Shanty Towns Research Articles

Enhancing Societal Wellbeing and Wealth Creation -Sewing Skills Programmed For Rural Housewives in Sabah

This paper proposes eSisterApparel Program and to be adopted as one of the 1AZAM Malaysian government-sponsored programs, raising the economic and social status of women especially of rural housewives in Sabah, Malaysia. This program has the potential to reduce poverty by providing these housewives with sewing skills, sewing machines, and eSisterApparel Portal in generating new sources of income. Sabah, a state in East Malaysia, has the highest level of poverty and hardcore poverty incidence in Malaysia. Literature reviews and nine (9) blocks of Business Model Canvas (BMC) framework are used as methodology for this paper. As the extent of rural poverty in Sabah is expected to be reduced and societal wellbeing to be enhanced through eSisterApparel Program, an added benefit is the minimization of the rural-urban migration process. This in turn will result in less pressure on government to make provision for additional spending on services such as education, provision of clean drinking water and adequate sewage disposal, housing, and health in urban areas as well as having to deal with a host of problems associated with overgrown cities and towns such as a higher incidence of crime and of shanty towns on the outskirts of these cities.

“Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place

Research Article| January 01 2014 “Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place Steven Ungar Steven Ungar University of Iowa Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Romanic Review (2014) 105 (1-2): 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1215/26885220-105.1-2.37 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Steven Ungar; “Toute la misère du monde”: Eli Lotar’s Aubervilliers and a Sense of Place. Romanic Review 1 January 2014; 105 (1-2): 37–51. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/26885220-105.1-2.37 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsRomanic Review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2014 The Trustees of Columbia University2014 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Degradation And Environmental Risk At TheDiamond Zone, Acapulco, Mexico

The list of selected temporary or permanent residents in the geographical area identified as Diamond adjacent to the destination Acapulco, Mexico is a private community meant to be a draft Integrally Planned Center (IPC). A paradigm of the Mexican resort presents inexorable problems contributing to environmental degradation, due to the lack of sufficient water and sewer systems. Fractured septic drains create run off which inevitably leaks into the groundwater, causing very low level contamination. Waste water treatment plants that are entrenched rendering them useless, resulting in the raw water running to the sea and threatening to impact the coastal zone, degrading a coastal resource gradient, providing a ballast which constitutes the misfortune of corrupt resource-hungry governments bypassing the alteration which is a violation of nature away from the precepts of sustainability. The rationale for implementing a development enclave was a scheme that compelled speculation and corruption to the nuclei of replicating native built shanty towns. Residents absent from the underlying problems of territoriality, which expresses the reality between society and the environment, where entrepreneurs unconsciously destroy, build and abandon land by altering the use, ignoring the environmental impacts incur authorities colluding with leniency to the regulations in protecting biodiversity. The research analyzes and provides information, linking reflection and debate on territorial dynamics and the problems of the socio-economic, territorial and environmental, as a result of changes in the pattern of urbanization, commercialization, turbulence emanating that the authority dismissed as Agenda 21 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1992) and environmental impunity.

The Urban Problematic

This article, which introduces the special section on The Urban Problematic, takes as its starting point the ways in which categories associated with the ‘urban’ have broken down, such that the once singular and coherent concept ‘city’ has disintegrated in certain ways: the notion has been demythologized, so that representations of the city must now be regarded as partial and invested; and cities themselves have become opaque and unpredictable both to urban scholars and to governments, planners and various kinds of welfare organizations. The indications of crisis, captured for instance by concerns about the slums, favelas and shanty towns of the world’s megacities, also indicate that much of what counts in modern urban life is in some way connected with the marginal, the unofficial, and the supplemental. The article takes a supplemental view of the current state of urban dwelling. This involves at the same time a longer, more patient, historical view in its attempt to understand the current state of the city as part of a shift in the play of heterogeneous forces. With reference to the articles contained in The Urban Problematic, this introductory article finally draws attention to some of the urgent and critical issues of contemporary urbanism.

Study on the Old Street Culture Protection and the Sustainable Development in Renewing Old Urban Districts-The Example of Shanty Towns Renewal in Baotou Beiliang

The problem is the City culture characteristic gradually disappear in Baotou due to the old urban renewal. In the Baotou Beiliang shantytown reconstruction should focus on cultural ecological protection concept. Conform to the principles of sustainable development view during the old streets renovation process. The Conclusion is the old streets renovation and the culture characteristic protection strategy.Including of the cultural ecological protection concept to strengthen old street characteristics of cultural diversity; Reasonable configuration and old street infrastructure construction to realize transformation of the organic update; Strengthen the characteristics of the old streets build cities feature space; Use the low carbon environmental protection concept into the old streets transform and so on.

A Brief Analysis of Renovation Project Management of Shanty Towns

With the purpose of acquiring an insight into the current situation of existing renovation project management of shanty towns in China and truly mastering the effect of such management, the renovation project of shanty towns is taken as a target of this systematic and in-depth study. The background under which shanty towns take shape is comprehensively analyzed and the connotation of renovation project of shanty towns is clearly defined. Based on an extensive range of practical investigations, several questions existing in renovation project management of Chinese shanty towns are concluded. Furthermore, several countermeasures and suggestions aiming at improving renovation project management of shanty towns are put forward, with an aim to play an active driving role in the completion of renovation project of shanty towns with high efficiency, quality and benefit as scheduled.

From the slum to the house: towards a less polarized Mumbai?

Also famous as ‘Maximum City’ (Mehta, 2005), Mumbai is undergoing a period of extremely rapid growth as a result of the booming Indian economy. While numerous multinationals are opening offices in areas once occupied by cotton mills and new middle class districts are springing up on the margins of the city, most of the population still live in shanty towns. Contrasts like these within the city show Mumbai as a particularly clear case of polarisation, which raises doubts over some current housing policies designed to raise it to the status of a ‘global city’ and to reduce polarisation by removing the shanty towns and moving the inhabitants to new neighbourhoods. The paper focuses on Dharavi and attempts to highlight the fundamental role played by informal production in the shanty towns, the losses in this sector due to the removal of the shanty towns and the possible greater polarisation resulting from these policies.

Gueto ou Favela?

Neste artigo serão indagados os fatores que diferenciam um gueto de uma favela, partindo de suas similaridades, mas lentamente acentuando suas diferenças e caracterĂ­sticas prĂłprias. No Brasil o problema da criação de espaços de exclusão territorial extrapola as prĂĄticas tradicionais e comumente realizadas em regiões mais desenvolvidas do mundo como, por exemplo, a Europa, onde se podem encontrar espaços territoriais de segregação social baseados em conceitos carcomidos e relativos como os de <<Raça>> e/ou <<Cultura>>. O Brasil apresenta novas modalidades de exclusão sĂłcio-territorial baseadas em fatores econĂ´micos e na aparência da população segregada.

Journal of Flood Risk Management

Earlier this month I was updating my understanding of potential climate change impacts on the conditions that lead to flooding – principally the likely changes to future rainfall intensities and duration. What is clear is that although our ability to predict future climate is improving, the basic messages remain the same. These are that in a world of climate warming, extreme events are likely to get more intense and more frequent, but that the scale and rate of change remain very uncertain. Other factors, such as population growth, expansion of megacities, poverty, energy and a general scarcity of key resources, of course, add to the challenge of climate change. When taken together, the scale of the task for future flood risk managers is indeed daunting. However, as our recent Journal papers demonstrate, there are common threads emerging on which to build that important future. The first of these is that flood risk measures based entirely on hard engineering features are unlikely to prove sustainable. There are a number of reasons for this. In an uncertain future, the measures taken now will need to adapt as that future unfolds. Measures that cannot adapt may prove redundant, even in the short term. Also, single solutions may not deliver the benefits that a suite of smaller but integrated solutions might deliver. And thirdly, structural measures will need to work in harmony with non-structural solutions, recognising the important part that active community engagement in flood risk management might play. When the Journal was first launched, some of these concepts were in their infancy. It would not be true today to describe all of them as having reached maturity. Indeed, we are still struggling to deliver some of the more radical concepts, for example, how to equitably deliver schemes that involve the managed retreat of communities from areas at high risk of flooding. We are pleased to have published the outcome of some ground breaking research and innovative demonstration projects in the pages of this Journal over the last few years. These open up many possibilities to meeting the future challenges outlined above. Yet there is still much to do. The concept of social equality in flood risk management has yet to be fully developed. We have not satisfactorily addressed how to deliver some flood risk management measures in the poorer communities of the world. And given the projected rate of population growth, largely concentrated around the poorer communities in the mega cities of the world, how do we avoid the explosive growth of shanty towns that are so vulnerable to flooding? We must harness the energy of all professionals working in flood risk management. Innovation will be needed, where traditional approaches are challenged and new ideas welcomed. Innovation does not come naturally. Even in the research world, working practices often do not incentivise innovation, whilst in professional practice it can be actively discouraged in favour of more “secure” solutions. The importance of publishing case studies and demonstration projects alongside more academic research papers, is that it demonstrates to all the benefits that can be delivered through innovation and the sharing of knowledge. Therefore if we, as flood risk managers, are to play our part in shaping the future of the world, we need to share our experience on the practical delivery of flood risk measures as well as reporting the outcome of scientific research. As Editor, I very much hope that in our coming issues we will learn more about how innovation might practically be implemented. After all, our goal is not just to improve scientific knowledge, but to make a real difference to the future of society.

City: A guidebook for the urban age

For the first time in the history of the planet, more than half the population - 3.3 billion people - are now living in cities. Two hundred years ago only 3 per cent of the world's population were urbanites, a figure that had remained fairly stable (give or take the occasional plague) for about 1000 years. By 2030, 60 per cent of us will be urban dwellers. City is the ultimate handbook for the archetypal city and contains main sections on 'History', 'Customs and Language', 'Districts', 'Transport', 'Money', 'Work', 'Tourist Sites', 'Shops and markets', 'Nightlife', etc., and mini-essays on anything and everything from Babel, Tenochtitlan and Ellis Island to Beijing, Mumbai and New York, and from boulevards, suburbs, shanty towns and favelas, to skylines, urban legends and the sacred. Drawing on a wide range of examples from cities across the world and throughout history, it explores the reasons why people first built cities and why urban populations are growing larger every year. City is illustrated throughout with a range of photographs, maps and other illustrations.

Prevalence of Pharyngeal Carriage of Kingella kingae in Young Children and Risk Factors for Colonization

The carriage rate of Kingella kingae among Jewish and Bedouin children living in southern Israel paralleled the age-related incidence of invasive infections. Age 6-29 months was a significant risk factor for K. kingae colonization in both ethnic groups; day-care attendance was a risk factor in Jewish children, whereas living in a shanty town was negatively associated with carriage in Bedouins.

Utopia and Its New Enemies: Intellectuals, Elitism, and the Commonwealth of Learning

Intellectuals are a problem, and they should be-both to themselves and others. Fortified by this conviction, I was provoked to write this essay when, while reading The Guardian, I came across a brief commentary-Julian Baggini's Wisdom's Folly-on Plato's account of trial of Socrates, at which latter purportedly proclaims, the unexamined is not worth living. After pointing out that this maxim sounds unobjectionable (par. 1), Baggini goes on to suggest that actually it is profoundly because would be no need to exhort us to examine our if we did not think that there were human beings who do not, and so have valueless, lives (par.2). Let us consider this claim carefully. Of course assuming that one's fellow humans are themselves valueless or bestial is deplorable-worse than elitist. Such assumptions are bound up in a sense of personal superiority, enabled by structures that often remain unknown or unacknowledged. However, decrying structures that position one's fellow creatures unfavorably is a different matter. Baggini himself points out in defense of his denunciation of examined life as that [t]he bulk of humankind, today and in history, has been far too busy struggling for survival to engage in philosophical analyses (par. 3). About struggle, at least, he is right.As I type this sentence in 2012, one fifth of global human population in absolute poverty, unable to secure even minimally adequate subsistence, and majority of world is simply poor, scraping by in urban shanty towns or rural villages, with little leisure for lengthy philosophical analyses. 1 Nevertheless, Baggini's suspicion that examined life-under conditions of structural inequality-is merely a philosopher's ruse for asserting superiority over struggling majority, even if it were often true, would be a misdirected critique. To be sure, no one could assert that so-called intellectuals are always dedicated to justice; many have supported horrendous regimes or, at very least, been unwittingly complicit with ordinary oppression. Raymond Williams's withering assessment of culture of teashop at Cambridge supports Baggini's charge of elitism all too well.2 But, for Williams, such dubious elitist characters do not exhaust meaning of intellectual. His approach is dialectical, and, therefore, he considers multiple effects of intellectuals in totality. As soon as one follows Williams's example, fecund areas start to emerge in Baggini's universally bleak landscape: critical function of intellectuals and avid participation of many intellectuals in struggles of oppressed. To bracket from picture intellectuals whose examined life propels them toward critique of injustice and affiliation with movements of progressive resistance is, willy-nilly, to ally-however unintentially-with right-wing populists. After all, Ayn Rand novels and Fox News produce strikingly similar accusations to Baggini's when they denounce supposed university and media elite.This convergence is worth pointing out because usual upshot of such attitudes toward intellectuals is historically frequent but lamentable one of advancing putative social (from either above or below) by administration of symbolic or actual hemlock-that is by purging, exiling, ridiculing, ignoring, or censoring intellectual elites (including Socrates, to whom Baggini points an accusatory finger, without mentioning hemlock part). This strategy does not produce equality in a desirable sense. I will argue instead that a leveling worth having depends upon universalizing conditions that enable examined life, or-as Pierre Bourdieu once evocatively put it-the struggle for universalization of privileged conditions of existence which render pursuit of universal possible (110). …

Hurricane Mitch and Honduras: An illustration of population vulnerability

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch, the fourth strongest Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history, destroyed much of Honduras. Hardest hit were more vulnerable populations of the rural hillside and the urban shanty towns. In the 20 years prior to Hurricane Mitch, a series of neoliberal policies shifted the tax burden to the poor and focused resources on export crops, forcing subsistence farmers to the less arable hillside and leading to deforestation. These moves left the already marginalized in a precarious position when Hurricane Mitch struck as topsoil was washed away and mudslides destroyed hillside farms. Additionally, gendered patterns of privilege were obvious. Men were encouraged to migrate to work leaving women to restore the farm, care for the children, and tend to the elderly. As disaster management is centered on preparation multiple lessons can be learned. First, in preparation multiway information systems need to include actors from the local level and embrace those marginalized by society. Second, women need to be seen as assets not victims and their well-being need to be taken into consideration outside of the family construct. And third, reconstruction effort need to be about building better not faster.

Effect of urbanisation on the relationship between total serum IgE and asthma

It is unclear if the relationship of total serum IgE with asthma varies with degree of urbanisation. We hypothesised that the relationship of total serum IgE to asthma is more pronounced in an urban versus a rural environment. We enrolled 1441 children aged 13-15 years in a peri-urban shanty town in Lima, Peru (n=725) and 23 villages in rural Tumbes, Peru (n=716). We asked participants about asthma and allergy symptoms, environmental exposures and sociodemographics; and performed spirometry, and exhaled nitric oxide and allergy skin testing. We obtained blood for total serum IgE in 1143 (79%) participants. Geometric means for total serum IgE were higher in Lima versus Tumbes (262 versus 192 kU·L(-1); p<0.001). The odds of asthma increased by factors of 1.6 (95% CI 1.3-2.0) versus 1.4 (95% CI 0.9-2.1) per log unit increase in total serum IgE in Lima versus Tumbes, respectively. Atopy was an effect modifier of the relationship of total serum IgE on asthma. Among atopics and non-atopics, the odds of asthma increased by a factor of 2.0 (95% CI 1.5-2.7) and 1.0 (95% CI 0.7-1.4) per log unit increase in total serum IgE, respectively. Total serum IgE was associated with atopic asthma but not with non-atopic asthma. Urbanisation did not appear to be an effect modifier of this relationship.

Risk and Protective Factors for Physical and Emotional Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in a Community of Lima, Peru

This article shows risk and protective factors for both physical and emotional intimate partner violence (IPV) against women. The study was carried out in a shanty town of Lima, Peru, which has a strong community organization. One hundred ninety-two women between 25 and 59 years old (M = 34.09, SD = 6.5) were interviewed; 44.3% had secondary education, 75.5% were housewives, and 94% lived with their partner. The measurement instrument was a survey especially developed for this project to explore occurrence of physical and emotional IPV and to identify factors associated with them; factors were classified in individual and relational levels according to the ecological nested model (ENM). A logistic regression analysis was used to test the associations; the results showed that for emotional IPV, men's assertiveness was a protective factor, whereas their emotional instability and jealousy were risk factors. For physical IPV, there were no identified risks or protective factors. These results are presented and discussed.

Coal Shanty Towns Project Management Research Based on the Value Engineering Theory

The investment of coal shanty towns project is huge and it is a big workload involving multiple interest groups. The management method and level directly influence the coal shanty towns project with its economic effects. Using the AHP and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation methods, this paper established an evaluating system for that project based on the Value Engineering Theory, and carried out an empirical analysis of data within the shanty towns project of China Pingmei Shenma Group, verified the rationality of index system and provided reference for the management of coal shanty towns project using the Value Engineering Theory.

THE PERSONAL POLITICS OF DISASTER: NARRATIVES OF SURVIVORS OF A SOUTH AFRICAN SHANTY TOWN FIRE

Despite the fact that natural disasters occur more commonly in low and middle income countries than in wealthier countries, we know relatively little about how these disasters are experienced in such contexts. South Africa presents an especially telling example in which it is clear that natural events are affected profoundly by sociopolitical factors, including the spatial design of the apartheid city. We report here on interviews with twenty survivors of the biggest shanty town fire in the history of Cape Town, South Africa. The narratives of participants demonstrate that in order to understand the human cost of such disasters it is as important to understand the politics of the precursors of the disaster as well as what occurred subsequent to the disaster. The South African case, like that of Hurricane Katrina, underscores the fact that disaster, far from being an acute event which happens to individuals, is better understood as part of a far longer sociopolitical process affecting individuals, groups, and, indeed, societies.

Beneficial effect of physical activity on linear growth rate of adolescents in a South African shanty town

It is not known if nutritional and/or other interventions could improve linear growth in adolescents. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of physical activity in promoting linear growth velocity of black adolescents in a low-income shanty town in South Africa. Two schools in a disadvantaged shanty town participated in the study as intervention (n=250) and reference (n=66) groups. Due to practical considerations a quasi-experimental study design was used. Demographic, dietary intake, habitual physical activity and Tanner stage data were collected and anthropometric measurements were carried out over three years. Height for age z-scores (HAZ) were calculated and regression lines were fitted through HAZ values plotted against time. Slopes of HAZ regression lines for each child were used to represent the child’s linear growth velocity over the study period. A physical activity intervention was carried out over two years. The main outcome measure, mean growth velocity of children from the intervention versus the reference school was compared using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with HAZ at baseline, and habitual physical activity, Tanner stage, and dietary energy, protein, zinc and iron intakes as covariates, and growth velocity (slope of the regression line) as dependent variable. The mean slopes of HAZ regression lines of the intervention (+0.002) and reference groups (-0.007) were significantly different (p=0.009). ANCOVA showed a significantly higher slope of the HAZ regression line in the intervention group than in the reference group [F(1,292)=3.87, p=0.05]. The results indicate a possible role for physical activity in promoting the linear growth of adolescents in low-income areas. Keywords: Adolescents, linear growth, physical activity, South Africa, stunting African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance (AJPHERD) Vol. 18, No. 2 (June) 2012, pp. 251-266

Grassroots project shines hope on Nairobi slum life

Grassroots project shines hope on Nairobi slum life

Romeo and Juliet: A Tragedy Retold in the Shanty Towns of Rio

In 2007, the film Maré, nossa história de amor was launched in Brazil under Lucia Murat’s direction. The trailer, the teasers in the Internet, and the ads in the newspapers referred to it, at that time, as “Another Romeo. Another Juliet.