UNITY UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHICTECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING

2021
URBAN/SLUM III
SLUM UP GRADING
Slums:
• Urban Residential areas environmentally unfit for
human living owing to the poor quality and/or absence
of basic physical, economic, and social amenities.
Although generally understood as living
neighborhoods for the urban poor in the Ethiopian
urban context, slums neighborhoods are strongly
mixed where the poor, the average and the well-to-do
live together.
The process of demolishing and reconstructing central urban slums for
economic, social and scenic aims.
Urban Renewal:
• creating better environment.
• It implies demolishing and relocating the previous settlers to a different area
outside their neighborhoods
Urban Redevelopment:
• It could be understood as a mild/ slight renewal where the objectives and
the process give focus and attention to the existing settlers by
accommodating them as far as possible
Urban Regeneration:
• The process of reactivating and bringing back into life a stagnated and
declining socio-economic condition of an urban area. The process could
take a form of renewal or upgrading.
Urban Upgrading:
• Intervention in slum areas by the introduction of economic, social,
and physical services and infrastructure and the improvement of
the housing physical conditions thereby creating better
environment.
• It is also conceived as an incremental process of achieving
urban redevelopment objectives if properly planned and
managed.
Relocation: The process of transferring the living and working area
of citizens from their established neighborhoods to new areas.
Resettlement: The process of re-housing urban citizens that have
been relocated either on-site or off-site.
Magnitude of Slums
• in cities of developing world. In 2001, magnitude of slum dwellers
in the whole world was estimated to be 991 million; and 78.2% of
the urban populations of least developed. (UN-Habitat, 2003).
• African cities(72%), compared to in
• Asia 38% and
• Latin America (28%).
• > 90% of their urban populations living in slums
If no firm and concrete action is taken, the global number of slum
population will rise to two billion by 2003 (Schilderman, 2004).
In most cities,
• the peri-urban areas often have no formal infrastructure services.
• 57% of urban Africans lack access to basic sanitation and
• in cities like Nairobi the poor rely on ‘flying toilets’.
• In Mumbai, one toilet seat serves 500 inhabitants.
• In Manila only 11% and
• In Dhaka only 18% of residents have formal means of disposing
sewerage (UN-Habitat, Ibid).
• It is important to note the strong correlation between urban poverty
and slum settlements.
• It is poor families who are forced to settle on hazardous and risky
terrains:
• steep hillsides, river banks, and flood prone areas.
Addressing problems of slum areas
• urban renewal,
• urban regeneration /revitalization and
• urban upgrading are the popular ones.
• Three distinct generations
• the era of bulldozer (in 1930s in Britain and in 1940s in USA),
• the era of neighborhood rehabilitation (in 1960s) and
• the era of urban revitalization starting from the 1970 (Carmon, 2001).
• urban renewal as a process of integrated changes in spatial,
economic, and social dimensions of slum areas (McCallum and
Steingerg, 1987).
Slum in the Ethiopian Context
• Urbanization in Ethiopia had a long history -1st century
• the level of urbanization and urban development in the country
still remain very low
• Most urban centers in Ethiopia had spontaneously evolved as
centers of three important institutions:
• market places, government seats, and military camps.
• For instance,
• Addis Ababa has emerged first as a garrison city and then expanded to its
current size by addition and accretion without major planning interventions.
• This result slums and squatter settlements
Wrong policies and strategies followed by successive governments
1. In the pre-1974 revolution - major parts of urban land were owned
by few elites
This has resulted in overcrowding of residential neighborhoods creating slums
(Abraham, 1995).
2. the nationalization of urban land and extra houses
 bulk of the housing stock was left without adequate repairing and
maintenance for the last thirty years
rigid planning, zoning, and building standards practiced
3. Transition period to now
• influx of displaced families from war and drought affected areas to
urban centers
• invasion of public open spaces by unauthorized structures
Characteristics of slums in Ethiopian urban centers
Physical/Environmental:
• unplanned and densely populated neighborhoods
• poorly accessible, and overcrowded
(e.g. in Addis Ababa 24.8% of households live in overcrowded rooms);
• deteriorating housing units
(e.g.in Adama, 49% - need immediate improvement and another 20% need to be demolished)
• little or no basic municipal infrastructure service; and
• they are in polluted environment with poor sanitation
Social: Due to absence of social infrastructure such as health and education,
• high mortality rate, HIV/AIDS crime, delinquency/ misbehaving and unsavory
livelihood including prostitution are prevalent.
Economic:
• High unemployment rate, low and unreliable sources of income, limited financial
resources for improving their dwellings, and engagement in home-based petty
businesses and informal activities
• The presence of slums has also impacted the Ethiopian urban economy by
discouraging investment flows. The deplorable living environment that has
exposed slum dwellers to various health problems has eroded productivity and
motivation of residents for creativity.
Legal: no tenure security
• insecure and vulnerable to eviction and displacement without any
compensation
 Types of Slums:
Three types of urban slums have been identified in the Ethiopian urban context.
The categorization is made based on their physical conditions, historical
emergence, their locations & distributions, socio-economic conditions of their
dwellers and on international criteria.

1. Central Urban Decay: Central urban

slum areas created due to the
deterioration of physical, social and
economic amenities as a result of old
age.
2. Squatter Settlements: Unplanned
informal settlements on the urban
periphery.

3. Lastic-bet Slums: Informal squatter

settlements in the central city areas
occupying public open spaces and
made of temporary materials mainly
discarded plastics, canvas, textile,
iron sheets, and card boards.
Magnitude of Slums in Ethiopia
• Both international and local researches indicate that the
magnitude or level of slums in Ethiopia is one of the highest in
the world
• A paper presented at World Urban Forum in eptember 2004
(Barcelona) indicates that
• the slum population of Ethiopia is 99.4%.
• The revised Addis Ababa City Development Plan and the Millennium
Development Goals Needs Assessment Study asserted that 80% of
housing in Addis Ababa is slum (ORAAMP, 2001; Solomon, et. al.
2004).
• The situation in other urban centers is not different from what is
observed in the Capital.
Addis Ababa:
• The city has more than 380,300 housing units that are below standard and are built of non durable materials.
• These houses have received little maintenance for the last 3 decades. The rent from these houses is too low
to cover
• the maintenance and administration costs.

Table 1: Basic Data on Sample Towns

Responses to problem of slums in Ethiopia
• key factors that contributed to the persistence and worsening of
slums in urban Ethiopia is
the absence of adequate and amicable measures against the continued
expansion of urban decay and mushrooming of squatter settlements.
quotable and significant urban renewal/upgrading experiences.
• In Addis Ababa a number of initiatives have been made by different
urban actors.
• The works done by the Addis Ababa Environmental Development Office
(EDO),
• the Project Implementation Office (supported by World Bank), the Ethiopian
Social Relief
• Development Fund (ESRDF) CARE Ethiopia, and other, NGOs and CBOs are
few that can be mentioned.
City Government is making
• Local Development Plans (LDPs) of the area
• Eco-city studies
• CARE Ethiopia's Community Infrastructure Improvement programs in
Addis Ababa consist of the construction of latrines, drainage, access
roads, pedestrian walkways, bridges, and retaining walls.
• Environment Development Office’s (EDO) approach integrates
community participation in project management, in financial and labor
contributions.
• Redd Barna-Ethiopia's integrated housing and income generation
program and credit schemes for the poor had focused on socioeconomic
interventions in slum neighborhoods and street children.
• Integrated and Holistic Approach for Urban Development Projects
(IHA/UDP) is a local NGO working in slum upgrading project in Addis
Ababa around Tekle - Haymanot area.
Key Conception and Principles,
Major Planning and implementation Issues
• Socio-economic dimensions of urban
• Physical and Environmental - These are the space, the built and
natural environment of slum areas. Residential, business and
service buildings, the infrastructure (beneath or above ground),
the land, water, air, and other natural environmental entities.
• Financial Issues: generated and mobilized in the realization of
upgrading and renewal projects.
• Institutional and Human Resource Development (HRD) Issues
• Regulatory Issues : existing policies, laws, regulations and
manuals that are believed to have impacts in the planning and
implementation of UUGR projects.
philosophical guidelines and principles in the preparation UURG
projects.
• Application of the Integrated Development Planning (IDP) Approach
• Stakeholder Participation and partnership
• The adoption of Incremental approach and the attainment of
sustainability
• Simplicity
• Applicability and Replicability
• Good Governance - transparency, accountability, and capacity building
mainly at local levels.
Assignment one page
• Select one of the slum area in Addis. (take Map, picture)
• Write the reasons of slum development;
• Suggest urban renewal type for your specific site on your
justifiable analysis.