typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery); public participation in management of environment and health problems; and malaria. Workshop participants also helped to identify a mixed-methods approach to addressing these issues in slum areas. The workshop results are now being used to direct the broader program of research.

- by Martin J Bunch
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- Ecohealth, Environmental Health, Sustainable Urban Environments, Slum Development

2007 was a significant landmark in human history since it was the first time that a majority of the world’s population lived in urban areas. In 1950, one-third of the world’s population lived in cities. Only 50 years later population had increased to one-half and predictions say that it will get to two-thirds by 2050.
Urbanization is a transformative process and, as a consequence of cities growth and development, slums formations and informal settlements arise. This urbanization outcome is mainly taking place in the developing world, where the informal city is a growing phenomenon and is becoming the norm. According to the United Nations estimates, 32 percent of the world’s population live in slums, and the number will reach 50 percent by 2030.
Recent approaches to regeneration of informal settlements are evolving into strategies characterized by improving their existing conditions, minimizing relocations of their inhabitants. This on-site approach together with street-based upgrading constitutes an effective eviction alternative that facilitates the regeneration of informal areas.
But, can streets in informal areas be designed? What is the role of urban design in informal and low-income areas? Is street-based urban design and placemaking possible in these areas? Can productivity and economic activity be stimulated through design?
This paper argues that street-based upgrading plays an essential role in the regeneration process of informal areas. It preserves the social organization network of communities, secures land tenure rights and promotes productivity and economic activity. Streets are more than only spaces for mobility, accessibility or pipelines, they are fundamental places where social, cultural and economic activities are promoted.
Drawing upon experiences in Jakarta, Manila and Medellín, this paper concludes that street-based upgrading in informal settlements work as a catalyst for the revitalization and transformation of neighborhoods, generating productive spaces for economy and creating sense of community.

- by Oscar Carracedo
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- Urban Planning, Urban Regeneration, Urban Studies, Urbanism