reading journal

Cities Without Slums
By: Namrita Talwar

Summary: This article is focused on defining the problem of “growing slums” that many of the world’s poor countries are experiencing. Slums are desolte dwellings with poor air and water quality that also experience nutrition problems associated with a lack of decent food available. It is estimated that 900 million people currently reside in slums around the world. Given these health issues, slums continue to grow as the world’s poor move from rural areas to the city in search of work. Over half the worlds population lives on less than $2 a day. The growth of these slums and the increase in poverty around the world is a product of the insecurity breed by globalization. When less advantage countries are exploited by the wealth of the world, it ensure that only the elite of that country are given a chance to survive; the rest succumb to the pressures brought on by it and fall deeper into poverty.
The United Nations Millennium Declaration pledged to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, the following is an account of the plan:
The expansion of the currently congested slum areas needs to slow down. In order to do so there must be new land made available with adequate low-income housing that people in slums can afford. Also the flow of people from rural areas into this slums needs to slow in order to curb a possible inward flood that would destroy the project. The project also requires that these new areas and current areas be outfitted with clean drinking water and sanitation along with appropriate levels of road construction and electricity. Participation in these projects by the community at large is a key to the success of it. The poor are willing to invest their own labor and finance into project that directly influence their way of life. It is also pointed out that it is crucial to control property ownership in these projects. In the past when titles to property are turned over to the poor, property values climb in the area as well as the cost of living. This encourages the poor to sell their property to higher income individuals and placing them right back in the slums.

Response: This is very much a problem-solving essay. The focus of this article is all about how to execute a plan to help out those in the world living in less than ideal living conditions. I like how the plan emphasized the human factor in contributing to fixing the problem rather than just the issue of pumping money into it and hoping for results. This idea fits the classic analogy of ‘you can feed a man for a day or teach him to fish for a lifetime,’ and that is very true of these people in these slums. I think they see money as a way out but they are unsure of how to get it, or better still how to keep it. It is not that these people can’t be trusted with their own land, its more that other people who have their best interest at heart know what is truly in their best interest; this is why it is advisable to retain the titles to the property and not give them to the people. While not everyone would squander such an opportunity to get ahead in life, others will not see the bigger picture and will instead be seduced by the prospect of quick money. This idea is all about teaching the people of these slums to be self-sufficient in their endeavors, this way it is less accessible to outsiders seeking to exploit them. Not to insight prejudice with this next example but its like black people buying rims that cost more than their car or apartment, it doesn’t make sense beyond being a status symbol. It is an object that conveys to other that you have money, but it doesn’t help you to get out of poverty, it only serves to send you deeper into it. Much like the slum dwellers of the world who are similarly seduced by the lure of luxury and material items if to only pretend that they are not as poor as they are.