Davis II and the 21st century slums
Use Davis' piece to draw out some of the similarities and differences between the contemporary mega-slums of the Third World and either Engels' Manchester or Wilson's US ghetto.
April 09, 2007
OBE #5 - Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yer?
Wilson’s work on US ghettos and Davis’ work on third world ghettos share little more than theme. Ghettos in the US are defined more by unemployment, racial divisions and definable geographic boundaries. Davis’ bleak picture of the humanitarian faux pas that are ghettos in the third world is defined by little or no employment and a scope so much larger than the US ghettos that racial division and geographic boundaries become wholly irrelevant. Just from the sheer number of the lowest class, Davis is forced to make little mention of the stark class divides. Also attributable to these sheer numbers is their geographic distribution: they are everywhere. It almost seems better to be poor in the US than anything below rich in the third world.
As a whole, third world ghettos are much more violent than ghettos in the US. Death squads and paramilitary groups roaming the streets not only ignored by, but oft at the behest of, authorities cause more harm in third world slums than any race riots in the US ever did. Also of note is the dissimilarity between housing methods exercised in the US and third world ghettos. Public housing programs in the US suck, but they do exist and people use them as a crutch or a bootstrap, depending on your political view. Completely available government funded public housing in the third world does not exist and can not effectively exist because of the huge amount and proportion of the population that is homeless. It does not help that people are sleeping on the sidewalk en masse, building their own shantytowns, subdividing large lots without government approval and/or waging squatter wars with authorities in third world nations in an often vain attempt to secure the basic human need of shelter. The one conclusion that can be drawn from this is the presence of an authority with a semblance of respect for humanity in the US and an authority either unable, unwilling or both to enforce basic order in an attempt to benefit people. (You may now quibble with my supposition that authority in the US may actually be beneficial… I think it has more to do with enculturation of individuals coupled with lower population densities. Authority is pretty dumb everywhere.)
These ghettos do share some similarity when not studied as a whole, however. The transformation of previously upper class neighborhoods to ghettos and slums is not as well restricted to the urban core in third world nations as in the US. Many third world nations lack the means to track these urban changes but the results are similar: quality of life, housing and general environment degrades. The racially segregated aspect of US ghettos was echoed in UK controlled Hong Kong. The geographical separation by ethnicity in Hong Kong was in the form of floating slums inhabited by the Tanka and Hakka people largely segregated from the Han. While Davis doesn’t explicitly state any other ethnic divisions, it is easy to understand that other examples must exist given the number of people living in these conditions and the diverse nature of urban societies.
April 11, 2007
OBE #5: Ignorance is Bliss
I think you would all agree with me when I say that this reading was extremely depressing. Over the past ten weeks or so, I have learned so many new things that are interesting and challenging to me as a human being, but also so many things that I almost wish I did not know. All the statistics and facts in this chapter of Davis’s book are a few of those things.
Today, as I was walking outside, I could not help but feel sorry for myself. Poor, pitiful me. I have to walk outside A LOT today and it is snowing, and it is April, and I am stressed out from school and life is not fair. So to come home (to my nice, warm apartment) and read some of Davis, is a bit humbling. Life could be a lot rougher – for most people, walking in the snow is truly the least of their problems.
The problem is, for me, it is so much easier NOT to know these things. Ignorance is bliss. It is so much easier to believe that my life is not a charmed one, but that it is, in the general scheme of the world, average. And this is what leads me to, what I believe (at least at the present moment), is the heart of the problem in the slums. Those who have the means to make a difference would rather just pretend that ultimately, life is fair. It is easier for most to believe that the people who live in the slums are there because of their own personal issues (e.g., drug addictions, inability to hold a job, alcoholism) and if they would just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” they would be fine. The fact that many of the homeless in Los Angeles are “riskshaw men, construction workers, and market porters” (36) is much harder to swallow and (God forbid) may make a bit harder to sleep at night.
And the problem with this ignorance is that it escalates the problem BIG TIME. Because, in order to continue to live naively thinking that homeless slum dwellers are bad, dangerous people who cannot change and do not deserve a better life, the upper and middle class attempt to create an environment that supports this ideal, one that polarizes and distinguishes them from the lower class. Davis, Caldiera, and Zukin (among others) touch on the ways in which this happens (enclaves, super-sized security and surveillance, etc.) Davis writes about the situation of the slums in La Boca (34), but even as the middle-class Italian-Argentines face grueling housing conditions of their own, they still attempt to ostracize themselves from the Paraguayan, Uruguayan, and other more recent, poorer immigrants through the way they control space and the way they talk about them to visitors to the city (see the article link I put on the Zukin page for more information about this).
In general, gentrification is a perfect example of this. Moving back and forth from cities to suburbs and back to cities (32), the upper/ middle class come in, take over the space, and displace the residents that are already there. Rarely is there even a thought or suggestion of developing a “kinship based housing compound,” like the one Davis mentions in Ghana (35). And this is because, by this point, people have engrained these assumptions and ideals in their heads. It is hard to reverse the stereotypes, and if you are willing to try you will, in most cases, be in the minority.
So what happens now? Do things continue as is? Do we just wait and watch as things grow worse? I think awareness may be key. Whether it is in schools, community programs, or other venues for bringing these issues to the surface and bringing truth to the forefront, awareness may help to bridge the gap. However, although it may be helpful, it, obviously, is not the entire answer.
A final note, I realize that although some may try to shut out the realities of the planet of slums so they do not have to deal with the realities, some are also fully aware of it, and simply do not care. And it is these people, who may ultimately create a bigger stumbling block on the road to change.
Comments
Everyday we are all too caught up in our own lives to even take time to think about how great we have it. I constantly find myself complaining about my roommates, why my car does not work, the weather, working long hours. But, I have a house to have roommates with, I have a car to get me from point A to B, the weather, no matter how cold is a beautiful thing, and I have a job to earn income. We all stereotype, no matter how much we don't want to. We say things like, that is a rough neighborhood, or watch out for that person. Granted some of these things can be true, it is all about perception. There is a theory we learned about in Intro to Soc, I cannot remember the name, but when someone grows up in a certain lifestyle, they are automatically labeled as deviant, or dangerous. We do not give people a chance, which is really, what we need to do, for everyone. The world is a frustrating place, and I wish I could really do something to change it dramatically, but I know that will not happen, no matter how much I want to believe I can.
ahhh so true kar- Ill do the exact same thing- complaining about my homework or being mad at myself for not working out or wondering who's 21st birthday is this weekend...and then it is like all you have to do is read something like this or even just watch the news- and it is like instant guilt. I know there's not a whole lot we can do that will make a significant difference, just one person but I once (unfortunately that is all so far) went to "Feed my starving Children" which is an awesome organization that makes little food packets for starving people to eat across the world (some of the people they spoke about would eat CLAY patties just to curb the hunger pains...imagine what that does to a digestive system!) It makes me think of the following :
"Star Fish Story " (one version)
Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."
"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.
To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."
Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"
At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."
i understand all of your thoughts, opinions, and pangs about taking our american lives for granted. i would also say that even those who may seem to be impoverished in our eyes, may have it made too. i suppose you appreciate what you have and live with what you don't from whatever perspective and situation you live in in this life.
i'm a bit hesitant in projecting the view that those who are impoverished are in some way or another disadvantaged because then we'll project on the view to them that in order to live an advantageous and fulfilling life would be to consume and produce like us americans. i guess it's a thorny topic to talk about, but that's just my thought about it so far. (i'm open to opinions)
Kathy - I so appreciate your comments...and agree with them. There just isn't enough time to get through all my thoughts. I don't know if anyone has seen the the movie the Pursuit of Happyness, but that is one thing that bothered me...it has a happy ending, but it leaves you thinking money equals happiness. The reality is that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually my struggles may not be more or less than anyone elses. Believe me, I would pay money to have a brain that doesn't buy into consumerism, that is content with what I have. BUT, phsycially, I have it made...I have access to healthcare, a warm place to sleep at night, and good food to nourish my body (when I choose it for myself). I think this is the inequality that I struggle with most. But I definitely agree with you - I'm sure there are people in the slums who are more happy and more content than those living here
Oh, and LOVE Feed my Starving Children!!!! Also, have only been there once, but would love to go again!
yeah... fmsc is great, but why can't we give these people real texturized (I mean whole pieces of chicken and veggies) instead?
Holy Fantastic blog and comments. Way to start a discussion. There are lots of things you can do! Just taking this class and increasing your awareness of real diparities and appreciating what you have more is a start. Yeah, spending money doesn't make anyone happier, and judging people's lifestyles as less fulfilling because they're different is silly.However it's good to recognize that someone who is living in conditions that would make your troubles seem trivial if you, with your experiences were thrown into them is spending their days toiling so that you can have a new pair of Air Jordans that you're only gonna wear for a year and so that the CEO of Nike can buy another shoe compnay that was once independent and further secure their financial and political stronghold. It seems hopeless at times living in our money and consumerism centered culture to relate to the people and places where the crap you "need" gets produced, but you can spend it wisely and you can avoid supporting those who are actively keeping poverty alive as much as possible(huge corporations that benefit from what is virtually slave labor.) Ignorance is much closer to stupidity than bliss. The more you educate yourself and define what's important to you the more you can work towards attaining it. Throw those starfish back in the ocean even if it takes your whole life to get an eigth of the way down the beach. Maybe the wise old man will follow your example, and then others will come too.
It sounds like there are a few of us right here who have the urge to help a starfish or two. Or even, who knows, maybe we'll be the fish out of water someday. I'd rather be in a world full of people who give it a try than a world full of folks who think it's not their problem.
umm I think they cant send whole food because of the problem w/storing safe food... think about it- chances are most of these people dont have freezers to keep the food fresh in or maybe even ovens/fire to cook it on... and its much easier to send and make in bulk this way
planet of slums
OBE # 5
“Housing is a verb.” With capitalism ruling, housing is a commodity. On this planet, we are forced to pay for space to survive. Because of the economic inequality that exists, many people end up living in hazardous environments.
Davis explains that most homelessness and poverty is underreported and ignored, just as Engels pointed out that Manchester’s impoverished citizens were hidden from view, segregated and blocked by the city architecture. In Wilson’s analysis of the ghetto, a major ingredient of the problem is isolation. The connecting theme in all of these passages is the power over people, and the distance between the powerful and the powerless. Whether it is physical or not, the rich have claimed space leaving the poor with nowhere to live but slums, etc. Overall, cities and citizens should take responsibility rather than turning their backs on the crisis of slums, squatters, and homelessness. Instead, the poor are marginalized, hidden, and ignored.
Squatters are blocked from sight, living in hazardous locations or useless territories. Today, most slums worldwide are on the outskirts of cities, far from the center. (Davis) By pushing the slums out of the city and keeping homogenous enclaves together throughout the city, the state uses segregation as a way to dish out resources unevenly. In Buenos Aires, Davis mentions that it is common to see walls dividing suburbs and shantytowns.
Davis and Engels do not glorify poverty. Davis calls the peripheral slums of the third world a “human dump”. First world countries continue to ignore the global disaster, because the bourgeoisie rely on the third world over-production so that they can participate in over-consumption. The visual of a human dump is disturbing; we are throwing away people like old furniture or used tires.
Space is valuable, and people must fight with the authorities in order to take up space and to be recognized as citizens. Davis mentions the revolutionary squatters who occupied land by making settlements that were torn down by the police, but then rebuilt again and again. Confrontation is necessary when the tool a society uses to form a hierarchy is to segregate individuals.
Davis expands beyond Wilson and Engels, looking at the planet rather than individual cities. As a Westerner, it is impossible for me to understand what it means when someone writes that 99% of Ethiopia consists of slums. I can’t imagine it because I am so far away, physically and emotionally. It is important that we recognize that the global perspective is much more telling of our individual position on the planet.
OBE #5 I've found my niche...
This article was like a godsend; this speaks directly to my final paper. I was wondering where I was going to find a theorist on this. Woohoo!
Slums can be found in every part of the world. The devastation that is found in these areas is fashioned by social immobility that leads to extreme poverty. These slums are characterized by dilapidated housing, overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions, and homelessness. Individuals are born into a life of poverty, of which they cannot escape. According to the reading, a third of people in the world live in slums. Due to inaccuracies in data collection, it is difficult to determine if this figure is accurate or not. More impoverished cities tend to lowball their population numbers in order to avoid paying higher taxes. From my experience in other countries, the slums vary in location within a city, but the most destitute areas are very similar in their arrangement and interactions with the remainder of the city, no matter what country they are in.
The reading reminded me of my experiences in Mexico. In the city that I was in, the upper classes reside in the city center. The middle class lives in the next band further out from the center. The lower class is left to occupy the city's outer limits, where they are easily neglected and overlooked by the other classes.
Outside of the slums, people keep bars on their windows and doors in order to keep the slum dwellers out of their private homes and businesses. Since the slum dwellers are in such poverty, the temptation to steal the bare necessities exists. Within the slums, there are no bars on the doors and windows. This is not only because they cannot afford to put bars on their doors and windows, but also because they have no material possessions worth stealing. Their homes aren't worth raiding for goods.
In the most destitute areas, shacks that house three generations are what many slum dwellers call home. The homes are complete with dirt floors and rusted corrugated metal for walls. Their homes are literally falling apart. The bathroom for many of the houses consists of a degrading hole in the dirt, sometimes covered by a decaying structure similar to that of the dilapidated houses. Rusted mattress springs are used for fences around the feeble land that they claim. The fences wouldn't prevent thieves from coming into the home; they are simply a representation of the small personal security that these people cling to. The corroded mattress springs also stand for the land that they have staked as their own. Land is the one thing that they can put their name on, even if it does not legally belong to them. One neighborhood that I visited was a dump. Literally. The homes were built on a former landfill. The kids played barefoot on heaps of garbage behind their houses without giving it a second thought. Broken glass, jagged tin cans, and metal scraps lined the compacted dirt floors of their homes and their dirt roads.
These living conditions are unacceptable. However, they are being ignored and swept under the rug, along with most other social problems. The people that live in these areas don't possess enough social power to make a change. If things are going to be changed, the change has to begin from outside; it has to be instigated by the middle and upper classes.
Allison
Comments
You made a point in the last paragraph that struck a chord in me... Ideally it would be great to have the middle and upper classes to cure all social ills but that usually isn't the case for most countries which are not democratic and still are dictated by a few elite. for example in laos. the french has given the communist laotion government funding to construct schools for children but the monies were misused. with an institution such as that is set in place where the rich/powerful have the power to control what should be filtered out to the people, this system just perpetuates and manifests an impoverised society. when i think about what is going on with laos and other places in the world like laos where political systems are corrupt, i'm not surprised to see non-american urban cores increasing when the economy of the people isn't.
i also want to say that you caught my attention pointing out how the city is laid out for non-us impoverished countries. it was interesting to see in this article that the poor are in the outskirts, while in our readings of past theorists/writers/sociologists/whatever, there happened to be an intermixing of rich and poor within the city, but were segregated or sectioned off in certain areas within the city.
Hey Allison, I'm so glad this one was useful for you. It was fascinating to have the article complemented by your own observations from Mexico. Hopefully we can talk about this a bit in class.
OBE #5 Slums vs Ghetto... not the same?
In comparing Wilson’s US Ghetto to the Davis piece, I was hit by many striking differences as well as similarities. The US ghettos appear to have more of an emphasis on deviance, while the Davis article of slums around the world focuses on hunger. It is clearly stated in both, however, the issue of the ghettos and slums having nearby work for its residents. Wilson speaks of many businesses closing down, the ones that once sustained the people of the area. These closures left the area with the same about of people but not near enough jobs to support a non-criminal based community. Davis mentions particularly the ‘equation’ that the people of the slums must solve in how it would work out living in a real apartment yet not being able to afford to travel to work because of the distance. This complicated equation leaves people to choose living in undesirable locations (often merely only on the street) in order to be close to their jobs. It seems that the people of the ghettos in the US have not been willing to sacrifice a roof over the heads of their families for a better job, which is entirely understandable.
The slums article make it seem that the areas they occupy have always been such, they just have continued to grow by enormous measures. The ghettos of the US were once prosperous areas, with lots of light and people, which are now gone. He also mentions the social affect these ghettos have on the surrounding areas- people with enough money move away from them, almost making it not socially acceptable
The most interesting comparison that I found between these two is the way the people go about solving their poverty dilemmas. The Wilson article is concentrated on the social characteristics and consequences of poverty. He is showing how it results in crime and deviance- stealing, drug dealing. People do what they can to get by and make some money when there are no legal jobs there to provide them with an income. In Davis, there is little mention of people going to other measures to fill this poverty void- though it is quite possible that he just did not get around to mentioning it. It gives the impression that the ‘slum’ people were far more concerned with where their next meal would come from, or finding a roof over their heads. There are some mentions of crime such as stealing, which is something I believe comes hand in hand with poverty, but the violence and gangs of the ghetto do not seem to exist in the slums. Conclusively, one can not equally compare and contrast the ghetto to the slum- they are two completely different phenomenons with different cultures, goals, and overall situation. (I think this would be a great topic to make a chart on! It would help so much in clarification. Maybe I will later..)
-Angie
OBE#4 Slums
This article brings up the question of definitions regarding the slum and the way in which this skews the perception and referents of a term like ‘slum’. Davis remarks that the definition of slum offered by the authors of The Challenge of Slums is – although it is still revealing of a large number of people living in such conditions – too exclusive. This definition follows “overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation and insecurity of tenure.” This is worth mentioning because definitions over slums (or anything for that matter) are sometimes formulated and used to serve a purpose of some kind – e.g. political, social, dialectic… It can be deceiving to clump all things within a particular definition of a word such as ‘slum.’ This is due to the fact that things to which such a word is intended to refer can be so diverse in character that the kinds of interactions, problems, causes, and effects can not be encompassed by some single principle regarding economic social or other factors. I say this mostly to offer a less clean cut view of such a word as ‘slum’ and in order to suggest that the practice of framing the necessary and sufficient conditions for something is not necessarily a fruitful means at discovering something about that thing for which one has tried to define without being to inclusive or exclusive with respect to a particular set of referents.
I would be interested in knowing in what way Davis would distinguish the terms ‘slum’ and ‘ghetto.’ Do these terms have any overlap at all? This is too say: are all or only some ghettos slums? Or are all or some slums ghettos? Or are no slums ghettos?
Overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure. Davis alludes to the complexity of such a term when he refers to the differ to the ‘calculus of housing’ by showing that for all slum dwellers there is no one and only one particular way to subsist in an environment. This may in turn allude to the ‘causes’ and to the separate cures of and for the slum. This part of the essay follows “For some people, including many pavement dwellers, a location near a job – say, in a produce market or train station – is even more important than a roof. For others, free or nearly free land is worth epic commutes from the edge to the center. And for everyone the worst situation is a bad, expensive location without municipal services or security of tenure.” It seems possible that Wilson would disagree with this if he maintains that proximity to jobs is the necessary and sufficient condition with respect to the ghetto. Although he also might disagree with ever equating any slum with any ghetto.
The subject of definitions and the like aside I would like to discuss one slum population with which I am familiar, although it is most through testimony and only partly through interaction, of which this reading reminded me. These are the homeless of Tokyo who fit into many of the particulars regarding slums that Davis mentions. There are often large groups of homeless people found in the parks of Tokyo and they are in one sense authorized to be there while in another sense they are not. They would thusly fit into to the diagram, which Davis lays out, as being informal squatters that are authorized and unauthorized. This is because they are squatting – which they are not theoretically supposed to do – but the police don’t really do anything about it. From time to time they are obliged to uproot for a day or so from the parks they occupy while the police come along to do inspections. Somehow – I’m not sure how – they know when the police are going to inspect that particular park and that day they leave. They might have some kind of deal formal or informal / said or unsaid with the authorities that prevents any conflict. In any case, whatever this deal is seems to function fairly well. Apparently, a good proportion of these individuals are homeless because they were once in construction but got injured on the job and are no longer able to work. A lot of the contstruction workers in Tokyo work on farms during the summer in the north of Japan and during the off season go to the city to do construction. Their working conditions seem somewhat precarious being that they walk around on bamboo scaffolding in sock like flexible shoes many stories up. I saw some of them basically pulling a tight rope act at some distance from the ground. I realize this sounds absurd but it’s true. Another interesting fact about some of these groups is that to earn money they have created a hierarchical work system in which the older individuals find work while the younger ones do the work. The elders then take a cut of what their ‘clients’ earn. Another source of income is earned through scavenging through dumpsters for daily comic books like “Manga” and reselling them on the street.
Perhaps one cause of homelessness and thus these kinds of communities in Tokyo is the fact that it is incredibly expensive to get an apartment in Tokyo. That is to say not just pay the monthly rent but to actually get the apartment. One generally pays around 3 to 4 times their monthly rent as a gift to their landlord when one moves into an apartment. This is not a damage deposit but a gift that you do not get back. My brother, for example, who lived in Tokyo for several years, paid his landlord 2,000 dollars as his moving fee for his apartment. This means one has to have that amount of money in the bank and be able to be fine with not getting it back if he or she wants to get a place to live.
Comments
hey man, that's pretty interesting about forking up extra money to get an apartment in japan. it's probably a cultural thing.. a sign of respect perhaps?
OBE#4 Slums
This article brings up the question of definitions regarding the slum and the way in which this skews the perception and referents of a term like ‘slum’. Davis remarks that the definition of slum offered by the authors of The Challenge of Slums is – although it is still revealing of a large number of people living in such conditions – too exclusive. This definition follows “overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation and insecurity of tenure.” This is worth mentioning because definitions over slums (or anything for that matter) are sometimes formulated and used to serve a purpose of some kind – e.g. political, social, dialectic… It can be deceiving to clump all things within a particular definition of a word such as ‘slum.’ This is due to the fact that things to which such a word is intended to refer can be so diverse in character that the kinds of interactions, problems, causes, and effects can not be encompassed by some single principle regarding economic social or other factors. I say this mostly to offer a less clean cut view of such a word as ‘slum’ and in order to suggest that the practice of framing the necessary and sufficient conditions for something is not necessarily a fruitful means at discovering something about that thing for which one has tried to define without being to inclusive or exclusive with respect to a particular set of referents.
I would be interested in knowing in what way Davis would distinguish the terms ‘slum’ and ‘ghetto.’ Do these terms have any overlap at all? This is too say: are all or only some ghettos slums? Or are all or some slums ghettos? Or are no slums ghettos?
Overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure. Davis alludes to the complexity of such a term when he refers to the differ to the ‘calculus of housing’ by showing that for all slum dwellers there is no one and only one particular way to subsist in an environment. This may in turn allude to the ‘causes’ and to the separate cures of and for the slum. This part of the essay follows “For some people, including many pavement dwellers, a location near a job – say, in a produce market or train station – is even more important than a roof. For others, free or nearly free land is worth epic commutes from the edge to the center. And for everyone the worst situation is a bad, expensive location without municipal services or security of tenure.” It seems possible that Wilson would disagree with this if he maintains that proximity to jobs is the necessary and sufficient condition with respect to the ghetto. Although he also might disagree with ever equating any slum with any ghetto.
The subject of definitions and the like aside I would like to discuss one slum population with which I am familiar, although it is most through testimony and only partly through interaction, of which this reading reminded me. These are the homeless of Tokyo who fit into many of the particulars regarding slums that Davis mentions. There are often large groups of homeless people found in the parks of Tokyo and they are in one sense authorized to be there while in another sense they are not. They would thusly fit into to the diagram, which Davis lays out, as being informal squatters that are authorized and unauthorized. This is because they are squatting – which they are not theoretically supposed to do – but the police don’t really do anything about it. From time to time they are obliged to uproot for a day or so from the parks they occupy while the police come along to do inspections. Somehow – I’m not sure how – they know when the police are going to inspect that particular park and that day they leave. They might have some kind of deal formal or informal / said or unsaid with the authorities that prevents any conflict. In any case, whatever this deal is seems to function fairly well. Apparently, a good proportion of these individuals are homeless because they were once in construction but got injured on the job and are no longer able to work. A lot of the contstruction workers in Tokyo work on farms during the summer in the north of Japan and during the off season go to the city to do construction. Their working conditions seem somewhat precarious being that they walk around on bamboo scaffolding in sock like flexible shoes many stories up. I saw some of them basically pulling a tight rope act at some distance from the ground. I realize this sounds absurd but it’s true. Another interesting fact about some of these groups is that to earn money they have created a hierarchical work system in which the older individuals find work while the younger ones do the work. The elders then take a cut of what their ‘clients’ earn. Another source of income is earned through scavenging through dumpsters for daily comic books like “Manga” and reselling them on the street.
Perhaps one cause of homelessness and thus these kinds of communities in Tokyo is the fact that it is incredibly expensive to get an apartment in Tokyo. That is to say not just pay the monthly rent but to actually get the apartment. One generally pays around 3 to 4 times their monthly rent as a gift to their landlord when one moves into an apartment. This is not a damage deposit but a gift that you do not get back. My brother, for example, who lived in Tokyo for several years, paid his landlord 2,000 dollars as his moving fee for his apartment. This means one has to have that amount of money in the bank and be able to be fine with not getting it back if he or she wants to get a place to live.
OBE #5: Planet of Slums
The reading “Planet of Slums” by Mike Davis put an interesting perspective on how slums function in different parts of the world. One of the main reasons for this difference in slums is the variety of definitions people have of a slum. On pages 21-23, there are two definitions, the second one being the classic definition. The first one states that ‘slum’ is the same as racket and crime. The second one is called the classic definition and defines a slum as a place that is overcrowded, has poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure. Both are correct when describing a slum. The classic definition is a more formal, physical description, while the first statement explains how a slum affects people on a mental level. Both are necessary when discussing the environment of a slum. Although the “classic” definition can be applied to all slums globally, it is the people and their culture that create the different types of environments. In large cities where almost half the population lives in the slums, people consider that normal, whereas in richer cities, people consider slums to be a problem. Davis gives examples of cities such as São Paulo, Bombay, Cairo, and other Latin American and Asian cities. Each city has its own reasons of how the slums formed and how the people deal with them. An example follows about housing solutions.
Davis goes on to discuss housing solutions for slums in Cairo. They include renting apartments; building small, cheap housing in poor environments; building on publicly owned land; and buying a house on a development. The main idea was to stay close to jobs. Although these all address the financial issues the poor face, they don’t really address the big picture: is there going to be enough room to accommodate all the people of the slums? This is an important issue especially when building for people in the slums. On page 31, Davis explains the difference between American and European cities. Their shapes are donut (where the slums are in the center of the city) and saucer (where the slums are on the outskirts of the city), respectively. The issue of having enough room is more prevalent in the American cities, as the slums are concentrated in the center of the city while the upper class is left with the vast, open space at the edges.
As for the Asian cities such as Beijing and Bombay, these are highly dense cities and finding space to house everybody has been a major issue, especially in the slums. One of the most practical ways the people have addressed this problem is by building up instead of out. Tall buildings can accommodate more people and have a smaller footprint compared to short, wide buildings. This is an idea that I think all slums could benefit from (although most have already incorporated this).
Overall, I liked the idea of comparing the different slums of different cities and how they play a role on a local and global scale. The definition of a slum is something that changes from location to location and recognizing those differences is important when people want to bring about changes to improve the environment of the slums.
Abha
Comments
I don't really see how slums would benefit by placing slummed folks more densely within a square mile by building upwards when it doesn't solve social ills of these people. Pro-Corbusian?
hehe. I think I need to stop commenting. I've been hot on it throughout this whole Davis II section.
April 12, 2007
Sustainablity, Russia and Peripheral Slums and Bethanie Kloecker
Prevalence of Slums - Mike Davis
By far, the most comprehensive look at inequality yet explored in this class! Without a focus on theory, this reading was much easier to grasp than DeBord…and most certainly a more hard-hitting reality than Foucault. Davis has become, for me, one of the most influential contemporary writers (outside of Castells) that we’ve covered in this class. It could be his focus on urban reflection, in particular the inequalities, power struggles and these actualities in design. Throughout much of my urban studies learning, I’ve asked myself – what’s Russia up to? Being caught in second world territory, I assumed it to be stagnant because of its political state, but it’s such a vast amount of land I couldn’t imagine it had no influence on urban studies, although I’d seen none. Finally I hear something, even if the news is bad. “The fastest growing slums are in the Russian Federation (especially ex-“socialist company towns” dependant on a single, now-closed industry) and the former Soviet Republics, where urban dereliction has been bred at the same stomach-churning velocity as economic inequality and civic disinvestment.” (pg.24) The side note on socialist company towns reminded me of Michael Moore’s Roger and Me film on General Motors closing a plant in Flint Michigan. The effects were astronomical on the whole city, being that so many residents were employed there. The fall of the industrial age, explored in Castells as well, has left a huge void in blue-collar America and, apparently, the Russian Federation.
My brother, a mindful architect, once brought up that many of the harshly impoverished Third-World population are living far more sustainable than can be imagined in First World countries. This was elaborated on for me in Davis’ typology of slums. “The urban poor have to solve a complex question of shelter, journey to work, and sometimes, personal safety.” (pg.27) This question is often answered, he explains, through the upmost practical and waste-reducing ways. Living near work is a huge priority, never acquiring more than can be consumed is a principle that must be lived by, as well as the prevalence of dense (although not technically voluntarily so) residential neighborhoods that conserve space. Block-housing, tenement or project housing, these are all formal settings that encourage highly dense living situations. There are also, Davis explains, informal residential settings that are more often then not very prude to not waste space. In Kolkata, planned communities of huts hold 13.5 people in an average of 45-square meter rooms.
Then there are the suburb slums, the peripheral slums. Here we see the “centrifugal forces of the city collide with the implosion of the countryside.” (pg.46) I see this too in America, although most certainly to a lesser and far more comfortable extent. The disconnect between these forces, termed rightfully by Davis, can be seen as this – the explosion (violent move outwards) of the city and the implosion (destruction from within, inwards downfall) of rural life. Whether many Americans will ever understand a new definition of suburb that involves maybe a city made from a “garbage mountain” (pg.49) or a violent hellhole where children entertain themselves with hand grenades, I see that understanding as very far in the future.
In this new economic global space, Davis’ piece is all-important. Many Americans pride comfortable living conditions: two acres of land for every family, two bathrooms in one house, one bedroom for each child and ample living space. How we relate this pride to the absolutely humbling, depressing and real look at Thirld World slums must be top priority in understanding the struggle we face in changing the inequalities prevalent today.
Bethanie Kloecker
OBE #5 SLUM
This piece was a bit statistically heavy and it made it hard for me to carry my eyes over to the next word, but Davis was able to give concrete information and had better illustrated the inequalities using statistics that exist throughout the world within urban cores that Engels wasn’t able to do for Manchester. Both do give light to the social ills and health implications to high density urban cores and Engels just does a better job with the ethnography when he discusses the conditions of Manchester. Davis has a macro level view on the issue of urbanization-population increase and Engels has a micro level view when he discusses the issues and implications of urbanization-density.
OBE #5 - Planet of DUKKAH
Growing up I always knew in my mind that there were places in the world where poverty was commonplace. One of my mother’s favorite sayings was that “you do not know what starving is! Go live somewhere where food is scarce so that you will appreciate my good home cooking.” I have always loved my mom’s cooking, but still poverty was only a vague threat in my mind rather than a reality. This is, of course, until I went to downtown Milwaukee in high school to volunteer my time in order to work in a soup kitchen and a free clothing store in the middle of winter to see the “other side” of life. That time that I spent working with the homeless of Milwaukee was mind-opening for me. Since then I have read about and seen pictures of slums all over the world, most of them rising out of once great urban centers and segregated from the rest of the community for a myriad of reasons.
Mike Davis’ Planet of Slums really painted a picture of the part of the world we, as Americans, rarely see. Hard numbers were presented about the world’s largest poverty centers across the globe. Slums were divided into groups like Inner City and Outer City set-ups where various classes of impoverished individuals (i.e. squatters, renters, etc.) settle in patterns. These impoverished individuals represent the bottom of the barrel that is society in general.
So that lead me to my next question: I can see how historically slums came around, but how do nearly a billion people worldwide end up in this low state? My background is in anthropology, so as I see it, poverty did not exist when we were hunter-gatherers as groups were based on family and a history of trust within a group, so everyone worked for survival of the group. Then, when agriculture started, much more of our time was spent cultivating the plants we needed to survive, and poverty only existed as farmers who could not provide for their families, which often meant starvation. After that time, colonialism seemed to have the biggest effect on poverty ever seen on Earth. As boundaries were forced on fluid nations, lifestyles were immediately expected to change. Poverty became a new concept as some refused the changes and some accepted them and used them. And now, today, we have the Planet of Slums that Mike Davis wrote of.
Of course, it is not nearly as simple as that, but in seeing the cause of poverty, can we not take steps to fix those causes and work toward a world where living conditions are acceptable to our healthy survival? I know, it is wishful thinking, but it is at least a start towards a better future. I find it interesting that since I think about life in the Paleolithic and early Neolithic where life styles were so different from what they are today, it almost seems like a better life, where people really were free and “poverty” was not even an issue. Surely we can find a way to blend how life was then with now to work against what we have become.
(obviously Mike Davis made me angry)
Comments
Check this story out. Slums are moving.
I wish I knew how to hyperlink.
Posted by: Tavia | April 11, 2007 10:28 AM
YO, TAV!
Here's how you hyperlink:
whatever you want to put here
Put in the URL/web address in where URL is and keep the parantheses... And insert whatever you want where it says: whatever you want to put here.
There you go! Just like magic! kinda..
Posted by: Kathy | April 11, 2007 07:15 PM
crap. I guess it didn't work. IS there some way I can take off the HTML?
anyways, here it is again if it'll work this time.
blah blah
Posted by: Kathy | April 11, 2007 07:17 PM
okay.. forget it. if you can, just view the source of this page and look for the html code.
Posted by: Kathy | April 11, 2007 07:19 PM
I thought I put the URL in the appropriate box, but it didn't work. Now I erased the e-mail that had the article in it and I'm too lazy to find it again. It was on Alternet.org and it was about how the poor are now on the periphery of US cities much like what we talked about the other day. Donuts and saucers, eh?
Posted by: Tavia | April 12, 2007 02:01 PM