Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income.
The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.
25,000 children die each day due to poverty.
About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004.
The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
Approximately half the world’s population now live in cities and towns.
1 in 3 urban dwellers live in slum conditions.
Urbanization is not synonymous with human progress. Urban slum growth is outpacing urban growth by a wide margin. [1]
The Questions
We know that the problem of poverty is an unresolved global issue, and the fact of urbanization is a puzzle in need of a solution. The presence of poverty, and a growing urban fabric inevitably leads to an increase in the urban poor. We are therefore required to face an interesting conundrum: how do we design an extension to our urban infrastructure to accommodate the growing urban population, and cater namely to the poor? How do we resolve the current issues of poverty while implementing such an infrastructure? What are the bare necessities for such an environment? How do we implement them in innovative methods to battle the issue of overusing our resources?
The Answers
The answer seems to be to develop existing slums to create ideal urban plans. In doing so, it is necessary to maintain an idea of what problems exist in slums, and what needs to be done to solve them, and to remember that any infrastructure implemented in a slum not only has to be affordable for those inhabiting it but by nature must also be resourceful for those implementing it.
Shelter
"For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, 1 in 3 are without adequate shelter" [1]
In analyzing the concept of shelters in slum towns many problems are quite apparent. A major issue is the idea of land tenure and slum planning. In the majority of cases, slum inhabitants have no property rights and therefore no security of their property. Farouk Tebbal of UN-HABITAT presents a solution for this:
" To reach the target, new innovative tenure types will need to be developed which are affordable to the urban poor. Affordable, user friendly and transparent land administration and land management systems will have to be developed for city wide slum application. Slum areas that are not titled challenge existing land registration and cadastral approaches. In the slums there are little spatial information and the land use does not often fit the town plans. The land industry needs to think beyond conventional titling approaches as these will not be able to deliver fast enough or at a suitable scale and as they are generally not affordable to slum dwellers...we need to adapt the legal land regulatory framework and introduce innovative and affordable tenures and land information systems. The legal system such as property rights and security of tenure are critical to sustainable approaches to upgrading. Most residents of urban slums live without any form of secure tenure, under constant threat of eviction, which obviates their ability to access credit and constrains their motivation to improve their homes and neighbourhoods." [2]
Shelters themselves are of secondary concern since in most circumstances, they function affectively even if they do not meet our standards of living. In any case, many non-government organizations such as the Global Housing Foundation focus on the revitalization of slum buildings.
An example of the Global Housing Foundation's slum revitalization work.
Slums are affective investments in combatting the overuse of resources as the use of shelters made from entirely recycled materials is great for the environment. Ideas in green building have also been discussed in relation to slum development, mainly the idea of using geographic locations to the advantage of building. For example, highly agricultural areas could make use of straw-bale construction, whereas rammed earth, adobe, or 'earthship' shelters are extremely affective in desert climates. Hemp is also beginning to be use for its amazing strength as a panel. [3]
The planning of slums are also quite efficient. Slums need to be pedestrian friendly, as no system of public transportation exists within them nor are there vehicles. Slums are therefore designed to accommodate everything in one central community, from trade, to shelter, to healthcare. Everything of necessity, and even things of luxury, like restaurants, are accessible for those living in the slums.
Water Supply and Conservation
1 in 5 children in developing world have no access to safe water
1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
A mere 12% of the world’s population uses 85% of its water. [1]
The problem of water supply and conservation is of obvious concern. A recent collaboration between Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and the Indian Institute of Technology has released a detailed study regarding the implementation of clean water systems in slums and the effectiveness of various technologies. Many treatment methods, such as boiling with fossil fuels, UV lamps, and chlorination have cheap annual costs and high effectiveness. [4]
Rainwater collection as a means for water supply is effective in areas with the right climate conditions and is a growing concern in shelter design to increase its effectiveness. The usefulness of such an idea in slum conditions is paramount because of its reliance not on third party water supply, but on nature itself, and its ability to be implemented as a cheap, resourceful, simple infrastructure solution. Implementing rainwater collection systems into shelter construction is inexpensive and effective in slum conditions.
Wet Waste Disposal
The implementation of personal toilets into individual households in slums is an ideal but greatly unrealistic proposition. Current slum conditions are horrid in regards to waste disposal. For example, in the Mathare 4A slum in Kenya only two public toilets were available for the 28 000 slum inhabitants, and in other slums conditions are so bad that residents must use 'flying toilets', or defecate in bags which are then thrown onto streets over the slum barriers. In fact children have been known to threaten city goers with balls of excrement in order to get money from them. This is because there is no place for the waste to go and a change is obviously needed. [5]
Current efforts by the Mumbai government towards the implementation of proper wet waste disposal consists of the building, planning, and management of community toilets. The forty million dollar project will provide 25% of India's slum population, or approximately 15.5 million peoplewith a proper sewage system. This is a great example of efficiently using resources to implement a new kind of infrastructure for the expanding urban fabric. [6]
Another technology being implemented in slums is the innovative use of odourless self-flushing toilets that make use of biosanitizer.
"An odorless self-flushing public toilet was constructed by the Green Cross Society in the premises of Versova Municipal Sewage Pumping Station, in Andheri(W), Mumbai 400 053. Here there is no water connection inside the toilets. People carry 1-2 liters of water for defecation, the thick sewage slurry gets treated in 2 horizontal shallow reactors using the BIOSANITIZER and planted filter. Clean water produced is pumped to the overhead tank that feeds the continuous flushing system.This public toilet has been serving a slum community of about 100 people over the past 8 months. It is a good demonstration of using natural methods of sewage treatment, aimed at producing flushing water in the process. There is no use of electricity for treatment, no production of sludge and CO2. There is no manpower requirement for operation, repairs or maintenance. Operation is without any odor, in fact the toilet has fresh smell of forest air. The toilet pan remains clean due to cleaning properties of the treated sewage. This water also has shown pest-repellent properties. This, effectively, is pest control without using poisons and the resource liquid is produced from human excreta and urine that otherwise can get wasted and pollute the environment." [7]
The Lessons
What this means for architects and designers is to realize a new rift in the design world, and city plan. We must plan resourcefully and learn to design for the barest conditions, the lowest common denominator, to cater to the poor, to expand the urban fabric, and to make use of resources as effectively as possible.
Poverty is an obvious problem and obstacle not only in terms of global issues but in the context of urbanization. There is a connection between poverty and the urban fabric, and it is necessary to address this in developing an extension to our urban framework that uses a fraction of the resources and maximizes its efficiency. The idea is that the slum towns are not only intelligently designed forms of an ideal urban extension, but they are in fact useful as building blocks for a new urban design.
- Suhaib Bhatti
Notes
1. Anup Shah, "Poverty Facts and Stats," Global Issues, March 22, 2009, http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats (accessed November 1, 2009).
2. Farouk Tebbal, "Security of Land Tenure Today," Un-Habitat, June 13, 2003, http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/1523_43689_security%20of%20land%20and%20tenure%20today.pdf (accessed October 29, 2009).
3. "Buildings and Shelter," Sustainable Enterprises, April 18, 2002, http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Community/shelter.htm (accessed October 30, 2009).
4. "Slum Water Treatment," Sciencedirect, November 15, 2009, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science%20_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TFX-4XC50FY-22&_user=1067412&_coverDate=11%2F15%2F2009&_alid=1077852303&_rdoc=2&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi
=5238&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=4603&_acct=C000051246&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1067412&md5
=e1f9b2caa2864dec5ab128229e1a698f (accessed October 30, 2009).
5. Mike Davis, "Planet of Slums," The Globalist, May 16, 2007, http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=6135 (accessed October 28, 2009).
6. Rupa Chinai, "Mumbai Slum Dwellers' Sewage Project Goes
Nationwide," Bulletin of the World Health Organization, August 1, 2002, http://www.archidev.org/IMG/pdf/v80n8a15.pdf (accessed October 28, 2009).
7. Vag Shantharam Shenai, "Odorless Self-flushing Toilet for Slum
Sanitation," Waste to Health, November 26, 2005, http://www.wastetohealth.com/odorless_public_toilet.html (accessed November 1, 2009).
