Abstract
Today, urbanisation is a global process that characterises the rapid development of a majority of emerging and developing countries, giving rise to important social, spatial and economic changes. In such a context, urban issues systematically couple with rural migration phenomena and increasing numbers of poor people living in precarious conditions, engendering urban informality (housing conditions, employment, etc.) and environmental contamination (water, soil, air and waste). The result is growing insecurity and vulnerability among the disadvantaged.
The epitome of such trends is the slum, an extreme urban form of social and residential marginality that has become emblematic of urban growth processes, the clear antithesis of sustainable urban development. As such, slums should be the starting point for reflection on the urban future in emerging and developing countries. Based on different urban case studies, we will use them here to offer a rigorous analysis that incorporates the social, economic, environmental and urban dimensions of sustainable development.
Our aim here is to redefine this multi-faceted issue by focusing on the ways and means to quantify and qualify it. We will begin by identifying the appropriate instruments for assessing the various issues and then prioritizing them to better envisage solutions for addressing the most urgent. In the long-term, this approach aspires to ensure acceptable living conditions for poor urban populations in South cities and for all city-dwellers by extension.
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Notes
- 1.
According to the UN: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision, the urban population could reach 4,231,404 in less developed regions by 2035.
- 2.
- 3.
http://www.citiesalliance.org/ca/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/Anual_Reports/AR2010_FullText.pdf. In medium terms, it represents an individual investment of 450,000 US dollars per project.
- 4.
Calcutta, 428 million US$; Jakarta, 353; Manila, 280.
- 5.
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Bolay, JC., Chenal, J., Pedrazzini, Y. (2016). Slums and Precarity in Developing Countries. In: Bolay, JC., Chenal, J., Pedrazzini, Y. (eds) Learning from the Slums for the Development of Emerging Cities. GeoJournal Library, vol 119. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31794-6_1
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