Addressing the Affordable Housing Challenges for Urban Poor in Pakistan
Addressing the Affordable Housing Challenges for Urban Poor in Pakistan
UNHSP & UNESCAP (2008) declare that urbanization gave birth to different informal settlements, which are called slums, squatter settlements, and illegal subdivisions of land. Due to the scarcity of formal housing stock, low, as well as middle-income people, are forced to seek abode in informal settlements because it’s affordable and conveniently located.
These informal settlements have a variety of sizes and forms, mostly called slums. The word slum describes a neighbourhood of housing that was once in good condition, but after deterioration has become the abode of the low-income people.
Wesolowski & Eagle (2010) define slums as residential settlements established on state-owned or private land with or without having a legal claim to the land and permission from concerned authorities to build the house.
Due to their illegal status, the infrastructure is inadequate in these slums. Slums mostly lack durable housing, sufficient living areas, access to clean water, access to proper sanitation and secure ownership. Slums are characterized by dilapidated and poor-quality housing overcrowded and high-density population and unhealthy living environment.
UNHSP & UNESCAP (2008) defined that squatter settlement is an area of poor-quality housing built on illegally occupied land. A slum settlement refers to the condition of a settlement, while a squatter settlement refers to the legal position of the settlement.
If the legal landowners sell or rent out their owned land into sub-standard plots without adequate infrastructure and amenities, and without the approval of the competent authority, this is called illegal subdivision.
Various studies conducted by Garau, Sclar & Carolini, (2015), UNHABITAT (2011), UNHABITAT (2012) and UNHCR (2014), find that about 1 billion people in the world, i.e. one-third of urban and one-sixth of world population, live in slums with low standard, an unhealthy environment without having adequate access to clean water, sanitation, living space and security of tenure.
Informal Urban Settlements in Developing Countries
According to UN-HABITAT (2008), over the last fifty years, enormous demographic changes have been observed in Asia and the movement of people from rural areas is one of these due to which, the percentage of people living in urban areas is increasing fast. In 1950, only 232 million people were living in cities in Asia, which was merely 17% of the total population of the continent.
In 2005, the urban population had risen to 1.6 billion, which is about 40% of the total population of Asia. The United Nations expects That more than 50% of Asia’s total population will be living in cities by the year 2025, which is estimated to reach 54.5% by 2030.
This dramatic increase in urban population takes place in three ways:
- By Natural Population Growth
- By Rural-to-Urban Migration
- By Reclassifying Rural Areas into Urban Areas
Makindi (2012), Yuen (2007) find that although the number of urban populations is increasing about 37 % of the world population lives in slums due to massive rural-urban migration and migration from smaller to bigger cities. Slum-dwellers have minimum access to health, education and other civic amenities.
Netzband et al. (2009) find that one-third of Dhaka’s population is living in slums where various health problems are caused due to insufficient water supply and waste disposal, lack of access to basic services.
United Nations in 2008 reported that 533 million people, i.e., 42% of all urban Asians were living in slums, and most of them are ordinary, hard-working people who cannot afford decent housing. Potsiou et al. (2010), Pugh (2000), Azfar & Rehman (2004) found that in developing countries, the proportion of the urban population living in slums or informal settlements is 30%.
About 90% of new urban settlements in sub-Saharan Africa are slums, usually built on hazardous sites on high-risk and locations vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Hussain et al. (2019) declare that katchi abadis either develop near the high-income residential areas or on the outskirts of the large cities due to economic reasons. UNHSP & UNESCAP (2008) explore that informal settlements in Asian cities come in all shapes and sizes, but the common denominator is their highly dynamic response to an absolute lack of other options.
In Mongolia, the city’s rural migrants have brought their nomadic style, felt-lined ger tents with them. In Phnom Penh, the rooftop slum has emerged in the shape of roof terraces on derelict apartment buildings.
In Mumbai India, 55% of the population lives in a slum, and many can’t afford to buy houses in slums. In Manila, Philippines, 35000 households earn a good living gathering recyclable waste, but must still poor live-in conditions. In Thailand, urban poor are forced to live in slums existing along railway tracks and canals.
For further reading: Atlas of informality
For more: Rethinking urban informality