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Saturday, January 24, 2015
World’s biggest slums
Popular Dharavi, India Also famous among journalists and development organisations, Dharavi, which provided the backdrop to the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire in 2008 is home to somewhere between 600,000 and one million people. Dharavi is located squarely in the heart of Mumbai and spans more than 500 acres. This has contributed to its surprising multi-religious, multi-ethnic diversity. There are businesses of every kind here: it is something of an informal economic powerhouse. People in Dharavi live and labour in an environment that lacks good living conditions, infrastructure and sanitation. The settlement comprises huts as big as 12.5 metres-squared occupied by families who are probably migrants from around or after the 1960s. 40 per cent of the household here belong to the ‘economically weak’ while 39 per cent belong to the low-income category. ‘Chawls’ and ‘pavement dwellers’ make up this
gargantuan community with most residents over 50-years or older who have little to no education. Water is extremely scarce, coming mostly from informal taps, although this source is inadequate. You tend to feel that Dharavi remains one of the biggest informal urban settlements in the world because it has been neglected for so long. Waste management is a problem in Dharavi and although there are dustbins everywhere, there will often be a circle of garbage around them. Plus, while most houses are not ventilated, there is a good flow of fresh air on the streets as there are no high-rise buildings blocking its path. Public bathrooms and toilets are some of the most poorly maintained structures in Dharavi. There are three types of public toilets here: free, paid and those maintained by housing societies. And of course, the free toilets ones are the ones that do not have water supply and so are left dirty most of the time.
Haiti’s sun city, Cité Soleil Cité Soleil is the most infamous and most violent slum of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The neighbourhood was originally constructed in the 1950s to house sugar workers and their families, but as jobs in agriculture began to disappear, and more and more people from the countryside moved to find work in the city, the community of Cité Soleil grew rapidly. Due to political turmoil and a coup d’état in 1991, which led to a boycott of Haitian products, the industrial sector was also given a crushing blow. Since then, chaos has been the norm for the almost 400,000 inhabitants of one of the world’s poorest and most dangerous areas. Seven out of ten Haitians live on less than US$ 2 a day, and the situation is even worse in the ‘Sun City’. The population here is mostly of
children and young adults who live in low houses built of grey breeze blocks with little or no water, food, electricity and other basic needs. There are numerous bullet holes on the walls of the huts, a reminder of the armed violence that goes on in the city against criminal gangs based in the shanty town. The police station is a ruin. Looted and set alight, it is now used as a lavatory. Diseases such as AIDS and many others terrorise many of settlers here where there isn’t enough clinics to cater for the health needs of residents whose life expectancy is only 52. Many of the residents originate from La Saline slum after it was a destroyed by a devastating fire. Armed gangs and almost a complete lack of public servants make this commune one of the poorest and most dangerous in the Americas.
Difficult to live in cites West Point, Monrovia, Liberia
Clean water, electricity, basic services, these are luxuries in Monrovia, a city named for James Monroe. West Point, a peninsular slum jutting out into the Atlantic, is home to a special breed of disgusting squalor. Home to 75,000 Monrovians, it is one of Africa’s most notorious and crowded slums. Cholera is at an epidemic level, drug use is rampant, teenage prostitution is a commonality, and toilets are scarce. In fact, since it costs money to use neighbourhood toilets, many Monrovians in West Point just crap in the streets or on the beach.
Mogadishu, Somalia
Mogadishu is regarded as the most lawless and dangerous city on Earth and is currently experiencing a major food and refugee
crisis. It is not safe for leisure or tourism. Civil War has raged this city for decades, and the government controls only a few blocks of the city. It is a base for modern pirates, the backdrop for the true story surrounding Black Hawk Down, and it is said that machine guns are frequently used by drivers to negotiate through car traffic. It is a land without law, a soulless place at the edge of Africa. Much of it bears more resemblance to the last level in an especially difficult video game than to life on Earth. It is more modern warfare than modern world.
Kandahar, Afghanistan
Surrounded by gorgeous mountains, it is a tragedy that Kandahar is so awfully dangerous. A onetime trading centre and strategic foothold, Kandahar is a victim of
its perfect location between the worlds of East and West. It has been a point of interest since Alexander the Great stumbled upon it in the 4th century BC. For centuries, traders passed through this city when traveling between Asia and Europe. As result, wars have also passed through and control has changed hands over its centuries of existence, from Mongols to Arabs to Brits and beyond. Kidnappings, suicide bombings, and other criminal activities have turned it into an absolute monster of a destination. Having a 28 per cent national literacy rate does not help matters.
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Just as turbulence occurs where hot and cold air meet, similarly a point of human turbulence occurs in this nasty city where
Mexico meets the United States. Drug violence, government incompetence, and poverty mix to form what has been called the murder capital of the world (this dishonour has since been ceded to Honduras). As drug wars continue to rage, Juarez continues to be a dangerous place.
Sana’a, Yemen
“Just off the horn of Africa…” is a common statement that generally precedes a story about modern piracy. And just on the other side of the dangerous Gulf of Aden where such piracy goes down is treacherous Yemen – a land frozen in time. It is a time machine to the modern edge of the Islamic dark ages. On one hand this brings old world Arabian architecture and cultures of antiquity, but on the other, it brings out Islamic fanaticism.