This poster examines how three global macro processes conflate to increase the vulnerability of slum dwellers in two of the world’s poorest and most populated regions. These two regions are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Approaching this issue from the perspective of slum dweller “vulnerability” serves this discussion, in several ways. To begin with, breaking down global economics, urbanization, and climate change would be a massive undertaking. These global processes are all individually complex and require a comprehensive evaluation and a transdisciplinary assessment of countless factors. Additionally, there are no known formulae that can be utilized to universally illuminate the impact of the accretion of these processes on humanity. It is therefore the goal of this discussion to examine these issues from the perspective of those who have been impacted most: the urban slum dwellers from key major cities in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

In this discussion, I will attempt to argue the following points:1. How the uneven nature of globalization make the poor in these

regions vulnerable to changing economic conditions.2. How climate change and local anthropogenic environmental

conditions directly impact the urban slum dweller.3. How rapid urbanization exacerbates poverty and encourages the

emergence of mega-slums in many of these region’s cities.

What are slums? According to the United Nations, there are five key indicators that

define an urban settlement as a slum:

1. Inadequate access to safe water?2. Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure?3. Poor structural quality of housing?4. Is there overcrowding?5. Insecure residential status?

Globalization Slum Ecology/Typology

Slum-dwellers in South Asia & sub-Saharan AfricaA Study of Human Vulnerability

Flooding in Bangladesh

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We often hear that the world is shrinking. This assumption seems rational from the perspective of an American or European living in a society where both information and goods and services are readily accessible. However, from the perspective of over one billion people living in developing world slums, this is hardly true, at all.

Economic globalization describes a set of processes whereby production and consumption activities shift from the local or national scale to the global scale (O’Brien, K., Leichenko, R. 2005). This process of internationalizing production, services, and consumption largely benefits “Triad” nations (US-Can, EU, Japan-Korea). South Asia is home to 22% of all humanity, but only receives 1.1% of world direct foreign investment. Sub-Saharan Africa, likewise, is home to 10% of humanity, but only receives 1% of direct foreign investment (World Bank, 2003).

Climate Change

In the 20th century, sea levels rose by and estimated 17 centimeters, and global mean projections for sea level rise between 1990 and 2080 range from 22 centimeters to 34 centimeters. The low-elevation coastal zone – the continuous area along coastlines that is less than 10 meters above sea level – represents 2 per cent of the world’s land area but contains 10 per cent of its total population and 13 per cent of its urban population (UN Habitat, 2008).

Bloom, David, et al. 2008. Urbanization and Wealth of Nations. Science 319, 772

UN-Habitat. 2008, Twenty First Session of the Governing Council. Kenya Slum Upgrade Project.

UN Habitat. 2008, State of World Cities. Africa at a Glance.UN Habitat. 2008. Twenty First Session of the Governing Council. Past

response & Interventions to Slum Proliferation in Kenya.UN Habitat. 2008. State of World Cities. Slum households and shelter

deprivations. O’Brien, K., Leichenko, R. 2005. Double Exposure: Assessing the impacts of

climate change within the context of economic globalization. Global Environmental Change. Vol. 10 . Pg. 221-232

Recently, humanity has experienced an epochal event that very few know about: more people live it cities than a rural setting, for the first time in history. But of these urban residents (around 3 billion), one in three is a slum-dweller living in squalid, unsafe conditions, with minimal or no public services, access to fresh water, or sanitation. And this number is growing. In the next 50 years, it is projected that more than 95% of the net increase in the global population will be in cities of the developing world, which will approach the 80% urbanization level of most industrialized nations today (Grimm, Faeth, et al, 2008). By 2015, it is projected that there will be over 550 cities with populations greater than 1 million (Davis, 2006). Furthermore, the urban make-up varies significantly from developing to industrial nation. In industrialized nations, urban poverty (slums) makes up only 6% of the city population, whereas they constitute a staggering 78.2% of urbanites in the least developed countries (Davis, 2006). These are sobering statistics for a very real issue.

Urban Growth FiguresCity 1950 2004Mumbai 2.9 million 19.1 millionDelhi 1.4 million 18.6 millionDhaka (Bangladesh) 0.4 million 16 millionKarachi 1 million 13.5 millionKinshasa 0.2 million 8.2 millionLagos 0.3 million 15 million

In order to better understand slums and their residents, you must be able to identify what type of land in which slums are located. There are three different types of slum dwellings:

1. Pirated Urban Land: These slums (example; the Orangi slum of Karachi with nearly 1 million residents) is land obtained by a cartel through “peri-legal” negotiations with corrupt city officials. These cartels, then, provide marginal utilities and residential security in exchange for rent.

2. Squatter settlements: Low worth or worthless urban land is often squatted on by the poor. They construct what domiciles they can out of refuse, but are frequently subjected to natural and anthropogenic calamities, such as flooding.

3. Dilapidated Urban Housing Stock: In the post-colonial period, many cities in these regions built marginal, low square footage housing units to accommodate immigrant urban laborers. In Mumbai, the chawls, which represent over 70 % of urban housing, transformed into slum-dwellings.

Ecology/Conclusion It is difficult to quantify the condition of the slums dweller. They

have little or no access to services, live around enormous agglomerations of human excrement, and are subjected to both environmental catastrophe and the impacts of climate change. It can be argued that urbanization only exacerbates their condition and they simply try to survive while the world shrinks for the relative few (explain formula: a – bc = x). However, slum-dwellers, though increasingly vulnerable to these three macro processes, have learned to survive and are now beginning to receive the recognition from the rest of the world that may change their condition, a little at a time.

Introduction Urbanization

Brian McCabe

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