Describe urban blight - Essay Example

Urban Blight and Shanty town In the advent of industrialization, the concept of urbanization has been popular in most of the developed nations. Amidst the development there exists there exists shanty town and the urban blight. The paper studies the reason for the urban blight and identifies the needs for the people in the shanty town. Reasons for Urban blight: Urban Blight has become a popular phenomenon in most of the developing countries of the world. The concept of urban blight deals with the decay of the parts of the older areas, and the buildings of the large metropolitan cities.

As the age of the cities increases, the old buildings and property lacks maintenance and it leads to the run down of such places. The main reason which can be identified for the phenomenon of urban blight includes the neglect from the respective governments of the particular region. Lack of economic support towards the proper maintenance of the areas can also result in the deterioration of the older buildings and portions of the cities. Effects of urban blight can be of high significance. Urban Blight has the possibility of causing hazard to other buildings and also is threatening for the lives of human beings.

The buildings in the city with poor conditions are very much prone to fire and also have the high probability of collapsing down at any times which may cause considerable damage to the society. (What is urban blight, n. d). Another significant cause of urban blight can refer to the process of urban renewal scheme, where the government focuses on the development of the cities in areas near to the highways. As a result of such projects they fail to concentrate on the older parts of the city which leads to their deterioration.

The increase in tax in The United states property improvement gave rise to the urban Blight in the area. (Soares, et al, p.675, 2011)People in shanty town:Shanty town refers to the settlement of people in slums. The presence of shanty town is mostly observed in the developing and the partially developed nations where unequal distribution of wealth prevails. The people in shanty town lead a treacherous life and their primary needs are often not fulfilled. They lack a proper shelter as their dwellings are made up of scrap materials which may collapse easily under any sort of environmental calamity.

People living in shanty town lack proper sanitation facility and leads an unhygienic lifestyle (Clark, 2003, p.122). The slums in which they live are generally one room and are shared by many people who make it clumsy and suffocating. There is no facility of electricity in the shanty towns and often people bring electricity by illegal means. The most important thing in the context of the shanty town is that most of the shanty towns are build on illegal occupants and the people lacks a permanent settlement.

In some of the shanty towns there also exists unavailability of proper drinking facilities. In the advent of industrialization people living in shanty town lacks various facilities and their predominant needs are proper sanitation, proper drinking water and their need for a permanent settlement. The above discussion shows that though the modern city have become civilized and efforts are made for their all round development but still there exists some problems in the maintenance of the old buildings and the requirements of the people living in shanty towns are unmet which leads to their enormous difficulty.

ReferencesClark, D, (2003), Urban world/global city, London: Routledge.Soares, C, D, et al, (2011), Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation, Oxford: Oxford University Press What is urban blight, (n. d), wisegeek, retrieved on 3rd December, 2011 from: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-urban-blight.htm