A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the developing world between 1990 and 2005. However, due to rising population, and the rise especially in urban populations, the number of slum dwellers is rising. One billion people worldwide live in slums and the figure will likely grow to 2 billion by 2030.
The term has traditionally referred to housing areas that were once relatively affluent but which deteriorated as the original dwellers moved on to newer and better parts of the city, but has come to include the vast informal settlements found in cities in the developing world.
Many shack dwellers vigorously oppose the description of their communities as 'slums' arguing that this results in them being pathologised and then, often, subject to threats of evictions. Many academics have vigorously criticized UN-Habitat and the World Bank arguing that their 'Cities Without Slums' Campaign has led directly to a massive increase in forced evictions.
Although their characteristics vary between geographic regions, they are usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Slum buildings vary from simple shacks to permanent and well-maintained structures. Most slums lack clean water, electricity, sanitation and other basic services
Rain, increase disease in slums
Kampala — DISEASE outbreaks in Kampala's largest slums of Kalerwe and Bwaise are expected to increase as heavy rains caused by climate change become more frequent.
Over the years, global climate has been changing, leading to disruption of weather patterns. It is predicted that temperatures in Uganda will increase further, causing shorter but heavier rain periods.
in the Kibera
Kibera is a slum area outside Nairobi, Kenya and is the same size as New York City's Central Park, about 1.5 square miles. At over 1 million people, the population density is 30 times that of New York City, and Kibera does not have multi-level housing. Most people living in Kibera have little or no access to basic neccessities, such as electricity, clean water, toilet facility and sewage disposal. The combination of poor nutrition and lack of sanitation accounts for many illnesses and deaths. Because of the lack of toilet facilities (1 for every 500-1000 people), two in three residents must use a "flying toilet" to defecate.
There are also over 50,000 AIDS orphans surviving in Kibera, often cared for by grandparents, over crowded orphanages, or completely unattended. For these and all children in Kibera, schooling is rare and dependant on the ebb and flow of family finances, trapping them in a cycle of poverty.
How lack of toilets, clean water, and drainages affect the community:
Diseases such as malaria, cholera, and typhoid afflict large proportions of Kibera residents, preventing them from working, taking care of themselves and their family, and often result in death. These diseases are caused by a lack of sanitation facilities in the slum, and spread these diseases along a combination of vectors. The following issues most prominently contribute to the spread of these diseases.
Lack of toilet facilities and clean water:
Cholera and Typhoid cases in Kibera are a direct result of a lack of safe toilet facilities. Both Cholera and Typhoid are transmitted through ingestion of feces contaminated with the bacterium. The contamination usually occurs when untreated sewage is released into waterways or into groundwater, affecting the water supply, any foods washed in the water. Both Cholera and Typhoid are very debhilitating, and can last for weeks at a time, and without treatment cause death in between 10 - 50% of infected persons.
How does a lack of safe toilet facilities spread these diseases?
Without access to safe toilet facilities, many Kibera residents are forced to use public areas, most often drainage routes, to relieve themselves. These drainage waste channels are unprotected and it is common for people, especially children, to come in contact with the waste as it travels out of the slum. Once a person has come in contact with the Cholera or Typhoid infected waste, it is unlikely they will be able to wash their hands with clean water before cooking or eating, and therefore the bacteria spreads into their body, and the cycle begins again.
How does a lack of clean water spread these diseases?
As residents of Kibera live in structures without any plumbing facilities, clean water must be accessed from pre-filled water tanks (AKA water points), which are often controlled by landlords, and expensive for residents to use. Since clean water is difficult to obtain, residents are often unable to wash their hands before preparing food or doing other things that can cause diseases to enter their bodies. Also, water from contaminated water sources is sometimes used for cooking or cleaning, and this also spreads disease. A lack of clean water is the second step in the waste-borne diseases problem in Kibera.
The Problem of Slums: Jakarta, Indonesia
Every major city throughout the world has slums, places where the poor people gather to live, Jakarta has many areas and solving the problem without creating American-style ghettos is fast becoming a headache for administrators.
Brilliant JP journalist Anissa S. Febrina explores the problem faced by Jakarta’s administration.
Jakarta looks at the problem of slums
Just across from fancy, Mediterranean-style shop houses in South Jakarta stands a kampong where food vendor Djamhani’s family of five live cramped together in a 6-square-meter room.
Such conditions are so common in Jakarta that people frequently forget the poor living conditions experienced by the 5.4 million people who live in the city’s kampongs and slums.
Saying that Jakarta administration has done nothing to help them is not entirely correct, as a number of kampong improvement projects have been undertaken over the last few years.
But, the rapid growth of the city’s slums has clearly outpaced the administration’s efforts.
Starting next year, the Jakarta administration plans to build more than 13,000 low-cost apartments, in addition to the 20,000 units that have been constructed to date.
Some 3,780 of the new apartments will be built in Marunda, North Jakarta, 1,700 in Rawa Bebek subdistrict, East Jakarta, 2,000 in Semanan, West Jakarta, and another 6,400 in Kedoya, also in West Jakarta.
But, experience teaches us that relocating people from the slums is not an easy task, partly because kampong people are not accustomed to high-rise living - at least not yet.
However, there are many other steps that the administration could take to resolve the Jakarta slum problem.
The State Ministry for Public Housing has been mulling the idea of upgrading the slums through financing support schemes and legalizing the land ownership of the slum dwellers, whom the administration often labels squatters.
A report from the Jakarta Provincial Development Board revealed that around 70 percent of the residences in the city are self-built, of which some 50 percent - those in the slums - are unfit for human habitation.
According to Yusuf Yuniarto, the assistant deputy to the state minister, this was the result of lack of money, lack of access to resources and lack of knowledge about how to build habitable dwellings.
Furthermore, squatters, who mostly work in the informal sector, lack access to formal funding sources.
In the light of these problems, the state ministry has highlighted the need to upscale a microfinance project that was first tried out in Central Java.
The universities could contribute by educating people about proper construction techniques, grassroots institutions, like the mosque-based Baaitul Maal, could help channel the money, while private-sector firms could orientate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs toward provide proper housing for the poor.
Successful kampong upgrading programs initiated by a number of non-governmental organizations can be seen in North Jakarta’s Kampung Muara.
The pigeon-hole houses there look brighter as each homeowner strives to keep the kampong clean and green.
The lack of available space for new housing could also be overcome by indentifying land donated for religious purposes, known locally as tanah wakaf, which has not yet been developed.
While such land is normally used to build mosques or cemeteries, urban planners argue that it should also be used for housing as this is more pressing.
While relocating squatters into blocks of low-cost apartments runs the risk of creating ghettos, letting the poor upgrade their living conditions will allow more room for gradual change.
