Topic 9A: Slum Clearance

Slum Villages - An Exploration

Sunny Sun

‘Slum’ is a term one might come across often. But what exactly is a slum? To answer this question, an understanding of what slums are is needed. Definitions vary across different faculties; the Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography (2013) refers to a slum as “…an urban area where there is a concentration of poor-quality housing…” whilst the corresponding entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (2013) defines a slum as “…an area in a city that has poor-quality living conditions and marked poverty”. These are very broad definitions; the UN-HABITAT (2006) report of Millennium Development goals and Urban Sustainability provides a more elaborate definition, including a listing of criteria:

“…a slum household (is) a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following:

1.       Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.

2.       Sufficient living space (which means not more than three people sharing the same room.

3.       Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price.

4.       Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people.

5.       Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.”

A slum goes further than all physical representations of itself. It exudes a visage, one that has a detrimental effect on it and places around it, a visage of dirtiness, squalor, and general unpleasantness. But what does the presence of a slum in a city say, both about the city and about the needs of it?

Taking into account the aforementioned definitions of slums, it is important to understand that usage of the term does not mean all slums share the same characteristics. There is great variance within slums of the world, from Dharavi, right in the center of Mumbai, to the former Walled City of Kowloon, an exceedingly small, freestanding cube of multi-use buildings, the mountainside favelas of Brazil, and the undulating topography of Neza-Chalco-Izta, in Mexico. 

One popular model for demarcating slums is looking at population figures, namely population density. Because slums are made up of predominately informal houses, it can be hard to gather population data on residents; Dharavi’s population, for example, has been estimated to be anywhere between 300,000  (Risbud, 2003) and 1,000,000, (Yardley, 2014) at a difference of more than 200%. When one considers its dimensions of little over 1.6 sq. kilometres, this puts its population density at a point between approximately 187,500 people per square kilometre (at a population of 300,000), to 650,000 people per square kilometre (at a population of 1,000,000).  In Brazil, numbers vary depending on whether one examines official data, or asks the locals: Fabricius (2008) outlines an instance where an individual favela (Maré) had set up its own, independent, information-gathering centre, taking what she described as  “…unofficial but probably more accurate” census data. According to a Hong Kong government survey in 1987, the official population of Kowloon Walled City was 33,000 (Harter, 2000). On a site to the size of 2.7 hectares (0.027 sq. kilometres), this equated to a population density of approximately 1,200,000 people per sq. kilometre. As a comparison, Melbourne’s most densely populated area as of 2013 (defined as SA2) was Inner Melbourne, with a density of 12,400 people per sq. kilometre (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014). The difference in population per sq. kilometre between Melbourne and the aforementioned locations is vast, from its lowest point, at 24x, to its highest, at 96x.

Is there a particular reason for such a concentration of low-income earners and informal housing to gather in such large concentrations? Edward Glaeser (2011) provides a compelling analysis of the possible reasons behind such population movements. He understands slums to represent a stepping stone, almost as if a tool from which impoverished people can make a better living for themselves. Glaeser provides a statistic of the varying poverty rate in America between cities and suburbs; 17.7% and 9.8%, respectively. He states, however, that there is a higher rate of poverty within cities not because they create poverty, but rather because they attract poor people who have the determination and nous to “…improve their lot in life”. Khan and Kraemer (2014) underline the same reasoning, with rather more pragmatic sentiment; they understand that migration is “…a complex process and… driven by demographic, economic, social, political and environmental factors”. Migration is instead driven by “…either push or pull factors”, occurring hand-in-hand with the advancement of an economy from agrarian-based to service-based, and increasing urbanization and industrialisation. To examine the extent of rural-urban migration amongst slum dwellers of a developing city, three surveys were conducted in the City of Dhaka, Bangladesh, across three years , with a total sample size of 5,148 (Khan & Kraemer, 2014). Of four possible migration scenarios (urban-urban, rural-rural, urban-rural and rural-urban), the largest of all was rural-urban, with 3,552 (69%) of people surveyed making a rural to urban migration, reflecting Glaeser’s opinion that slums are needed to provide for these people. Another example of large-scale population shifts from rural to urban locations is China. China’s rapid economic development over the past 30-40 years (Zhang and Song, 2006) has seen one of the largest rural-urban migration streams in history. “Between 1978 and 1998, about 174 million people… have moved from rural areas to cities,” a number that is …”more than (the) total population of many large countries (at the time), such as Brazil… and Russia.” It is clear that people are making such population shifts for these push and pull factors; whether they are being pushed away by rural isolation, poor access to infrastructure, or being pulled towards cities by the attraction of better wages, easier access to healthcare or higher quality of life, is situational; however, this does not make slum housing any less important.