Study of Slums as Social and Physical Constructs: Challenges and Emerging Research Opportunities
Introduction:
Billion people currently live in slums, with the number of slum dwellers only expected to grow in the coming decades. The vast majority of slums are located in and around urban centres in the less economically developed countries, which are also experiencing greater rates of urbanization compared with more developed countries. This rapid rate of urbanization is cause for significant concern given that many of these countries often lack the ability to provide the infrastructure (e.g., roads and affordable housing) and basic services (e.g., water and sanitation) to provide adequately for the increasing influx of people into cities.
While research on slums has been ongoing, such work has mainly focused on one of three constructs: exploring the socio-economic and policy issues; exploring the physical characteristics; and, lastly, those modelling slums. This paper reviews these lines of research and argues that while each is valuable, there is a need for a more holistic approach for studying slums to truly understand them. By synthesizing the social and physical constructs, this paper provides a more holistic synthesis of the problem, which can potentially lead to a deeper understanding and, consequently, better approaches for tackling the challenge of slums at the local, national and regional scales.
Slums and informal settlements:
Slums have been in existence since the time of cities and their presence has long been documented in the literature. The word ‘slum’ has mainly been used to describe people living under substandard conditions and squalor. For example, Cities Alliance describes slums as ‘neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are appallingly poor’. Often the terms ‘slum’ and ‘informal settlements’ are used interchangeably in the literature. However, some would argue that there is a distinct difference between slum and informal settlement. This paper adopts the view that slums and informal settlements are one in the same and, therefore, can be treated as one. Usually, as argued by UN-Habitat, most characteristics of these environments, whether slum or informal settlement, are not found in isolation, leading to multiple levels of deprivation for slum dwellers.
The impact of slums:
The growth of slums is expected to have major consequences on both humans and the environment, which are inextricably linked. On the one hand, the conditions that exist in slums such as living under physical threat from natural and manmade disasters and improper housing have direct impacts on their residents. This is mainly due to the low capacity of slums dwellers to recover from disasters, such as floods and earthquakes, compared with more formal communities. On the other hand, slum residents themselves can impact their environment due to lack of basic services, which results in contaminated soil and polluted air and waterways. This results in a perpetuated cycle of decline for both slum dwellers and the environment, with the possibility of impacts extending to communities beyond the slums. The growth and expansion of slums can therefore threaten sustainable urban development at local, national and regional scales.
Factors influencing the growth of slums:
Many factors have been linked to the growth of slums. This section highlights several of these factors, specifically those relating to locational choice factors, rural-to-urban migration, poor urban governance and ill-designed policies. Those factors chosen for discussion have been identified as those most often discussed by others for the growth and persistence of slums based on an extensive review of the literature.
Locational choice factors:
The emergence of slums has been linked to a number of socio-cultural, economic and physical factors. For example, Lall, Lundberg, and Shalizi examined the residential locational decisions made by slum dwellers in Pune, India, and found that locational decisions were made around theories relating to socio-cultural and economic factors such as commuting costs, access to local public goods and individual preferences for community or neighbourhood composition. In addition to these classical models, they found that the locational choices made by slum dwellers was also guided by housing quality and neighbourhood amenities. Similar findings have been reported in other studies. Social ties related to common culture, language and similar income-generating activities have also been found associated with the locational choices of new immigrants.
Rural-to-urban migration:
Within the literature, rural-to-urban migration not only has been the driver for the growth of cities, but also it has been identified as one of the primary drivers for the growth of slums. In less developed countries the current rapid and immense net movement of the rural population to urban spaces has intensified. This is due to several factors: those pertaining to the pulling of rural people to cities and push factors driving population away from rural areas. Often cited in the literature with respect to pull factors include the relative perception of better economic opportunities and provision of basic services such as education and healthcare within cities, or the freedom from restrictive social or cultural norms often found in rural areas.
Poor urban governance:
Other factors relating to the upward growth of slums in many less developed countries is the use of rigid and often outdated urban planning regulations, which are typically bypassed by slum dwellers to meet their housing needs. This is a reflection of poor urban governance. Many local and national governments are also unable to enforce planning regulations due to lack of resources.
Ill-designed policies:
Closely related to poor urban governance are the inappropriate policies developed by local and national governments, and regional led organizations to curb the growth of slums. During the 1950s and 1960s, a time when urbanization was viewed as a positive, with large labour forces needed to fuel economic growth in cities, macro-policy intervention with respect to slums was largely ignored, leading to the widespread growth of slums. To tackle this issue, a sites and services approach was introduced in the 1970s.
Conclusion:
Given the various opportunities for the collection of slum-related data, both qualitative and quantitative, it is imperative that such approaches consider both the social and the physical constructs typical of slums, such that slums can be more holistically analyzed and assessed. This should include data relating to the social, physical and economic factors, which continue to drive the growth and persistence of slums. In turn, this will allow one to analyze and model slum growth over time, Modelling approaches should include, but are not limited to, the use of technologies such as GISs, remote sensing and the use of more dynamic modelling approaches such as CA and ABMs. This integrated approach could potentially help monitor, analyze and model these complex environments.