Problems of Urban growth.

INTRODUCTION
The urban environment is highly complex. In the past, public policies have aimed at
eradicating slums, without taking into account the potential of their inhabitants to resolve the
very problems that slums reputedly generate. Especially in the contemporary era of
globalisation, it is important to stress the resources that slums can offer the ‘chaotic’ city. This
requires a reassessment of views on urbanisation. Sustainable urban development will only be
possible if we concentrate on solving the problems of the majority of urban populations in
ways that make use of their own creativity and involve them in decision-making. According to
a whole range of material, natural and socio-economic indicators on developing countries,
spatial and demographic urban growth is characterised by the deterioration of physical,
economic and social living conditions. On the one hand, there is an exclusively sectoral,
technological and local
approach which posits a ‘radiant future’ for every poor city neighbourhood in the
Third World, a future consisting mainly of better provision of water and sanitary
services.
. On the other hand, a more realistic approach that accepts that, although the
policies and plans of governments and international organisations may reflect a
true commitment to solving the problems of the poor in urban areas, they are
often ill-advised or wrongly conceived.
Against this backdrop, local, national and international policies have steadily
evolved from repressive approaches aiming to eradicate slums and control the
‘undesirable dwellers’ (migrants and other social ‘undesirables’) to an assimilating
view of the urban populations. From this stance, in its role as facilitator the state
offers services and acts as a coordinator of policies and actions in the urban sphere.
At best this strategy has resulted in improved legislation, collective infrastructure
and services. At worst, however, it has tended to exacerbate corruption, and has
forced the poor to become micro-entrepreneurs and become responsible for their
own livelihoods. However desirable some aspects of this transition may be, it means
that the majority of the urban poor are still living in highly vulnerable circumstances.
In a context of globalisation and of economic and political liberalisation, the
result of such policies has been the impoverishment of poorer sections of the
population, the explosive growth of the number and size of cities, and ever more
complex and costly problems that need to be addressed. The innovative solutions
proposed are too often unsustainable, and there is an apparent incapacity to go
beyond orthodox planning and management approaches. This is in spite of the
widespread acknowledgement that resolving the ‘urban problem’ in the developing
countries is crucial. Based on previous research carried out by the author and
colleagues, this article provides some indications as to how to overcome this
impasse.

SLUMS AND URBANISATION: UNIVERSAL AND SPECIFIC ASPECTS

The extension of slums in developing countries is a product of 20th- and 21st-
century urban growth and represents the very essence of the Third World city.
Attempts have been made to eliminate slums but they have almost universally failed
because they do not question the urban model that generates the slum in the first
place. In our own analysis of these causes, we suggest a three-track approach that
requires taking into account citizens’ demands and needs; evaluating the available
resources (human, technical, financial, economic, social, organisational); and,

SLUMS AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Finally, implementing urban governance in a way that fosters collective interests.
To advance in this path it is necessary to promote a participatory approach in both
social and political terms, adapted to the specific spatial and social context of
each city.
The slum is characterised by the precarious nature of its habitat. But it is much
more than that: it can genuinely be seen as a ‘hothouse’ of cultural creativity,
economic invention and social innovation. Classic urban planning principles are
based on comprehensive planning regarding land allocation, infrastructural
organisation, and decisions on technical services and networks. In the slums,
however, this technocratic approach is undermined by the social practices of
individuals, families and social groups, particularly the poorer ones. These actors
resort to their own emergency solutions to urban integration problems, and they do
so at the micro-level at which these problems are posed – generally the plot of land,
the house, then the district. In most cases the result is an individual or family
construction on a plot of land which is occupied either illegally or by informal
agreement, without being connected to the customary utilities.
As more and more people leave villages and farms to live in cities, urban growth results.
Urbanization occurs naturally from individual and corporate efforts to reduce time and expense
in commuting and transportation while improving opportunities for jobs, education, housing,
and transportation. Living in cities permits individuals and families to take advantage of the
opportunities of proximity, diversity, and marketplace competition.
People move into cities to seek economic opportunities. In rural areas, often on small family
farms, it is difficult to improve one's standard of living beyond basic sustenance. Farm living is
dependent on unpredictable environmental conditions, and in times of drought, flood or
pestilence, survival becomes extremely problematic.
Cities, in contrast, are known to be places where money, services and wealth are centralized.
Cities are where fortunes are made and where social mobility is possible. Businesses, which
generate jobs and capital, are usually located in urban areas. Whether the source is trade or
tourism, it is also through the cities that foreign money flows into a country. It is easy to see
why someone living on a farm might wish to take their chance moving to the city and trying to
make enough money to send back home to their struggling family.
There are better basic services as well as other specialist services that aren't found in rural
areas. There are more job opportunities and a greater variety of jobs. Health is another major
factor. People, especially the elderly are often forced to move to cities where there are doctors
and hospitals that can cater for their health needs. Other factors include a greater variety of
entertainment (restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, etc) and a better quality of
education, namely universities. Due to their high populations, urban areas can also have much
more diverse social communities allowing others to find people like them when they might not
be able to in rural areas.

Clearly, urban settlements differ greatly in size, as mentioned by their populations. Is there a
Theoretical maximum and an optimum size? Criffith Taylor and others believe that the
ultimate size may be fixed by the increasing difficulty of obtaining enough water to supply
unduly large numbers concentrated in a small area, while Lewis Mumford and similar authors
think that the continued growth of very large cities not only produces more administrative
problems than benefits. This also paralyses rather than furthers social relationships and
phenomenally raises central land values, so much that land ceases to be adaptable to new
needs.

Views on the optimum size of a city have altered with the march of history. Plato believed that
most desirable size was 5,000, a figure which would allow everybody to hear the voice of an
orator and so participate in active political life and develop varied social relations. Late
nineteenth – century garden city enthusiasts in Britain thought that towns of 30,000 to 50,000
would be large enough supply all necessary human needs, whether medical, educational,
social, economic or cultural.

Towns could not come into being until the surrounding countryside was capable of providing a
food surplus in the past. Due to modern transport and large surpluses in many parts of the
world, towns generally have little difficulty in obtaining food, even from far distant lands.
Developing countries may lack the capital to give all their town folk an adequate diet, and
even in developed countries there are sporadic temporary shortages, owing to failures in
economic planning, poor harvests, dock strikes and traffic hold-ups occasioned by excessive
rain, snow, floods, droughts etc.

The problem of water supply is more permanent and applies specifically to cities. It is
becoming increasingly serious even in advanced countries which certainly have no problem in
paying for the water they consume. The root of the problem lies in the fact that 98% of the
earth’s surface water is contained in the salt oceans and in ice-caps. The remainder is
unevenly distributed and often polluted. Over half is needed for agriculture, about a third for
industry, 10 percent for domestic use.

Many cities, especially in developing countries, lack a clean supply of fresh water. In India,
e.g., less than a third of the urban population has access to pure water, and the main reason
why water borne diseases are rampant. Even when people are provided with purified water for
drinking, they usually wash themselves and their clothing in contaminated supplies.

The demands made on water by urban industries, power stations and homes are growing at a
more rapid rate than the growth of population. Many wells do not yield enough water, river
pollution, like Ganga, Damodar etc. in India, is a continuing evil, and the remaining water
resources- mostly in thinly populated highland areas of abundant rain- are far from many
consuming centres.

After being separated from Bihar, Jharkhand state of India is now fast growing in terms of
business. Ranchi the capital city is expanding both vertical and horizontal resulting in lots of
problem like irregular electric supply, water supply, ground water depletion, air pollution,
noise pollution, municipal waste disposal, failure of drainage systems, traffic jams etc. Surface
waters are being contaminated. Seasonal diseases have also multiplied. More and more
people are concentrating in the city flats which has raised the land values many fold. Ranchi
earlier known as the summer capital has now become the heat furnace during summer. It is
all due to the unplanned expansion of the city.

The urban heat island has become a growing concern and is increasing over the years. The
urban heat island is formed when industrial and urban areas are developed and heat becomes
more abundant. In rural areas, a large part of the incoming solar energy is used to evaporate
water from vegetation and soil. In cities, where less vegetation and exposed soil exists, the
majority of the sun’s energy is absorbed by urban structures and asphalt. Hence, during warm
daylight hours, less evaporative cooling in cities allows surface temperatures to rise higher
than in rural areas. Additional city heat is given off by vehicles and factories, as well as by
industrial and domestic heating and cooling units. This effect causes the city to become 2 to
10 degree F (1 to 6 degree C) warmer than surrounding landscapes. Impacts also include
reducing soil moisture and intensification of carbon dioxide emissions.
Owing to population growth, poor levels of hygiene, and increasing urban poverty, the urban
environment in many developing countries is rapidly deteriorating. Densely packed housing in
shanty towns or slums and inadequate drinking-water supplies, garbage collection services,
and surface-water drainage systems combine to create favourable habitats for the proliferation
of vectors and reservoirs of communicable diseases. As a consequence, vector-borne diseases
such as malaria, lymphatic filariasis and dengue are becoming major public health problems
associated with rapid urbanization in many tropical countries

Another change that has occurred after the oil crisis of 1973 is the vertical growth of large
cities. People who were living in suburbs found it costly to travel to the city. The open spaces
within the city got filled up by the construction of high rise buildings. Large bungalows and old
residences were demolished and high rise buildings have come up both as commercial
complexes and as residential flats. Many rich families are migrating from the suburbs to flats
or apartments near the city centre. The vertical expansion of cities poses further problems in
water supply, sewage disposal and traffic congestion on the roads. Traffic causes urban noise,
air pollution, stress and strain in an individual.

One solution for both lateral expansion and vertical growth of a city is to develop satellite
towns at a distance of 40 to 50 km from the city. The satellite town will not be a mere
residential town to accommodate commuters. Such a satellite town will be both a place of
work and a place of living.

Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the number of slums as urban populations have
increased in the Third World.
In April 2005, the director of UN-HABITAT stated that the global community was falling short
of the Millennium Development Goals which targeted significant improvements for slum
dwellers and an additional 50 million people have been added to the slums of the world in the
past two years.[23] According to a 2006 UN-HABITATreport, 327 million people live in slums
in Commonwealth countries - almost one in six Commonwealth citizens. In a quarter of
Commonwealth countries (11 African, 2 Asian and 1 Pacific), more than two out of three urban
dwellers live in slums and many of these countries are urbanising rapidly.[24]
The number of people living in slums in India has more than doubled in the past two decades
and now exceeds the entire population of Britain, the Indian Government has announced.
[25]
The number of people living in slums is projected to rise to 93 million in 2011 or 7.75
percent of the total population almost double the population of Britain.[26]

Many governments around the world have attempted to solve the problems of slums by
clearing away old decrepit housing and replacing it with modern housing with much better
sanitation. The displacement of slums is aided by the fact that many are squatter settlements
whose property rights are not recognized by the state. This process is especially common in
the Third World. Slum clearance often takes the form of eminent domain and urban
renewal projects, and often the former residents are not welcome in the renewed housing. For
example, in the Philippine slums of Smokey Mountain, located in Tondo, Manila, projects have
been enforced by the Government and non-government organizations to allow urban
resettlement sites for the slum dwellers.[27] According to a UN-Habitat report, over 2 million
people in the Philippines live in slums[28], and in the city of Manila alone, 50% of the over 11
million inhabitants live in slum areas.[29][30]
Moreover new projects are often on the semi-rural peripheries of cities far from opportunities
for generating livelihoods as well as schools, clinics etc. At times this has resulted in large
movements of inner city slum dwellers militantly opposing relocation to formal housing on the
outskirts of cities. See, for example, Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban, South Africa.
In some countries, leaders have addressed this situation by rescuing rural property rights to
support traditional sustainable agriculture, however this solution has met with open hostility
from capitalists and corporations.[citation needed] It also tends to be relatively unpopular with the
slum communities themselves, as it involves moving out of the city back into the countryside,
a reverse of the rural-urban migration that originally brought many of them into the city.
Critics argue that slum clearances tend to ignore the social problems that cause slums and
simply redistribute poverty to less valuable real estate. Where communities have been moved
out of slum areas to newer housing, social cohesion may be lost. If the original community is
moved back into newer housing after it has been built in the same location, residents of the
new housing face the same problems of poverty and powerlessness. There is a growing
movement to demand a global ban of 'slum clearance programmes' and other forms of mass
evictions.[31]

CONCLUSIONS: SLUMS AND EQUITABLE CITIES

A wealth of examples proves that public policies fostering sustainable and
socially equitable cities are possible, both locally and nationally a regulatory framework
effective enough to control the environmental
impact of urban development; enhanced organisational capacities of municipal
administrations, the reinforcement of community-based organisations; mutual
respect for the legitimate interests of other urban stakeholders, and the sharing
of the benefits from cooperative efforts. Evans (2002) integrates these issues in
a more overtly politically-oriented vision of sustainable urban development. He
first acknowledges the growing domination of the global economic market,
which not only influences the environmental aspects of urban development, but
also focuses the debate (and thus the minds of decision makers) on the political
struggle for comparative advantage in the world market to the detriment of local
interests. In this context, the three major players – communities, non-profit
organisations and state institutions – must seek synergies to defend and promote
the common good in the urban sphere.
This form of protection against market forces should not be seen as ‘a throwback
to another era’, as some critics would undoubtedly label it, but rather as a
contemporary strategy aimed at integrating different scales of social and political
interaction, a ‘glocalization’ phenomenon in the term coined by Ascher (2000: 147).
We must break out of the vicious circle of urban impoverishment and environmental
degradation by taking the slum for what it is – an urban habitat that has deteriorated
and must be rehabilitated and organised jointly with the full participation of its
inhabitants (Percq, 1994).

WHAT ARE SLUMS EXACTLY ?

A dirty, unhygienic cluster of impoverished shanties with long lines of people crowding
around a solitary municipal water tap, bowling babies literally left on street corners to
fend for themselves and endless cries and found voices emanating from various corners.
Most of them are engaged in eking out their daily lives, always below the poverty line, by
working as construction labourers, domestic helps, rag pickers and chhotus in
neighbourhood dhabas.
In spite of poor conditions in slums, second generation residents who are not nostalgic
about their rural background - feel that life in slum is reasonably tolerable and city life is
probably better than rural life.
HOW SLUMS WERE FORMED
“Slums are the products of failed policies, bad governance, corruption, inappropriate
regulations, dysfunctional land markets, unresponsive financial systems and a
fundamental lack of political will.”
IMPROPER SANITATION & HYGIENE
Improper sanitation, unhygienic environmental conditions, social, economic, health,
educational and cultural problems and many health hazards.
LACK OF BASIC AMENITIES
Lack of basic amenities like safe drinking water, proper housing, drainage and excreta
disposal services
Lack of sanitary conditions
Poor sanitary conditions and poor quality of water lead to illnesses like diarrhoea and
other water borne diseases, affecting the life expectancy of slum dwellers.
Among water borne diseases, diarrhoea disproportionately affects children under the age
of five.
Poor health among children adversely affects the attendance rate at schools.
Solutions
Countries need to recognize that the urban poor are active agents and can
contribute to national growth.
Managing cities require local solutions
Local governments should develop strategies to prevent the formation of new slums.
Public investments must focus on providing access to basic services and
infrastructure
Role of the government and the NGOs
Proposed regulations which should be made by the government:
 A minimum wage rate should be created for workers immigrating to town.

 Computerized ID numbers should be allotted to the laborers for maintaining

records.
  ESI dispensaries and counseling services should be provided in dwelling areas.
All labors should be centrally registered

 Strict rules should be formulated to prevent the misuse of funds.

 Aim for 1 Lakh units of construction every six months.

 Import high volume construction machinery from China for the speedy
construction.

 Factories with a workforce of more than 100 labors should have compulsory
dwelling units. The accommodation facilities should be made available before the
commencement of any project

Fading dark clouds

 Poverty, slums and urban squat can be controlled in next couple of decades

 Eight percent GDP growths is a good sign

 With quadrupled GDP in 25 years, there is a good chance that the new and
upcoming generation may stay away from slum dwelling.

Silver lining
The problems prevailing in slums give us the challenge to rebuild a society that is more
equitable where equal opportunities could be provided to all for living with dignity.