Statistics on Poverty, Urbanization and Slums
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Urbanization is on the rise. About half of the world’s population lives in cities: 3 billion, compared to 1.5 30 years ago.
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However, the World Bank, in its latest World Development Report, states that cities in the Third World grow so fast because they create economic opportunities and possibilities. Wages of people in cities are much higher than the wages of their unskilled rural compatriots.
Cities are created by trade and industry. Factories cluster together and create cities because they profit from a concentration of skills and from the infrastructure (housing, transport, ports etc.) that cities offer. Consumers also profit from the presence of different traders and service providers in a relatively small space that is a city. And, finally, businesses that specializes in services for businesses – banks, insurance … – cluster where their customers are. So slums may be a ghastly sight, but we shouldn’t forget that the country side is often in a much worse albeit not so visible predicament.
Of course, slums create enormous problems. Sanitation, water and other living conditions are below the levels necessary to maintain public health. This is caused by the overpopulation of slums combined with insufficient government investments.
The UN estimates that the number of people living in slums passed 1 billion in 2007 and could reach 1.39 billion in 2020, although there are large variations among regions. In Asia and the Pacific, two out of five urban dwellers live in slums, compared with three out of five in Africa.
In percentage terms, sub-Saharan Africa has about 72 percent of city dwellers living in slums. Asia has by far the highest number of city dwellers living in slums – the problem is worst in South Asia, where half of the urban population is composed of slum dwellers. The figure below illustrates the share of slum population in some Asian and Pacific countries. In 2001, Afghanistan had as much as 99 per cent of the urban population living in slums while Nepal and Bangladesh also had high proportions-92 and 85 per cent, respectively, although they have had some success in containing the problem since 1990. (source)
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From a human rights perspective, slums pose a variety of problems: the rights to housing and healthcare (art. 25 of the Universal Declaration) are only the most obvious ones. We can all imagine how the rights to education, standard of living, privacy, property etc. are violated as well in slum conditions.
