Slums, Favelas, Ghettos and Shanty Towns: a Global Epidemic Essay Example
Slums, Favelas, Ghettos and Shanty Towns: A Global Epidemic
What is a slum?
Tenements, shanty-towns, ghettos, and Hoovervilles are all terms that have historical and social meanings that help to give us insight on what people consider slums globally. The term slum is often used interchangeably with similar words in local contexts to describe varying types of informal settlements. Often these informal settlements, herein called to as ‘slums’, refer to semi-legal or unsanctioned subdivisions of land within the urban sphere (The Challenge of Slums 197). One can find slums in one form or another in most parts of the world. Whether they be Brazilian Favela, shanty towns, gecekoudus in Turkey, or the various refugee camps that dot the globe due to conflicts, war or famine. The word slum became part of the modern English lexicon sometime int he 1820’s in London. The word was used to describe very poor quality housing that lacked proper sanitary and was in an area prone to crime and health epidemics. Over 190 years later and conditions have barely changed, the difference is that slums have popped up all over the world. They can be found in cities across the developing and developed world. In fact, as our world is rapidly urbanizing, what is primarily being urbanized is poverty (Ooi, Phua i28). According to UN-Habitat a slum neighborhood is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. Rapid population growth coupled with poverty leads to slum formation especially with the addition of one of the following conditions; unclear land-tenure, lack of affordable housing, and/or poor land-use policies. More specifically a slum household is defined by UN-Habitat as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following:
Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.
Sufficient living space which means not
What is a slum?
Tenements, shanty-towns, ghettos, and Hoovervilles are all terms that have historical and social meanings that help to give us insight on what people consider slums globally. The term slum is often used interchangeably with similar words in local contexts to describe varying types of informal settlements. Often these informal settlements, herein called to as ‘slums’, refer to semi-legal or unsanctioned subdivisions of land within the urban sphere (The Challenge of Slums 197). One can find slums in one form or another in most parts of the world. Whether they be Brazilian Favela, shanty towns, gecekoudus in Turkey, or the various refugee camps that dot the globe due to conflicts, war or famine. The word slum became part of the modern English lexicon sometime int he 1820’s in London. The word was used to describe very poor quality housing that lacked proper sanitary and was in an area prone to crime and health epidemics. Over 190 years later and conditions have barely changed, the difference is that slums have popped up all over the world. They can be found in cities across the developing and developed world. In fact, as our world is rapidly urbanizing, what is primarily being urbanized is poverty (Ooi, Phua i28). According to UN-Habitat a slum neighborhood is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. Rapid population growth coupled with poverty leads to slum formation especially with the addition of one of the following conditions; unclear land-tenure, lack of affordable housing, and/or poor land-use policies. More specifically a slum household is defined by UN-Habitat as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following:
Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.
Sufficient living space which means not