Above: London Victorian slum - Kensington. Image Credit: Gilbert Nii-Okai Addy
The well publicized “slum clearance” and “city decongestion” initiatives have not yielded any measurable or long lasting success. The New York Times in March 2013 had an interesting feature article about the bulldozing of a long-established informal settlement by the authorities in Lagos and wondered whether the city’s poor were being made to pay a heavy price for the city’s “progress”. The article is accessible at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/ africa/homeless-pay-the-price-of-progress-inlagos-nigeria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 68
There is a need for debate on what to do about slums or, to use the more polite term, informal settlements. In Africa given the current rates of urbanisation and population growth which are unprecedented in human history, slums are a necessary process of urbanisation. It is estimated by economists that more than half the world’s people now live in “slum” areas of cities and work in the informal economy.
There is a need for debate on what to do about slums or , to use the more polite term, informal settlements, in Africa given the current rates of urbanisation and population growth which are unprecedented in human history anywhere in this world. Slums always accompany the process of urbanisation. It is generally estimated by many economists that more than half the world’s people now live in “slum” areas of cities and work in the informal economy.
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