1.7.3 Solutions to Impacts of Urban Growth

Solutions to Impacts of Urban Growth

Solutions to Impacts of Urban Growth

Pollution

• Towns and cities have less clean air than its surrounding rural areas

• MEDCs, over the last 60 years, have regulations to restrict vehicle and industry emissions 

• NICs and LEDCs have the highest levels of pollution

Types of Pollution, Impacts and Solutions

Water, visual and noise pollution

Managing informal settlements

• One challenge common to many urban areas is informal settlements 

• There are five management options:

  1. Bulldoze and clear away

  2. Clear away but relocate people

  3. Redevelop

  4. Improve using self-help or site-and-service schemes (self-help gives tools/training and low-cost loans to help people help themselves, and S&S schemes provide a new or cleared site with basic services for people to buy at low cost, with low-cost loans to buy materials to make their homes)

  5. Ignore them

Bulldoze and clear away

• Operation Murambatsvina (Move the Rubbish), also officially known as Operation Restore Order, was a large-scale Zimbabwean government campaign to forcibly clear slum areas across the country

• It affected at least 700,000 people directly through the loss of their homes or livelihood and indirectly around 2.4 million people

•  Robert Mugabe and his government claimed it to be a crackdown on illegal housing and commercial activities, and to reduce the risk of the spread of infectious disease 

• Critics saw it as a way of driving out anyone who opposed Mugabe's administration

Clear away but relocate people

• Occurring in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya

• In 2003, the Kenyan government and UN-Habitat created the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme, or KENSUP

• it aimed to improve the infrastructure and housing of 5.3 million people living in squatter settlements in Kenya

• The first step was to build modern high-rise flats and give the residents a chance to own an apartment in the new development

• The flagship of KENSUP in Kibera is several concrete buildings called “The Promised Land” by local residents

• The apartments inside are heavily subsidised and provide the formalised services that slums lack – like water, sanitation and electricity

Redevelop

• Wholesale clearance and redevelopment of squatter areas is a more drastic approach

• This involves simply evicting the squatters and rebuilding the site in a more formal and organised way

• This is proposed for Dharavi, Mumbai, India and is the approach taken in the UK for many old inner city slum housing areas

• The city authorities of Mumbai want to improve the quality of life of the people who live there

• This includes the informal or squatter settlement dwellers

• Current approaches across Mumbai are complete demolition of the informal settlements to be replaced by high rise tower blocks for people to live in

Self-help or site-and-service schemes

• Self-help schemes give people the tools and training to improve their homes. Low-interest loans are available to help pay for the upgrading

• Site-and-service schemes give people the chance to buy or rent a piece of land with basic services on a new or cleared site. Low-interest loans allow people to buy the materials for building their new homes

• In Rocinha, self-help schemes have improved the area from squatter settlements to low-quality housing where the majority of homes have basic services like electricity

• There are now services in Rocinha including cafes and shops

• Some people have been granted legal ownership of the land on which their houses are built

• 'The Favela Bairro Project' or 'Slum to Neighbourhood' project is a site-and-service scheme

• The local authority provides residents from favelas brick houses to rent, built with electricity, running water and sanitation pipes installed

• Some people are allowed to buy these houses

• Services in these areas also include refusing collection, schools and health centres

Ignore

• Some local authorities either turn a blind eye to the informal settlement and hope they go away

• Or they do not have the resources to commit to slum redevelopment

• But in some places, such as parts of Rocinha in Rio, many informal settlement dwellers have slowly improved the stability, durability and quality of their homes by buying better quality materials and doing the work themselves

• In some parts, people have done this so well and built such a stable community that authorities are no longer required to provide assistance

Case Study - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Case Study - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Background

• Brazil is an important agricultural and industrial power, with the strongest economy in Latin America with Brasilia as its capital

• In 1950, Rio de Janeiro (Rio) was the capital of Brazil with a population of 3 million 

• Today it is the second largest city in Brazil (after São Paulo) with a population of over 12.5 million

• Rio is a major trading port, with oil refining and shipbuilding industries

• The main exports are iron, steel and crude petroleum

• Rio is also a major tourist destination and hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics

Migration

• Rapid growth from rural to urban migration in search of jobs

• Despite having a large agricultural base, there is no land ownership and few opportunities for advancement

• It is difficult and unprofitable farming, with low wages and huge wealth disparities

• There is a lack of social amenities, and the area is prone to natural hazards 

• For many internal migrants, the city offers better job opportunities and higher wages

• Along with better schooling and healthcare and the potential for a higher quality of life

Housing

• Inward migration has put pressure on services and amenities which has led to a housing shortage

• Most rural migrants begin life in the favelas, of which Rocinha is the largest, most developed informal settlement, just south of Rio

• Over 20 per cent of the population live in around 1000 favelas in and around the city

• Found mainly on the edges of the city, on poor-quality land that is not suitable for urban development

• People have no legal rights to the land they occupy

• Many of the favelas in Rio are now well-established

• 95% of favela homes are built of solid materials, such as brick, with 75% having a tiled floor

• Some have electricity, running water, televisions, computers and access to the Internet

• The newer and less well-established neighbourhoods are overcrowded, consisting of shelters made from materials like timber and corrugated iron and clung to the side of the mountain

Transport

• The rapid expansion of Rio from the 1950s was not supported by the necessary urban infrastructure planning

• Rio de Janeiro’s roads are seriously congested

• Rail services are limited  

• Private bus services are the main means of public transport

• The number of cars in the city is increasing as the population rises and people become wealthier

• Underground rail services are efficient but with limited stops along its network

Education

• Children start school at 4 years old

• School days typically last between 3 and 4 hours, due to lack of space in the classrooms

• There is no strict national curriculum in Brazil, but teachers follow national guidelines for the state (county) that they are teaching in

• Education is often low quality, due to Brazil investing late in its education system

• Many of Rio's public schools are in desperate need of repair adding to poor educational attainment

• Rio has the highest rate of non-attendance in school, teenage pregnancy and lack of opportunities for further education

• Violence can be a barrier to education as in some neighbourhoods it is not always safe for children to travel to school

Crime Rates

• These have increased as the city has grown

• This is due in part to high unemployment rates and petty crime such as pickpocketing

• Rio has a problem with youth crime and gang violence within the favelas

• Many residents feel unsafe in their homes as the gangs control the streets with guns, and trade in drugs

Environmental challenges

• The majority of the favela's residents illegally tap into the main electrical grid, making electricity poles in the street unsafe with several households connecting to the one pole

• Many households in Rio do not have access to safe, running water as many of the main water pipes are damaged and are leaking  

• Very few houses in the favelas have water directly to their houses

• Access to doctors and healthcare varies across the city with poor access to those in the favelas, raising the risk of spreading diseases such as cholera and typhoid

• Urban sprawl is an issue as the city continues to grow rapidly, encroaching on surrounding rural (countryside) areas

• Air pollution is a major problem, particularly from traffic congestion in the city centre and from industrial zones

• Waste disposal is a particular problem in the favelas, where access is difficult and there are no organised sewage or waste recovery systems

• Sewage is not properly disposed of, or treated and this ends up in local rivers and Guanabara Bay, polluting the water and damaging the marine wildlife there

Approaches to improvement

• The government has viewed favelas as eyesores which portray a poor image of the city

• Local communities, charities and government departments work in collaboration to improve conditions in favelas

• The government has to balance improvements without attracting further inward migration and therefore, further favela developments elsewhere

Site and service schemes in Rio

• Complexo de Alemao (German complex) has 60000 homes built with improved and regulated materials including power, drainage systems and clean water supplies

• Accessibility within the favela was improved through the construction of widened, paved roads, providing access for emergency services and rubbish removal

• Roads were given formal names and added to maps, bringing the neighbourhood into the wider city

• Safety, particularly at night, was improved through street lighting 

• Underground cables were installed providing residents with permanent power supplies, and effectively stopping illegal tapping into electrical supplies

• The Favela Bairro Project (favela neighbourhood project), began in 1994 and ended in 2008

• The aim was to provide essential services to residents and to recognise them formally as neighbourhoods of the city

• Families were taught to build stable foundations using strong materials

• Residents living in homes deemed too unsafe on the steep hillside were relocated by the local government

• Solid, brick homes were built with power, running clean water and sanitation pipes, reducing the impact of water-borne diseases such as cholera

• Some residents were able to purchase the homes and were given legal rights to the land

• The success of these schemes has been mixed, but many living conditions have been improved, but the topography of the area (steep hillsides) has restricted full development

• Improvements are restricted by steep hillsides, heavy rains, floods and landslides

• Funding is limited, making improvement for all residents impossible

• Cultural activities such as samba, capoeira and reggae are run to stop youths from getting involved in gangs and organised crime

Self-help schemes

• Sustainable Favela Network is a charity which helps to build resilience and environmental sustainability in favelas

• Many of the initiatives tackle environmental issues such as waste management, community gardens and the preservation of natural surroundings

• These lead to improvements in the health and well-being of the residents, reducing strain on local government's stretched budgets

• A small favela in Rio’s Tijuca Forest, set up its own bio-systems project to treat waste and sewerage in a bid to it more sustainable

• Along with a piping system, they also installed a biodigester to generate gas for cooking instead of throwing waste and sewerage into open pits and streams

• In other favelas, charities and authorities have provided training, materials and tools to people to improve their own homes

• Low-interest loans help to fund these changes

• This helps to create a sense of community, improve skills, employability and reduce unemployment

• With residents providing the labour, those costs can be spent on providing other amenities such as power, water, health centres, schools etc. 

• In Rocinha, most of the houses are now concrete and brick, with basic sanitation, plumbing and electricity

• This has allowed Rocinha to develop its infrastructure to include bus links, hand businesses such as pharmacies, shops and banks

• Rocinha even has its own television channel on cable tv, called TV ROC

Government investment

• The Brazilian Federal Savings Bank supported residents by offering them 100% mortgages to purchase a house

• This places responsibility on the homeowner for upgrading and maintenance rather than the government, releasing funds to be spent on other amenities such as paved roads, sewerage systems, street lighting

• But many favelas are built in areas with poor access or no public transport, making getting employment or travelling to work difficult and therefore, residents' default on mortgage payments