Problems of urban growth in LEDCs

Relentless population growth is leading to a wide range of urban problems which are
giving no breathing opportunities to governments and city authorities to catch up.
They are struggling to provide an adequate supply of essential services such as
piped water, sewerage, electricity, health and education for existing city
inhabitants without providing more for the constant flow of new arrivals. More
would be migrants are queuing up in the countryside3, ready to move in, underterred
by the great economic and social problems faced by those who have already moved
there,

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

Some problems such as traffic congestion, are faced by all big cities irrespective of
whether they are located in MEDCs or LEDCs. However if anything, traffic
congestion is more acute in LEDCs despite lower rates of car ownership.

In Asian cities motorised transport must compete for space with pedestrians,
rickshaws, scooters, donkeys and other animals.

Congested streets are clogged all day with taxis, buses, lorries and cars, many of
them old with inefficient exhaust systems, and this leads to high levels of air
pollution and danger to health, especially in the form of asthma and bronchitis.

Some of the cities are notorious. Mexico City is one; it is sited in a mountain basin
where pollutants are easily trapped.

Beijing is another; so furious has been the growth of cars (running on low grade
petrol and industries burning low grade coal that smog reduces visibility to a few
hundred metres at times and gives a putrid smell to the air. (Remember the
concerns Paula Radcliffe had for the Olympic Marathon with the smog?).

Doctors are blaming dangerous levels of smog for rises in the cases of bronchitis,
tuberculosis and lung cancer.

Rivers and seas are used as dustbins for human wastes , destroying all traces of
plant and fish life.

The sprawl of shanty towns and industries on the city edges destroys agricultural
land, woodland and natural habitats.
Underground water supplies are being used up at an alarming rate; Mexico City has
sunk over 7 metres during the last century as the aquifer below it has been emptied
of water.

The human problems are so great that there is little time or money to devote to
environmental problems.

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Unemployment and poverty are big problems.

For the newly arrived migrant, the main economic problem is finding work; with few
jobs available in the formal sector for non-skilled and illiterate rural people, most
are forced to look for work in the informal sector, in petty roles such as street
sellers, shoe shiners, human carriers, waste collectors and domestic servants.

Survival in the city is tough for all newcomers. Most shanty-town dwellers are
underemployed, their work taking up few hours in the week and earning very little. A
few may find jobs in the industrial zones or in the city centre, but travelling there
can be expensive.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE GROWTH OF SHANTY TOWNS

Social problems are mainly to do with housing and the effect on health and family
life for those living in squatter and shanty settlements.

Most big cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America are surrounded by spontaneous and
makeshift shanty towns, and it is common 50% or more of the city’s population to
live in them. They are known by different names in different parts of the world;
– Favelas in Brazil,
– Bidonvilles in North Africa
– Bustees in Kolkata (Calcutta)

The shanties are sited on any spare land the migrants can find. This includes steep
slopes (as in Rio de Janeiro and Lima), swamps and rubbish tips. The areas used are
often avoided by others because they are prone to landslides, flooding or industrial
pollution.

The shanty towns are illegal settlements and the people are squatters.
The shacks and shelters are homemade, built from anything the people can find,
including bits of wood, sheets or corrugated iron, cardboard, polythene and five-
gallon oil drums. They are real fire hazards. Typically, there are usually only one or
two rooms where the family eats, sleeps and lives. Most shacks lack basic amenities
such as electricity, gas, drainage, running water and toilets.

In the bustees of Calcutta one water tap and one toilet may be shared among 30
people.

Sewerage often runs down the streets and pollutes the water supply, leading to
water borne diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera. Diseases spread
quickly because of the high density of housing.

There is often on refuse collection, and any spare space becomes filled with
rubbish, another breeding ground for disease.

Infant mortality rates are high because babies are the most vulnerable to disease.
Healthcare is often too expensive and too far away. Many families, and especially
the children, suffer from malnutrition.

Local shops and stalls, often fly ridden and dirty, sell a limited range of poor quality
foods that lack the proteins, vitamins and calories needed for a healthy diet.

The stress of living in shanty towns leads to frequent breakdown of marriages and
increases in crime, mainly theft and robbery. In some cities there are large numbers
of ‘street children’, who have either run away or been abandoned by family break up.

The underlying cause of all the social factors is economic- lack of income and
poverty.

One of the first things that people who manage to find regular work and earn a
reasonable wage do is build a better home. Money is needed to send children to
secondary school to acquire skills and qualifications that are essential for them to
gain higher-paid work to lift them out if the poverty trap.

In the meantime, poor shanty dwellers continue to have more and more children,
partly out of ignorance but partly in the hope that at least one of the family will get
a job, either in the home city or overseas, that will allow the whole family to move
out of the slum into a residential neighbourhood.
Questions

Name and describe 2 environmental problems in LEDC cities? (use named example)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

What are 2 economic problems in LEDC cities?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

What type of jobs do illiterate people do?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

What are the names of shanties in 3 cities?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Describe a shack

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
What social problems can be caused by the growth of shanty towns? In your answer
consider flooding, industrial pollution, amenities, sewerage, health, stresses

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

What do people who manage to find work do?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Find pictures of Shanty towns and watch Channel 4 on demand for Kevin McCloud
and slumming it. Secret slum millionaire and dispatches and Street children. Make
notes for next week and further discussions of what you saw.