Urban Poverty, Pollution And Environmental Management

Introduction:

This Topic Guide covers urban poverty, chemical pollutants and disease-causing agents in the home, workplace, and wider city. It also includes consideration of GHG emissions in urban areas; most are not pollutants in the sense of having a direct impact on human health or ecological resources but they are the main drivers of climate change. Most urban inhabitants in low-and middle-income nations suffer very large (and mostly preventable) health burdens from urban pollution.

The main cause of this is a lack of capacity and competence within urban governments to meet their responsibilities for ensuring environmental health, waste management, and pollution control. This is often exacerbated by a lack of local government accountability to those living in their jurisdiction. Urban economies and populations have grown far faster than the needed (mostly local) government capacity.

Urban poverty:

Causes of urban poverty:

Many factors contribute to urban poverty. Inadequacies in the international measurement of poverty have led to difficulties in quantifying the scale of the problem. Many poverty lines are still based mainly on food costs with some small upward adjustment for non-food needs. The original dollar/day poverty line that is now usually set at $1.25/day (and with current discussions considering a further increase) was based primarily on the cost of food (see Mitlin and Satterthwaite, 2013, for more details on this), but does not consider the multi-dimensional nature of urban poverty.

Impacts of urban poverty:

In many Asian and sub-Saharan African nations, 25–40% of urban children are underweight and/or under height. In many nations, more than half the urban population suffers from food-energy deficiency including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Policy responses:

Urban policy responses to pollution and its impacts on the poor must adopt a more holistic understanding of urban deprivation. Such a definition recognizes the ‘environmental’ aspects of urban poverty in terms of the higher environmental health risks faced by much of the low-income population.

This includes how different aspects of urban poverty (inadequate incomes, assets, housing, access to infrastructure and services, voice…) relate to exposure to urban pollution and its impacts. Identifying the groups most at risk requires consideration of exposure and susceptibility to pollution (for instance, the risks from diarrheic diseases, malnutrition and of premature death being higher for infants and young children), as well as their coping capacity and adaptive capacity (that contributes to lower risks).

Urban pollution challenges:

Urban areas concentrate the solid, liquid and gaseous wastes produced by their inhabitants, workforce, businesses and other institutions. These include air pollution and solid and liquid wastes from residents and their homes, industries and other businesses, public bodies, motor vehicles and often thermal power stations.

Informal settlements:

One of the greatest challenges is the billion or so urban dwellers that live in informal settlements or in very poor quality, overcrowded accommodation in formal settlements.

Types of urban pollution:

Urban pollution in the home and its immediate surrounds (the neighbourhood) can include:

 indoor air pollution (linked mostly to use of ‘dirty’ fuels and overcrowded dwellings lacking ventilation)

 air pollution in the neighbourhood (often a combination of pollutants generated by households from cooking and where needed heating) and ambient air pollution

 pollutants/pathogens in food, water, the home environment and the surrounds (streets, lanes, open spaces)

 disease vectors that breed or feed within the home and neighbourhood

 pathogens or pollutants from income-earning activities undertaken within the home (which may include keeping some livestock).

The need to act on urban pollution:

The need to address urban pollution may not appear to be an urgent priority in the Global South. The environmental problems commonly associated with cities such as high levels of air and water pollution and large volumes of solid wastes (including some highly toxic or otherwise hazardous wastes) might be assumed to be less important in Africa, Asia and Latin America for two reasons:

1. A smaller proportion of the population lives in cities (although this is no longer true for Latin America).

2. These regions are less industrialized. Rural and agricultural environmental problems such as deforestation, soil erosion and floods may seem more urgent even if some of these have important linkages with cities.

How does a changing climate impact on urban poverty?

Most cities are at increasing risk from the effects of climate change. These include an increase in the number or intensity of heat waves and, for coastal cities, rising sea levels and larger storm surges. In many locations, climate change is also likely to be increasing the intensity of extreme rainfall in the city or ‘upstream.’ It may also contribute to water stress. Climate change is also constantly increasing most of these risks; the world is still far from reaching agreement on the measures needed to halt global warming.

Conclusion:

Thus, in concluding the discussion of urban poverty and urban pollution, it is the quality of local (municipal, city, metropolitan) governance that is most important for reducing it, especially for low-income groups. Obviously, the higher the per capita income of city inhabitants, the more potential for good environmental quality as city inhabitants can afford to pay more for environmental infrastructure and services and as city government has a larger resource base on which to draw.

If local government does not act on this, wealthy groups may retreat to gated communities (or even gated cities). ‘Good local governance’ backed by the needed legislation and financial support can ensure much improved environmental quality even in cities and smaller urban centers with relatively low per capita incomes.

Also Read: Unravelling a crisis: The State of Rural Affordable Housing in England