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Mukesh Kumar Gupta, Central European University, Hungary
The slum target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) developed by the United Nations (UN-Habitat, 2010) is to significantly improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers around the world by 2020. A total of 227 million people in the world have moved out of slum conditions since 2000. However, in terms of absolute numbers, slum dwellers have actually increased from 776.7 million in 2000 to some 827.6 million in 2010 (UN-Habitat, 2010).
There is a considerable variation in slum definitions across countries and regions. The simplest and less technical definition of slum would be “a heavily populated urban area characterized by substandard housing and squalor” (UN Habitat 2003). Generally the term ‘slum’ is associated with a wide variety of “low income settlements and poor human living conditions” (UN–Habitat, 2003). According to the Cities Alliance action plan “slums are neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are appallingly poor”.
Based on current trends, despite some successes that could be termed as ‘slum upgrading best practices’ in formulating and implementing slum policies, slums have continued to grow in the urban regions of the developing world. An example of successful slum upgrading is the Parivartan program (which means ‘transformation,’) in five slums in Ahmedabad, India. Its rapid spread to other slum communities demonstrates the affordable and doable nature of slum upgrading at a progressive citywide scale (Cities Alliance 1999).
Slum policies and programs so far have not served the urban poor as the main beneficiaries. Instead people from higher income groups have taken residence in the improved dwellings designed for the intended populations (Jacobsen et al., 2002). The result we observe is in fact the reverse – fractional, undirected or unrealistic policies that are either impractical or benefit only to those with power due to the privileges of their social status (e.g. class, race). Therefore, failure to tackle the housing problem so far indicates that fractional slum policies and programs, which aim to address one or only a few aspects of slum proliferation, could worsen the existence and expansion of slums. For example, in 2003 the government of Kenya devised the Kenya Slum Upgrading Project (KENSUP), a large multi-storied concrete building called The Promised Land by local residents. However the problem was that the residents who were relocated to the building started leaving their new homes and moving back to Kibera, their old home often regarded as the largest slum in Africa. The ‘middle class’ of Nairobi moved in search of affordable housing. Informal systems of bribery also played a role for many to secure apartments in the new building. Many Kibera residents who were allotted apartments rented their flats to middle class tenants at many times the subsidized rate. Therefore, slum upgrading practices need to be integrated with s