Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka
The
slum dwellers live in measurable and sub-human condition. They can easily
indentify from other residents by the physical structure of their dwellings,
which are found to be congested, unhygienic and inhabitable. Respiratory
diseases are common among the slum dwellers. If look of the characteristics of
the slum we find miserable condition and a degraded environment. The people are
poor and hence the poverty of inhabitants is a universal characteristic of
slums.
A
slum, as defined by United Nations
agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing
and squalor and lacking in tenure security. The number of slum dwellers is
rising. One billion people worldwide live in slums and the figure will likely
grow to 2 billion by 2030.
Characteristics of slum:
The characteristics associated with slums vary
from place to place. Slums are usually characterized by urban decay, high rates
of poverty, and unemployment. They are commonly seen as “breeding grounds” for
social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, high incidence of
mental illness, and suicide. In many poor countries they exhibit high incidence
of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health
care. A UN Expert Group has created an operational definition of a slum as an
area that combines to various extents the following characteristics: inadequate
access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure;
poor structural quality of housing; overcrowding; and insecure residential
status.
Land
use of slum:
1. Residential
2. Commercial
actives
3. Services
4. Production
5. Infrastructure
6. Other
The percentage of
slum Dwellers of urban population is given below
Human
Development Index
|
Urban
Population
|
Slum
Dwellers as %
of
Urban Population
|
High
|
78.5%
|
7.6%
|
Medium
|
42.6%
|
35.6%
|
Low
|
29.7%
|
79.7%
|
Table 1:
Urbanization and Slum Incidence (Source: State of World Cities Report 2004, UN-HABITAT
About Urban blight:
A city gets older, some buildings or properties are not
maintained and become run-down, abandoned or condemned. This can also be
referred to as urban decay. People who cannot
afford to live elsewhere must sometimes live in properties that are without
appropriate maintenance, such as housing projects, which may also be called
slums or ghettos. The look and condition of these properties, as well as their
use can be said to be urban blight. A
desolate, inhospitable city landscape which is a previously functioning city,
or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. It may feature
deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, economic
restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented
families, political disenfranchisement, crime. Major structural changes in
global economies, transportation, and government policy created the economic
and then the social conditions resulting in urban decay.
About Squatters:
The terms Squatter
are unauthorized dwelling build by low-income people in government land,
squatters include persons or families residing or squatting in terminals,
pavement, and public or semi-public office building. The density of population
of squatter settlement is extremely high, almost 1500 – 2000 persons per acre.
The term squatting generally means illegal occupation of urban land. It is
considered as a residential area in an urban locality inhabited by the very
poor who have no access to tenured land of their own, and hence
"squat" on vacant land, either private or public.
Squatters may be classified:
·
Based on tenancy: a) Owner
b) Tenant
·
Based on use: a) residential
b) Commercial
·
Based on building location: a) Ground b)Roof top
c) Boat (floating)
·
Based on structure: a) Kutcha
b) semi-pucca
c)
Pucca
These will include awful levels of sanitation with no
toilets but a system which is known as 'flying toilets', where you excrete into
a plastic bag and then throw it out of your window. The government should
develop the sectors of economic and social sectors. A "formal sector"
provided for and managed by the government and an "informal sector"
which lies outside the purview of the government and primarily serves the
low-income groups. Sometimes squatter can be defined as the legally recognized
settlement with slum characteristics.
Difference between
them: Slum is
comparatively more densely populated then urban blight and squatter. In a slum
public facilities are not good like water, electricity, drainage, roads. But in
squatters this facilities are available and also in urban blight. Urban blight
are use to be a part of the city sometime but slums are not recognized as a
part of city.
Relation between
them: Slum,
blight & squatter settlement for
poor low income people. Squatter is
made for the people who live in the slum, sometimes squatters are build where
slum situated. The density of slum, blight and squatter is grater then the
other area of city. They allocated in the city. These places are the centre of
all social crime, drugs, jubinal delinquency. The people who live there are not
treated well by the government.
The government
should treat them as useful and important part of urban area. For this they
should make hard rules and regulation for settlement and development of urban
decay, squatter, slum. All the public utility service should make available for
the people who residence there. Elementary schools should build, also give a
permanent job for the unemployment people.
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