Notes: Frauke Kraus pages 79-82; Planet of Slums pages 7-11 PDF

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Professor Carol Atkinson-Palombo...

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Planet of Slums: ● ●

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Middle classes are being created through transfers of wealth away from the poor There are exceptions: ○ In South Korea, the middle class has grown as a result of the overall expansion of income and consumer demand ○ China is responsible for most of the net global reduction of absolute poverty in the 90s ■ While the nation has amazing new wealth, there is also growing inequity ○ Author sees the glass as half-empty There are currently 1 billion people living in slums globally ○ Defined by substandard housing with insecurity of tenure and the absence of one or more urban services and infrastructure ○ Often exist on the outskirts of a civilization - outcasts who were evicted or peasants coming into the city ○ Dense ■ Infectious disease, fire, etc. travel rapidly = mass destruction Slums as contiguous swaths of settlement are largest in Latin America The slum population constitutes 78.2% of the urban population in less-developed countries Virtually all employment growth is in the informal economy ○ Private sector failed to create new jobs in the formal economy ○ Encourages participation in crime gangs, drug trafficking, etc. - forces struggling people into these fields ○ Exclusion from a viable source of human subsistence forces experimentation for survival Land has become privatized - requires titles, money, etc. ○ People squat in the only free, untitled land that is left (the land with no market value that nobody wants) ■ Steep hillsides, along a polluted river or a dangerous flood plain ○ Explains why so many in poverty are affected by natural disasters Spread of infectious disease ○ Food sources are concentrated in unsanitary conditions ○ Living in close quarters with animals ■ Speeds up transmission, incubation, etc. ○ People eat wild mammals that carry exotic diseases (Ebola, HIV) Development from below is the better pattern ○ Radical redistribution of wealth ○ Creating formal employment...