Planet of Slums

[Guest guest]

One in six of us lives in a slum (Filed: 14/05/2006)

Bartholomew reviews Planet of Slums by Mike

News is an inadequate way of following what is going on in the world.

We are more likely to hear of one-off sporting achievements - like

England winning a silver medal - than of more important things

happening over a long period of time.

One such development is the expansion of shanty towns and other forms

of inferior housing around the world. There are now estimated to be a

billion people living in such places, an astonishing number given

that the total urban population is about 3.2 billion and the overall

world population is six or seven billion. So one in six or seven

people on this planet lives in a pretty grim urban dwelling, if not

on the streets.

A great upheaval is taking place around the globe and causing this

growth in shanty towns and slums. In 2000, only metropolitan Tokyo

was a " hyper-city " with a population of more than 20 million,

according to the UN Population Division. But the Far Eastern Economic

Review reports that by 2025, Asia alone might have 10 such hyper-

cities. Bombay's population could grow to a mind-stretching 33

million by then.

The origin of this mass migration to cities is a subject of debate.

At least part of the cause, though, must surely be the worldwide

spread of the agricultural revolution that affected Britain in the

late 18th century. The mechanisation of agriculture meant fewer

workers were needed on the land, and it led to the terrific growth of

cities like London.

The rise in London's population was absorbed with remarkable success.

One housing historian has said that despite the phenomenal rise in

numbers in the 19th century, the space per person in London actually

increased - a great testimonial to the unplanned, unregulated

building frenzy of the time.

But Mike portrays something much less impressive. He describes

a pace of urbanisation that in some cities - Dhaka, Kinshasa and

Lagos - is faster than it was in 19th-century London. He argues that

it has been beyond the power of either capitalist enterprise or state

planning to handle it well.

paints a horrible picture of mass squalor and misery. In the

Amazon, 80 per cent of city growth has been in shanty towns. He cites

figures suggesting that in Mexico City, 60 per cent of the city's

growth is the result of people building their own homes on

unserviced, peripheral land.

The shanty-town dweller he depicts lives without running water, mains

sewerage or roads. Title to the properties may be uncertain and

residents work in menial jobs, if they can get work at all. They may

be under the exploitative control of criminal gangs such as the

Triads. It is a veritable hell.

Nor does see any hope for these people. He disagrees with

Hernando de Soto, perhaps the best-known analyst of shanty towns. De

Soto has argued that they can be places where people become small-

scale entrepreneurs, build up their wealth and make real progress. He

suggests that the key is for governments to let them gain legal title

to the land they develop. This, he says, enables them to accumulate

capital from their work.

will have none of this " bootstrap capitalism " . He does

acknowledge that some poor people in shanty-towns become owners of

their homes. He also describes how they sometimes rent out parts of

their property to others. But he will not accept this as wealth

creation. He describes it as the poor exploiting the very poor.

There is no doubt that worldwide urbanisation is causing enormous

disruption, and hundreds of millions of people are living in foul and

unstable conditions. But it is surely not as bleak as suggests.

There are many instances in which shanty-towns have developed into

far better housing - in Bangkok, for example, where a large increase

in the city's size in the 1980s and 1990s was absorbed in a

remarkable fashion.

But is essentially a Marxist who can only see things being very

bad and getting worse. He forecasts a slum-dwellers' revolt repressed

by " hornet-like helicopter gunships " . He promises that in his next

book he will look at " the history and future of slum-based resistance

to global capitalism " . What this resistance could possibly achieve to

make matters better he does not say.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?

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