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Researching the Urban Dilemma: Urbanization, Poverty and Violence

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Researching the Urban Dilemma: Urbanization, Poverty and Violence Researching the Urban Dilemma: Urbanization, Poverty and Violence By Robert Muggah Copyright © IDRC, May 2012 Cover artwork designed by Scott Sigurdson, www.scottsigurdson.com Table of Contents Preface .................................................................................................................................................................... iii About the Author..................................................................................................................................................... v Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................................ vi Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 Report Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 4 Section 1: Research and Methods ........................................................................................................................... 7 Section 2: Concepts and Theories ......................................................................................................................... 13 i. Defining the “urban” ................................................................................................................................. 15 ii. Defining urban violence ............................................................................................................................. 18 iii. Defining the urban poor ............................................................................................................................ 23 Section 3: Measuring the Impacts ......................................................................................................................... 27 i. Death and victimization in the city ............................................................................................................ 29 ii. Displacement to and from the city ............................................................................................................ 31 iii. Social capital and cohesion in the city ....................................................................................................... 33 iv. Socio-economic welfare in the city ........................................................................................................... 35 v. Erosion of urban governance in the city .................................................................................................... 37 Section 4: Risks and Drivers ................................................................................................................................... 38 i. Urbanization and population growth ........................................................................................................ 39 ii. Urban population density .......................................................................................................................... 43 iii. Urban poverty and inequality .................................................................................................................... 45 iv. Urban youth and unemployment .............................................................................................................. 46 v. Failures in urban governance .................................................................................................................... 49 Section 5: Resilience and Resistance ..................................................................................................................... 51 Section 6: What Works and Why ........................................................................................................................... 53 i. Pacification and community policing......................................................................................................... 55 ii. Enhancing protection and reducing risks facing youth ............................................................................. 56 iii. Promoting social capital and urban cohesion ........................................................................................... 58 iv. Urban renewal for security ........................................................................................................................ 60 v. Slum upgrading and urban safety .............................................................................................................. 61 vi. Urban governance for security .................................................................................................................. 65 Concluding Reflections .......................................................................................................................................... 67 Annex 1: Evidence Gaps and Emerging Questions ................................................................................................ 70 Annex 2: Moving From Theory to Practice: A Review of Selected Examples ........................................................ 73 Annex 3: List of Key Informants ............................................................................................................................. 75 Annex 4: Selected Networks and Internet Resources ........................................................................................... 76 Annex 5: Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 81 i List of Figures Figure 1: Spatial distribution of “violence” events in selected African countries Figure 2: Framing the impacts of urban violence Figure 3: Comparing selected national and city homicide rates (per 100,000) Figure 4a: Urban population growth (thousands): 1950-2050 Figure 4b: Percentage of populations living in urban areas: 1950-2050 Figure 5: Targeting urban violence prevention and reduction interventions ii Preface In 2007, the world became a predominantly urban society. Across the world, an estimated three quarters of economic production takes place in cities. Urbanization brings with it possibilities of improved access to jobs, goods and services for poor people in developing countries and beyond as globalization trends connect cities world-wide. However, urbanization has also brought new challenges in terms of conflict, violence and urban governance – and citizen security in particular. The World Bank’s landmark 2011 World Development Report highlighted the significance of violence as a development problem. Its work noted how violence is changing, becoming less structured around notions of civil war and conflict, and more focused around criminal violence, terrorism and civil unrest. The impacts of violence on human development are significant and varied. As Stergios Skaperdas has documented, they include direct costs such as death and injury, destruction to public infrastructure, personal property and assets, as well as indirect costs like psychological trauma, population displacement, the disruption of social services, reduced economic growth, brain drain and increased spending on law enforcement. What is clear is that violence has emerged as one of the central development challenges of our time. Virtually all fragile states have experienced repeated episodes of violence, and the large majority of the world’s poorest people live in states affected by violence – over 1.5 billion people. As the 2011 World Development Report has underscored, the close relationship between violence and poverty is reflected in this stark fact: no low-income fragile or conflict-affected state has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. Today’s cities are centres of multi-layered violence. Criminal and organized violence, associated with the drug trade in some countries have become entwined with national politics. Gangs and militias have come to substitute for public authority, offering some protection to communities, but often at great cost. Social violence, including violence within the household, is also a significant problem, particularly for vulnerable youth and women living in these environments. In response to these challenges, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) have launched Safe and Inclusive Cities. This collaborative research initiative is aimed at generating an evidence base on the connections between urban violence, inequalities and poverty and on identifying the most effective strategies for addressing these challenges. The present study marks the first step in this endeavour, and has served to inform the design and scope of the Safe and Inclusive Cities research initiative. iii Towards this end, the study set out to achieve four objectives: 1. Document what is known about the connections between violence, inequalities and poverty in urban centres and assess the strength of the knowledge base. Particular focus was given to assessing evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia; 2. Describe the state of theory on violence, urbanization and poverty reduction, and assess the extent to which they interact, and whether emerging evidence actually informs theoretical debates and assumptions guiding work in these
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