Urbanization and Slums

Archit Pathak, Kalpak Deshmukh, Rajesh Wani

T.Y.B.Arch

Conclusions

It is likely to be more important to plan for and adapt to increasing urbanization, which has typically not been done enough, than to attempt to prevent it. The reality is that city planning is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Investment in infrastructure is vital if cities are to avoid health and environmental problems and make the most of the economic opportunities. The slum is a very complex issue involving decentralization of economic growth, releasing pressure on natural resources such as water, land and air. Profitable commercial market for constructing affordable houses.

Introduction

For the first time in history, more than 50 percent of the world's people will live in urban areas. And the current rate of urbanization is such that, if it holds, the urban share of the global population could reach 60 percent by 2030, according to UN projections. Many view the move from the countryside to cities as a natural result of the modernization and industrialization of societies and point out many upsides of urban life, which range from increased average income to improved health.

Social critics view urbanization not as a natural process but as one that results from a bias toward cities in government policies and investment, a bias that presses people to migrate from the countryside in search of jobs.
The negative evaluation is bolstered by evidence of the downsides of urbanization, such as heightened crime and the growth of slums.

The Dynamics of Urbanization

If the trend of recent decades continues, most of the growth in urban areas will occur in developing countries. In more developed regions, the number of people living in urban areas will rise only slightly in the next 25 years, while the less developed regions will experience a particularly sharp rate of increase in this number. Governments designate areas as "urban" on the basis of disparate criteriasuch as administrative benchmarks, population density, or the composition of economic activityand sometimes do not distinguish urban from rural at all. The urbanization process has been uneven. Some cities attract more migrants than others. Still more impressive is the predicted growth over the next decade of a category known as "metacities"agglomerations with more than 20 million inhabitants. The Tokyo metropolitan area already has more than 35 million inhabitants, and it is likely to be joined in this category by Mumbai, So Paulo, and Mexico City by 2015 There are a number of economic, social, and political factors that underpin urbanization, particularly migration to cities.

These include, for individual migrants, the search for employment (or higher-paying employment), a better quality of life in terms of health and education, and a greater diversity of entertainment and lifestyle options.

Optimists

Many benefits of urbanization accrue to individuals: Other factors that improve quality of life may also be more prevalent in cities than in the country. For example, government programs can be applied more efficiently in urban areas by realizing economies of scale in delivering transportation, communication, water supply, sanitation, and waste management services.

Education systems may be more effective in cities insofar as educated people who can teach in schools and universities are in greater supply.
Urbanization has positive outcomes at the national level: Cities attract businesses and jobs, and the concentration of industries and services in turn encourages productivity growth. Urbanization contributes to rural development: People who migrate to cities often send remittances to their families based in rural areas. Their migration reduces the size of the labor pool available to work in rural areas, so wages there may increase.

Pessimists

Impact on the environment and quality of life: Because of the effects of traffic congestion, concentration of industry, and inadequate waste disposal systems, environmental contamination is generally higher in cities than in the countryside and often well in excess of the local environment's inherent capacity to assimilate wastewhich undercuts human health. Increases in urban poverty: with the rate of growth of the world's urban poor exceeding the rate of growth of the world's urban population. And inequality within developing world cities is stark. Because quality urban housing is so costly, the urban poor often resort to living in slums, where water and sanitation facilities are inadequate and living conditions are crowded and often unhealthy. Social problems, such as crime and violent conflict: The growth in urban populations in developing countries is in large part a growth in the number of young people. The proportion of young people is particularly high in slum areas, where employment opportunities are limited. This combination of youth and poverty can make for high crime rates.

Some of the largest slums in the world sorted by population.

(figures in million)

Slums

A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a rundown area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the proportion 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, the number of slum dwellers is rising. One billion people worldwide live in slums and will likely grow to 2 billion by 2030.( UN-HABITAT survey 2005) Under Section-3 of the Slum Area Improvement and Clearance Act, 1956, slums have been defined as mainly those residential areas where dwellings are in any respect unfit for human habitation by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangements and designs of such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors which are detrimental to safety, health and morals.

National Census 2001

A total of 42.6 million people living in 8.2 million households have been enumerated in slums of 640 cities/towns spread across 26 states and union territories in 2001 Census. The slum population constitutes 4 per cent of the total population of the country. The slum dwellers in the country constitute nearly a seventh of the total urban population of the states and union territories reporting slum population and 23.1 per cent of the population of the 640 cities/towns reporting slums.

Slum Population in Million Plus CitiesThe large urban cities are centers

of economic growth and contribute significantly to the GDP of the country

Rapid growth of cities in the post independence period, however, has been associated with emergence and growth of slum and squatter settlements, characterized by overcrowding and lack of sanitation and basic infrastructure. 54.1% of population of Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation live in slums, which is the highest among the cities followed by Faridabad (46.5%) and Meerut (44.1%). Patna (0.3%) has the lowest proportion of slum population.

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Population in the Slums

Out of the total 42.6 million people enumerated in the slum areas in 2001 Census, 7.4 million are Scheduled Castes and one million Scheduled Tribes. They constitute 17.4 per cent and 2.4 per cent of the total slum population.

The proportion of Scheduled Castes is higher in the slum areas if compared to the population of Scheduled Castes in non slum areas (10.8%), and urban areas of the country (11.8%). In case of Scheduled Tribes, it is at par with the urban areas (2%) but far lower than the national average of around 10.9 per cent for rural areas.

Percentage of Scheduled Castes population is notably higher in the slums when compared with corresponding percentage of Scheduled Tribes and other populations.

Slums in the 61 towns of Maharashtra account for 11.2 million people, which is more than one fourth of the total slum population in the country. Andhra Pradesh (5.2 million) Uttar Pradesh (4.4 million) West Bengal (4.1 million) Tamil Nadu (2.9 million) Goa (2.2%) of urban population Among other states/union territories, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have reported more than 1 million slum dwellers each in the cities and towns in 2001. As percentage of the total urban population, Maharashtra has the highest proportion of slum population (27.3%) followed by Andhra Pradesh (24.9%) and Haryana (23.2%).

Literacy in Slums

Literacy is an important social indicator, which throws light on the quality of life. It has long been recognized that social environment cannot improve much without attaining higher literacy levels. The corresponding literacy rates are 73.1 per cent for all slum dwellers, 80.7 per cent for males and 64.4 percent for females. Most of the cities fall in the range of 60 to 80 per cent of the literacy rates of which four cities have registered literacy rate between 75-80 per cent. Jaipur, Agra and Meerut have comparatively low literacy rate among the slum dwellers. One of the most striking features of the slum population is the preponderance of main workers in these areas similar to the urban areas of the country. The main workers in slum form 90.0 per cent of the total workers. In 13 states/ union territories, main workers are above 90 per cent and in 12 it is between 80-90 per cent while in only one state (Goa) below 80 per cent.

Child population in the age group 06

More than 6 million children are living in the slums in the country and they constitute 16.4 per cent of the total child population of the urban areas of the 26 states/ union territories reporting slums. There are over 6 million children (0-6 age group) living in the slums in the country in unhealthy hygienic conditions and not so conducive environment for their growth and development. This situation is grave in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana where every fourth child in urban area is a slum dweller.

Conclusions

To sum up 4 per cent of the country's total population live in slum areas of which one fourth are in Maharashtra. Greater Mumbai, the economic capital of the country, with a slum population of 6.5 million has the highest number of slum dwellers and Delhi Municipal Corporation in the national capital Delhi is a distant second,with 1.9 million slum dwellers. The four large metropolises of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai together have 11 million population living in slums. The data suggests sex selective migration of males to the slum areas of the towns. Sex ratio of slum population as a whole is very masculine and almost 29 points lower than that of the non slum urban population of these towns though the regional variations exist. Scheduled Castes population is higher in the slum areas as compared to the rural areas. Significantly, every fourth person in the slum areas of Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Punjab belongs to this segment of population.

Slums in Mumbai

Housing options for poor in Mumbai are: 'Chawls'; Patra chawls (consisting mainly of semi-permanent structures, which can be both authorised and unauthorized); Zopadpattis (squatter housing); and pavement dwellings. Although pavement dwellings and 'chawls' have poor slum-like conditions, these do not fall under the legal definitionofslum.

Typical chawls

Pavement Dwellers

Pavement Dwellers are households, dominated by single male migrants living in hut ments built on the foot-paths of Mumbaisroadsclosetoplacesof employment. There were 20,000 pavement dwellers as early as 1952; the number grew to 62,000 by 1961, whereas the 1981 Census identified about 22,600 households and 12,50,00 in 1985. The living conditions of pavement dwellers was worse than those of squatters as these were not eligible for improvement schemes and often faced harassment and demolition.

Zopadpattis

Zopadpattis are squatters in the local terminology. These are the most predominant low-income informal settlements falling under the category of slum. The first official census of slums was carried out by the State Government in January 1976 (Government of Maharashtra, 1995) and 902,015 huts in 2,335 pockets were identified. More than 50 percent of squatting was on private lands, followed by municipal lands. While 73.6 per cent of employment was concentrated in the island wards they contained only 21.1 per cent of slum population.

Settlements in the suburbs housed almost 83 per cent of the slum population mostly located on lands not suitable for development - like low-lying marshy lands, hillsides and along railway tracks. The slum census did not include pavement dwellers. Slums had come be built on private lands earmarked for public facilities in the Development Plan. There was a wide variance in densities ranging from 750 huts/ha to 200 huts/ha in isolated pockets. Generally 10 to 15 per cent of residents worked in the settlements them-selves. About 40 per cent of households belonged to the Economically Weaker Sections and 39 per cent belonged to the low income category. Seventy- nine per cent of families had come to Mumbai after 1960 and 50 per cent of migrants were from other states of India.

There were large slum concentrations like Dharavi which occupied about 175 hectares of mixed ownership and had a population of 0.35 million. The average area of huts was as small as 12.5 m2 and only 12.72 per cent of huts were built of permanent materials. The rental market was significant with 48 percent households living as tenants. Sanitation was very poor and water supply was through highly inadequate community water taps.

Rental in Slums

The rental market in slums is very buoyant, as renting or buying a room in Mumbai slum is an expensive proposition. Rents vary according to location, level of infrastructure and the condition of the house. According to a recent report in a local daily, rents are as high as US$40 for an average room in South Mumbai and as low as US$10 in slums that are more cramped, filthy, have poor access and face acute water shortages. In all cases an initial deposit has to be paid to the landlord, which can vary from US$200 to $1,200. Delay in payment of rents is common and is all right for the owner as long as he has a deposit. Rent agreements with 11 month contracts are signed on stamp-paper and even ratified by two witnesses and renewal depends entirely on the owner-tenant relationship. Selling a 25m room in well-located squatter settlement like Santosh Nagar could earn Rs.6.4 to 7 lacs . In some places prices of shops in a slum on a major road are equivalent to fancy new building shop prices in the same stretch. Slum shops are more profitable since they donotpayanytaxes.karkhanas(industrialaccommodation)issoldfor astronomical prices.

Rehabilitation

The Housing Board, as the successor MHADA (until 1986) had supplied about 100,000 fully built ownership dwellings to various income groups of which 75 per cent were for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Groups (LIG). Housing supply by public agencies has been far below the requirement and that by the private sector was beyond the reach of poor. Housing conditions thus deteriorated as 73 per cent of households in 1991 compared to 69 per cent in 1981 lived in one-room tenements.

Slum redevlopment