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Squatter communities and environmental problems
SURVEY: DEVELOPMENT AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Living dangerously
Mar 19th 1998
From The Economist print edition
DEVELOPING countries generally have bigger environmental problems than the rich world, but some places are a lot worse than others. The ungreenest spots of all are squatter settlements. Known as favelas in Brazil, barrios in Venezuela and jhuggie settlements in India, these slums are similar the world over. They are made of flimsy materials such as cardboard and scrap metal, built on hazardous land, poorly served with clean water and sewerage, and piled high with rubbish. They are also huge, and still growing fast. In Asia, according to one estimate, a quarter of the urban population lives in slums.
The way they come to be there is much the same the world over too. Typically, poor migrants arrive from the countryside. Unable to afford legal housing in the city, they squat on land where they will meet least resistance from landowners: steep hillsides, river beds, railway cuttings or sites next to industrial plants. Such places can be dangerous. When a hurricane hit Acapulco, in Mexico, last October, hundreds of shacks were swept away with their inhabitants inside them. In Rio de Janeiro and Caracas, thousands of homes perched on hillsides are washed away by floods and mudslides every year. Many victims of the accident in 1984 at a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in which poison gas killed around 3,000 people, were living in nearby slums.
Once settled, squatter communities usually start lobbying the local government for legal recognition. This is often a long and tortuous process which becomes tangled in corruption. In parts of Mexico, for example, squatters make regular payments to local politicians in return for promises that they will not be evicted, and for moves towards official recognition. Yet until the settlements are on a proper legal footing, they are much less likely than other areas to benefit from municipal services such as electricity, water supply, sewerage and rubbish collection.
People in squatter communities also face a host of other ills, including high levels of crime, drug-taking and malnutrition. But unsanitary conditions are among the main reasons for high death rates. A study of Tondo, a squatter settlement in Manila, found that infant deaths were three times the level in legal settlements in the city.
How can the environmental problems of squatter communities be solved? Arguably municipal governments should be quicker to invest in basic services; but they are strapped for cash, and when they have it, they often waste it. A subtler solution is to speed up the process of legal recognition. If slum dwellers know they may be evicted at any time, they are unlikely to invest much in their homes. Conversely, slum projects in Latin America and Asia suggest that granting secure tenure prompts locals to invest in safer homes and better sanitation. That does not mean squatters should automatically be given ownership of land they occupy; but it does raise hopes that, once a government has settled the issue of land title, some of the worst environmental problems may disappear.
Source: The Economist
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