Global Urban Poverty: Setting the Agenda
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
GLOBAL URBAN POVER Comparative Urban Studies Project GLOBAL URBAN POVERTY SETTING THE AGENDA TY : SETTING THE AGENDA CONTRIBUTORS Victor Barbiero, Anne Line Dalsgaard, Diane Davis, Edesio Fernandes, Karen Tranberg Hansen, Arif Hasan, Loren B. Landau, Gordon McGranahan, Diana Mitlin, Richard Stren, Karen Valentin, Vanessa Watson This publication is made possible through support provided by the Urban Programs Team of the Office of Poverty Reduction in the Bureau of Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, U.S. Agency for International Development under the terms of the Cooperative Agreement No. GEW-A-00-02-00023-00. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not nec- essarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Woodrow Wilson Center. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Comparative Urban Studies Program Edited by ALLISON M. GARLAND, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20004 Tel. (202) 691-4000 Fax (202) 691-4001 MEJGAN MASSOUMI www.wilsoncenter.org and BLAIR A. RUBLE GLOBAL URBAN POVERTY: SETTING THE AGENDA Edited by Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a living national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to commemorate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and col- laboration among a broad spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan institution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publica- tions and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not neces- sarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. The Center is the publisher of The Wilson Quarterly and home of Woodrow Wilson Center Press, dialogue radio and television, and the monthly newslet- ter “Centerpoint.” For more information about the Center’s activities and pub- lications, please visit us on the web at www.wilsoncenter.org. Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair David A. Metzner, Vice Chair PUBLIC MEMBERS: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Bruce Cole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Tamala L. Longaberger, Designated Appointee of the President from Within the Federal Government; Condoleezza Rice, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Cristián Samper, Acting Secretary, Smithsonian Institute; Margaret Spellings, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States National Archives and Records Administration PRIVATE CITIZEN MEMBERS: Robin B. Cook, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Sander R. Gerber, Charles L. Glazer, Susan Hutchison, Ignacio E. Sanchez Comparative Urban Studies Project GLOBAL URBAN POVERTY: SETTING THE AGENDA Edited by Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble ©2007 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org Cover Photograph: © Viviane Moos/CORBIS ISBN: 1-933549-30-0 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VII I. INTRODUCTION 1 Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble II. URBAN TRENDS AND CHALLENGES 11 Shaping Urban Futures: Reflections on Human Mobility and Poverty in Africa’s Globalizing Cities Loren B. Landau Finding a Place for Youth: 37 Urban Space and Citizenship in Lusaka, Recife and Hanoi Karen Valentin, Anne Line Dalsgaard and Karen Tranberg Hansen Urban Violence, Quality of Life, and the Future of Latin 57 American Cities: The Dismal Record So Far and the Search for New Analytical Frameworks to Sustain the Bias Towards Hope Diane Davis III. SECTORAL INNOVATION 89 Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Deprived Urban Neighborhoods: Avoiding Global Distractions and Pursuing Local Priorities Gordon McGranahan The Sanitation Program of the Orangi Pilot Project- 117 Research and Training Institute, Karachi, Pakistan Arif Hasan | v | New Directions in Housing Policy 151 Diana Mitlin Urban Land Regularization Programs: 181 State of Knowledge Edesio Fernandes Urban Health: An Inevitable International Imperative 189 Victor Barbiero IV. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: NEW APPROACHES TO 205 URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND ASSISTANCE Urban Planning and Twenty-First Century Cities: Can It Meet the Challenge? Vanessa Watson International Assistance for Cities in Developing 239 Countries: Do We Still Need It? Richard Stren ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 261 | vi | ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to the Urban Programs Team of the Office of Poverty Reduction in the Bureau of Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade of the U.S. Agency for International Development for making the Comparative Urban Studies Project’s seminar series on urban poverty and this publication possible. We would also like to thank the seminar participants for their con- tribution to the success of this project. Special thanks to Leah Florence for copyediting the chapters and proofreading the manuscript. | vii | I. INTRODUCTION Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble THE URBAN CHALLENGE This year, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s people will live in cities. According to the United Nations, the global urban population will grow from 3.3 billion people in 2008 to almost 5 billion by the year 2030 (UNFPA 2007, 1). This urban expansion is not a phenomenon of wealthy countries. Almost all of the growth will occur in unplanned and underserved city slums in parts of the world that are least able to cope with added demands. The pace of urbanization far exceeds the rate at which basic infrastructure and services can be provided, and the consequences for the urban poor have been dire. Failure to prepare for this unprecedented and inevitable urban explosion carries serious implications for global security and environmental sustainability. Over the past two years, the Wilson Center’s Comparative Urban Studies Project (CUSP) organized a seminar series to bring these trends to the attention of international decision makers. With the support of the Urban Programs Team of the Office of Poverty Reduction in the Bureau of Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade at the US Agency for International Development, CUSP commissioned research to examine the multidimensional problem of urban poverty, identifying innovative approaches to urban health, water, sanita- tion, crime, youth, migration, planning, land markets, and housing. The semi- nar series brought together scholars, policymakers, and local community leaders to discuss strategies for incorporating urban priorities into the global develop- ment agenda. THE URBAN FACE OF POVERTY One billion people—one-third of the world’s urban population—currently live in slums (UN-HABITAT 2006). In cities across the globe, hundreds of millions of people exist in desperate poverty without access to adequate shel- ter, clean water, and basic sanitation. Overcrowding and environmental degradation make the urban poor particularly vulnerable to the spread of dis- | 1 | Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble ease. Insecurity permeates all aspects of life for slum dwellers. Without land title or tenure, they face the constant threat of eviction. Crime and violence are concentrated in city slums, disproportionately affecting the urban poor. Most slum dwellers depend upon precarious employment in the informal sector, characterized by low pay and poor working conditions. Illegal settle- ments are often located on hazardous land in the urban periphery. Perhaps most alienated in city slums are growing youth populations whose unmet needs for space, education, health, and jobs can lead to social problems, fur- ther undermining security in urban areas. Marginalized from life and opportunity in the formal city, the urban poor are in many ways invisible to their governments. They live in irregular settle- ments where there are no schools or health clinics, and transportation to jobs is inadequate and costly. They are forced to pay considerably more to private vendors for services and infrastructure that are not provided by the govern- ment. Statistics often mask the severity of conditions for the urban poor. While demographic indicators for quality of life of urban dwellers can be higher than for their rural counterparts, disaggregated data reveals differences within levels of access to services and stark inequalities, for example in child malnutrition and mortality rates. Highly visible disparities, spatial segregation, and exclu- sion create the breeding grounds for social tensions, crime and violence. Global poverty has become an urban phenomenon. In the year 2002, 746 million people in urban areas were living on less than $2.00 a day (Ravallion 2007, 16). The absolute number of urban poor has increased in the last fif- teen to twenty years at a rate faster than in rural areas. Rapid urban growth has made Asia home to the largest share of the world’s slum dwellers (Halfani 2007). But nowhere is the threat of urbanizing