[Urbanstudy] Urban poverty can’t be dealt with in isolation

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/urban-poverty-cant-be-dealt-with-in-isolation/article8927400.ece







Urban poverty can’t be dealt with in isolation

   - S. PARASURAMAN <http://www.thehindu.com/profile/author/s.-parasuraman/>


You cannot eradicate or change slums until you understand what creates them
and keeps them growing; that is where the social sciences can be invaluable

People migrate to urban areas for many reasons: search for work,
displacement from lands and livelihoods, drought, water and food scarcity,
disasters, poverty, mortgage-driven debt and, in many situations, conflict.

These people are from a range of income groups, including individuals and
households with lands but unable to cope with difficulties in farming.

Seasonal migration to cities in search of work is an annual phenomenon; but
this year the numbers increased due to the severity of the drought.
Thousands of farmers and labourers from drought-affected districts in the
country, facing failed harvests, having already borrowed money at high
interest rates to buy seeds, fertilisers as well as food for themselves and
their cattle in their villages came to cities to find work. A number of
distressed farmers, unable to repay their loans, were driven to suicide.

Migrants in cities work long hours in low-paid, insecure, unsafe jobs, and
are exposed to a wide range of environmental hazards because of the lack of
basic infrastructure in the informal settlements they live and work in.
Migrants are disproportionately represented within some of the
worst-quality informal settlements, like temporary camps for construction
workers; small temporary structures on public land; or settlements set up
by recent migrants, often on the urban peripheries.

*Slums are just temporary. Or are they?*

Dominant development theories assume that slums are a transitory phenomenon
characteristic of fast-growing ecoznomies; and during the later stages of
economic growth, slums progressively give way to formal housing with the
trickling down of the benefits. According to these theories, living in
slums is only a phase in the life cycle of rural migrants; and slum
dwellers eventually move into formal housing within the city, with the
benefits of migration passing to the next generations.

These theories have been proven wrong.

Slums are not always temporary. In our country, slums have been growing for
decades, and millions of households find themselves trapped in poverty in
slums for generations.

Today’s slums pose a deeper, persistent structural problem caused by
multiple market and policy failures, poor governance and management
hindering investment, and poor and unsanitary living conditions. Across
diverse slum settlements, some key issues remain the same: lack of adequate
living space, insufficient provision of public goods, and the poor quality
of basic amenities. All of which lead to extremely poor health and
diminishing human capital.

Mumbai’s M-East Ward is a classic illustration of the expanding base of
poor and marginalised communities’ areas, which are unimaginably unhygienic
and undermine every aspect of human development.

Within slums in different locations, there are differences in levels of
poverty and development because of factors such as caste, religion, and
income. Slums as a whole, compared to the city, show considerably less
progress in Human Development Indicators. In fact, the lowest parameters in
several slum pockets are comparable to some of the poorest regions in the
world, and have no place in a modern city, leave alone one that aspires to
be a global city.

*Creating more housing won’t solve slums*

Slums represent a major policy challenge, not just for Mumbai but for the
nation as well.

We must address housing needs, but also must go beyond; we need a holistic
approach to address issues related to health and sanitation, local
governance, private savings and investments, and land market institutions.
Both formal and informal systems of property rights may be necessary to
curb the rapid growth of slum areas. In the absence of strong policy
agendas similar to those adopted in Singapore or, more recently, in Brazil,
it seems unlikely that slums will disappear in the foreseeable future, as
implicitly assumed by dominant economic theories.

***

*How the social sciences can help*

Overall, there has been very little theoretical and empirical social
science research about how the public policy challenges posed by slums may
be addressed. A research agenda on slums that can addressed by
inter-disciplinary social science could focus on three distinct sets of
methodological and policy questions.

*Convulsive change demands study*

Violence is embedded in the very way the city has developed and
transformed. The state, the market and citizens have used violence as an
instrument to stake their claims on it.

The city is undergoing another convulsion of transformation that is
multi-layered. Some of this results in fragmented social relations, a
constant instability through migration and loss of livelihoods, a mismatch
in economic drivers and capabilities, and extremely high commoditisation of
space that seems to engulf every nook and corner.

Mumbai is a city that is becoming more iniquitous, and losing its previous
communitarian bonds. Inequality in the city has now taken on a spatial
form. It is being reproduced consistently, by moving poor people the from
inner city areas to city peripheries.

Mumbai has low crime statistics and continues to be statistically safe, but
the real question to ask is this: is it safe for everyone?

What happens to groups that are systemically marginalised, criminalised,
and pushed into vicious and accelerating cycles of violence and poverty?
The incidents of terror and reported crime have produced fear across the
world. In a self-providing society, this has given rise to the
privatisation of security and surveillance. Growth of gated communities in
Mumbai is a new phenomenon.

How can we collectively rediscover a notion of safety and rights founded in
inclusivity and dignity? Or is the city condemned to a future that brings
in a world class status, while simultaneously becoming more and more
vulnerable to indignity and terror?

Social science research can create knowledge base on this phenomenon.

*You can’t evaluate what you can’t count*

First, we must address the methodological problems that hamper field
research in slums. In particular, we must make efforts to properly count
slum populations and to understand the experiences of different generations
of slum dwellers. We must apply, more consistently, the empirical methods
used to deal with survey attrition in other contexts to studies of slums.

We must systematically study key areas, like movements of individuals and
groups into and out of slums, tracking of individuals who do move (even if
this rare), and correlation in incomes and other socioeconomic outcomes
across generations. It then becomes possible to understand the most
pressing issues faced by slum-dwellers, and to integrate them better in
policy processes.

*What are the returns?*

To choose and implement cost-effective projects and programmes that provide
discernible welfare gains for slum residents, we must first identify and
quantify the returns we would get from upgrading different types of public
services in slums.

Several programmes with either mass investments in living condition in
slums or wholesale relocation of slum households into housing estates
appear to have been successful. However, political willingness to address
key governance issues remains critical: specifically, engagement with
actors who have filled the vacuum created by an absent government, and have
a strong presence with heavy resources (such as rents) at stake. This
aspect also needs to be studied.

Experiences across the country, and particularly in Mumbai, show that
neither slum clearance nor ‘benign neglect’ stop slums from expanding. Slum
inhabitants are not given opportunities to move to a better life; all that
keeps them there is the lack of prospects of work back at home are more
discouraging than unregulated slum living.

A new, emergent point of view holds that the government must ensure the
basic entitlements and environment; the urban poor will then find creative
solutions to improve their lives. Thus, rather than resettlement, state
efforts could also focus on providing basic infrastructure: potable water,
power, sanitation, waste disposal facilities. In this secure environment,
slum residents will invest in their own homes, increasing their living
standards. The upgradation process could also include poverty alleviation
programmes. In other words, holistic solutions are required to address
rural distress and urban poverty.

A city needs social science knowledge to understand how evictions and/or
neglect compare with investments in slum upgradation. The latter has
advantages. First, it is cheap. Second, it is endorsed by the inhabitants;
communities perceive the investments as recognition of their citizenry, and
participate in the maintenance of such facilities.

Early evaluation results from upgrading projects conducted in Kolkata,
Mumbai, Jakarta and Manila have shown promising results. For instance,
mortality caused by waterborne disease was halved among the beneficiaries
in Kolkata and Mumbai, and investments in home improvements doubled in
Jakarta. Upgrading programmes also seemed to increase the housing supply
and the supply of labour by households.

***

*Points to ponder*

Mumbai’s urban poverty cannot be tackled without looking at rural poverty

The rural poor migrate to cities and live in bad conditions only because
the situation back in their villages is worse

Slums are not transitory phenomena, and relocation of people living in
slums does not solve the problem; in fact it can cause more problems

To properly deal with urban poverty, we must study its causes, and deal
with it holistically

New theories suggest that when the state guarantees basic amenities,
residents are motivated to work on upgrading their surroundings

***

We need more fundamental research on how to make slum upgradation
sustainable.

A key concern is the reduction of rural-urban migration into metropolitan
areas that are already overcrowded, where public services are already
over-stretched.

Much more inter-disciplinary social science research is needed to find ways
to address urban poverty, housing deprivation, and rural deprivation.

***

*About the author*

*Professor S. Parasuraman is director and vice-chancellor of the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences, and has previously served as Senior Advisor
to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, UNESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand.
He has over 25 years of experience as a teacher, trainer, activist,
administrator and development worker. He has served as Asia Regional Policy
Director, ActionAid International, Team Leader of the Secretariat and
Senior Advisor to the Commission, World Commission on Dams based in Cape
Town, and Programme Director, Oxfam GB’s India Programme. He has over 50
publications in international and national journals, books and research
reports. He has written several books and the one he most likes is
Listening to People Living in Poverty, published by Books for Change and
released in Peking in 2003.*
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