What is a shantytown
noun
1.
a section, as of a city or town, characterized by shanties and crudely built houses.
2.
a whole town or city that is chiefly made up of shantylike houses.
shanty (n ) = crudely built hut, cabin or houses
The old shanty on a lonely road
shantytowns:
In Haity
In Soweto township
Rochina-favela -closeup
The United Nations estimates that over one billion people - that’s one third of the world’s urban population - live in shantytowns or slums. And by 2030, it’ll have doubled.Shantytowns can be found in many poor or developing countriesThey’re settlements built on land at the outskirts of cities, or within cities on poor land the developers don’t want.he houses, or shacks, are often made from discarded materials such as wood, corrugated iron, plastic and cloth.
In the shantytowns there are often no street signs, no running water, no electricity and no emergency or medical services.It’s believed that, every day, around 200,000 people around the world move from the countryside to cities.They’re motivated by two opposing factors, the ‘push’’ and the ‘pull’.They’re ‘pushed’’ to leave their rural homes and look for work in the cities due to harsh weather conditions, poor crops and poverty.And the cities ‘pull’’ them in due to a perceived abundance of housing, employment, food and education.
In many cases, it’s just swapping rural poverty for urban poverty.Shantytowns can be a dangerous place to live.Drugs, murder and theft are endemic and the shacks burn down regularly in huge shantytown fires, and the lack of clean water and medical care leaves the people vulnerable to disease.Furthermore, during a natural disaster like an earthquake or a cyclone, it’s the shantytowns that collapse first.However, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Governments are beginning to realize that shantytowns are here to stay and can, in fact, with the right help, contribute a lot to today’s modern urban society.For example, twenty per cent of India’s gross GDP comes from the city of Mumbai, where over six million people - or half the city’s total population - live in slums.
In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some shantytowns, or favelas, as they’re called, are beginning to be regenerated both by the government and by local residents.People are upgrading their shacks from wood and plastic to brick and mortar, and in return the government are widening the roads, so ambulances and fire trucks can get in, building pipelines to provide clean running water, and supplying electricity.
These are both urban planning and humanitarian solutions to the escalating problem of shantytowns.
In Sao Paulo alone, around twenty per cent of the population live in the favelas.The government can’t just evict everyone, can they?Instead, why not make the slums safe, clean, and encourage the local people to contribute to the economy.That way, everybody wins, and the urban poor of the future are given a chance.
