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Slums and Formation

The document discusses the formation and typical features of slums in urban areas in India. Slums form for reasons such as rural-urban migration due to lack of jobs in rural areas, rapid urbanization, poor housing planning, colonial segregation policies, poverty, lack of political will to remove slums, and natural disasters. Typical features of slum settlements include insecure land tenure, substandard and overcrowded housing, and lack of basic infrastructure like water, electricity, and sanitation.

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Lavanya Katlakuntla
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44 views

Slums and Formation

The document discusses the formation and typical features of slums in urban areas in India. Slums form for reasons such as rural-urban migration due to lack of jobs in rural areas, rapid urbanization, poor housing planning, colonial segregation policies, poverty, lack of political will to remove slums, and natural disasters. Typical features of slum settlements include insecure land tenure, substandard and overcrowded housing, and lack of basic infrastructure like water, electricity, and sanitation.

Uploaded by

Lavanya Katlakuntla
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HOUSING AND COMMUNITY PALNNING

REPORT : SLUMS AND TYPICAL FEATURES OF FORMATION.

SUBMITTED TO : MR. S. KUMAR SIR.

V.MOUNIKA,

15011PA023,

SEM-I,YEAR-I,

M.TECH PLANNING.
HOW ARE SLUMS FORMED IN URBAN AEAS?WHAT ARE THE TYPICAL FEATURES OF
SUCH SETTLEMENTS?
SLUMS:
A slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and
squalor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics from country to country, most lack
reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, timely law enforcement and
other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings that
because of poor-quality design or construction have deteriorated into slums

CAUSES THE GROWTH OF SLUMS IN INDIA


Slums sprout and continue for a combination of demographic, social, economic, and political
reasons:
 Rural-urban migration:
The proportion of people working in agriculture has declined by 30% over  the last 50 years,
while global population has increased by 250%.
For example, in India, agriculture accounted for 52% of its GDP in 1954 and only 19% in
2004.
Many people move to urban areas primarily because cities promise more jobs, better
schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than subsistence farming in
rural areas.However, some rural migrants may not find jobs immediately because of  their
lack of skills and the increasingly competitive job markets, which  leads to their financial
shortage. Many rural-urban migrant workers cannot afford housing in cities and eventually
settle down in only affordable slums.
 Urbanization:
Rapid urbanization drives economic growth and causes people to seek working and
investment opportunities in urban areas.Local governments are unable to manage
urbanization, and migrant workers without an affordable place to live in, dwell in slums.

 Poor housing planning:


Lack of affordable low cost housing and poor planning encourages the supply side of slums.
Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government bureaucracy are two
main causes of poor housing planning
 Colonialism and segregation:
Some of the slums in today’s world are a product of urbanization brought by colonialism.
Others were created because of segregation imposed by the colonialists.
For example,
Dharavi slum of Mumbai - now one of the largest slums in India, used to be a village referred
to as Koliwadas. In 1887, the British colonial government expelled all tanneries, other
noxious industry and poor natives who worked in the peninsular part of the city and colonial
housing area, to what was back  then the northern fringe of the city - a settlement now
called  Dharavi. This settlement attracted no colonial supervision or investment in terms of
road infrastructure, sanitation, public services or housing.  The poor moved into Dharavi,
found work as servants in colonial offices and homes and in the foreign owned tanneries
and other polluting industries near Dharavi. To live, the poor built shanty towns within  easy
commute to work.

An integrated slum dwelling and informal economy inside Dharavi of Mumbai.


 Poverty:
Urban poverty encourages the formation and demand for slums. The richer the country, the
lower is the incidence of slums and, on the  contrary, the higher the magnitude of slums in
the country the lower is  the gross national income (GNI) of that country.
 Politics:
 Removal and replacement of slum created a conflict of interest, and  politics prevented
efforts to remove, relocate or upgrade the slums into  housing projects that are better than
the slums. Similar dynamics are cited in faves of Brazil, slums of India, and shanty towns of
Kenya.
 Natural disasters:
Major natural disasters in poor nations often lead to migration of  disaster-affected families
from areas crippled by the disaster to  unaffected areas, the creation of temporary tent city
and slums, or  expansion of existing slums.

TYPICAL FEATURES OF SUCH SETTLEMENTS


 Location and growth
Slums typically begin at the outskirts of a city. Over time, the city may expand past the
original slums, enclosing the slums inside the urban perimeter. New slums sprout at the new
boundaries of the expanding city, usually on publicly owned lands, thereby creating an
urban sprawl mix of formal settlements, industry, retail zones and slums. This makes the
original slums valuable property, densely populated with many conveniences attractive to
the poor.
 Insecure tenure
Informality of land tenure is a key characteristic of urban slums. At their start, slums are
typically located in least desirable lands near the town or city, that are state owned or
philanthropic trust owned or religious entity owned or have no clear land title. Some
immigrants regard unoccupied land as land without owners and therefore occupy it. In
some cases the local community or the government allots lands to people, which will later
develop into slums and over which the dwellers don’t have property rights.

 Substandard housing and overcrowding


Slum areas are characterized by substandard housing structures. Shanty homes are often
built hurriedly, with materials unsuitable for housing. Often the construction quality is
inadequate to withstand heavy rains, high winds, or other local climate and location. Paper,
plastic, earthen floors, mud-and-wattle walls, wood held together by ropes, straw or torn
metal pieces as roofs are some of the materials of construction. In some cases, brick and
cement is used, but without attention to proper design and structural engineering
requirements. Various space, dwelling placement bylaws and local building codes may also
be extensively violated.

Substandard housing in a slum near Jakarta, Indonesia in the 2000s.

 Inadequate or no infrastructure
One of the identifying characteristics of slums is the lack of or inadequate public
infrastructure. From safe drinking water to electricity, from basic health care to police
services, from affordable public transport to fire/ambulance services, from sanitation sewer
to paved roads, new slums usually lack all of these. Established, old slums sometimes garner
official support and get some of these infrastructure such as paved roads and unreliable
electricity or water supply.

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