Revitalizing urban slum communities

The number of urban dwellers on Earth will soon outnumber rural people–for the first time in human history. Significant and growing numbers of urban dwellers live in slums under conditions of, in many cases, extreme poverty. Can urban slum dwellers, with appropriate assistance, rebuild their lives and communities?

The pattern of industrial development in the West was accompanied by a demographic revolution: rural people moving in droves into urban areas where factories sprang up. After World War II, this western pattern of economic development spread rapidly into the so-called Third World, where states promoted centralized development in and around their financial-governmental centers. As investment priorities favored urban over rural development, many marginalized rural people gravitated to the fringes of cities, creating mega-agglomerations of mainly illegal squatter settlements. Industrial agri-businesses promoting single cash crops for export also drove many rural farmers off their land to join the ranks of the urban poor.

At the beginning of the 21st century, global urbanization continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, with urban poverty increasing as fast as cities are growing. In 2007, the number of urban dwellers worldwide is expected to exceed rural dwellers for the first time in history. In a 2001 estimate, based on data from 232 cities, UN-HABITAT stated that 837 million people were living in slums. And the data indicated that the number of slum dwellers was not stabilizing, but increasing.

A 2002 USAID study estimated that the number of people living in urban slums was expected to double within the next 25 years. India’s urban population alone is expected to reach 660 million by 2025 from 256 million today. A majority (56 percent) of Africa’s urban population is today living in slum conditions.. In some Latin American countries, more than 50 percent of entire populations live in urban slums. In the Philippines, squatters or informal settlers comprise nearly a majority of urban dwellers in some areas. In Cairo, Egypt, the UN Human Settlements Programs (UNCHS) estimated that 70 percent of the city’s inhabitants lived in unauthorized squatter settlements and that its population was expected to reach 13.8 million by 2015. According to the USAID study, in spite of the rapid increase in the number of urban dwellers, local and international attention to the infrastructure and service needs of the urban poor has slowed and even stagnated during the past decade.

Yet, in spite of poor environmental health and economic (and socio-cultural) conditions, the urban poor as a group have been resourceful survivors who live by principles of self-help. Many have demonstrated entrepreneurial skills; many urban slums and squatter settlements have been more or less stable communities rather that chaotic agglomerations of people. The challenge is to channel these energies and tap these strengths to create environmentally healthy and sustainable communities. But at the rates of urban slum growth cited above, one wonders if it will be possible to avert the prospect of urban warfare (fighting in cities) in the 21st century if the quality of life for slum dwellers does not improve at a rate at least commensurate with that growth.

Apart from measures to slow the rate of urban growth by in part promoting community-based development in rural areas, a compelling need exists to assist slum dwellers transform their communities into revitalized human settlements. Can urban slums become environmentally sustainable economic hubs with distinct identities and a sense of place for its residents? Can the quality of a poor urban community, and the commitment of local people to enhance that quality, be the critical difference between the success and failure of these evolving mega-agglomerations?

In partnership with local and international organizations, the ERC will train urban slum youth and young adults in practical and productive measures to reverse the environmental degradation that plagues their habitats. With assistance from development banks and corporations, community-based small business enterprises, including community stores; community-based pre-schools allowing mothers to receive training and to work; developing community centers for child care, basic health care, and other services; producing urban environmental water & sanitation services; legal work to in part secure land tenure; and community art & theater are among potential sustainable livelihoods that can be facilitated through such human resource development training.