Slums-The Untold Tale - Term Paper Example

Number] Slums-The Untold Tale Slums are areas where people belonging to lower social backgrounds reside. Slums are usually formed as a result of urban settlement on a small amount of land. Slums are areas where people residing hardly make a proper living. Moreover, people in slums stand in queue to attain fresh water even for the sake of few droplets to quench their thirst. A never ending crowd of people appear in slum areas due to people migrating from rural areas to urban areas in quest of fate and to earn a healthy living (Smith 143). History of Slums- Slum Areas The first slum area to be ever created was at New York City by the name of Five Points during the era of 1825. Although slums had became common by the end of 20th century and dominated a major part of United states Of America and European society ,evolution of slums had taken place in New York City. History says that Five Points slum area was initially a lake namely Collect. Soon slaughtered waist and garbage started to dispose off at the location of the lake Collect. As the hot summer poured in during the ages of 1800’s, the lake with all sorts of garbage had gone dry with no sign of sanitation taken into account. That was the time when the first slum namely Five Points slum started to originate on that location. People from different nationalities who thought New York City as the key to opportunities and had migrated to the city, had to accommodate at the Five Points slum (Moreno 32). In Europe, slums had gone common by the ages of 1920’s during the Victorian period. Charles Dickens, one of the greatest novelist and realistic writer, defined slum as low and an area of bad housing system. According to a census held in 1920, there were 25,000 slums present only in America (Rogers 33). How Does Slums Effect Economic Development of A Country? With the increasing number of slums in any country, economy is deeply affected. At one hand, many political powers seek measures to demolish or upgrade slums for their political interest. These political powers encourage the migration of individuals and families from rural areas to urban areas in order to secure their voting blocks. On the other hand, slums cover major of the population in many countries. In order to strengthen a nation economically, slums need sincere attention. The residents of the slums should be offered rights just like any other citizen. Their life styles and lives should be modified not for personal means. Economy can never prosper when slums and people in slums exist. The influential business tycoons also seek to conquer this small urban settlement area for their personal means and not for the people. Poverty is the key factor for people who live in slums. In order to make a nation progress in regards of economy, people in slums should be offered adequate amount of opportunities just like any other individual (Patel and Thomas 741). Main Issues of People in Slums It came into view through latest study in various areas that the number of slums present has increased from the previous years and the probability of the slum areas to increase in the upcoming years is most likely possible. Since poverty is one of the main reasons of why people opt to live in slum, there are some issues involved as well that the residents of slum undergo. People living in slums usually go through high rates of diseases. The absence of healthy environment and lack of proper sanitary techniques, gives rise to a lot of diseases (Beinart & Dubow 52). Violence is said to be the key issue found among the people in slum areas either males or females. Males living in slums face the armed violence which is not only provided by the defense industry but also includes threats from criminal personnel. The females on the other hand face domestic violence by the males commonly which takes place as a result of these violations on the males. Males living in such an environment consider themselves superior due to male dominant society, the females on the contrary work day in and day out in order to feed the children while the males lay down idly imposing their superiority and using their sole role in the family to let the women undergo reproduction. Slums are over populated areas where people are not given equal rights as normal citizens. It is common for the people and especially for the children in slums to face mal nutrition.Non availability of basic needs such as fresh water for drinking and sanitation, food to eat and shelter to live safely is the main issue that occurs as a result of increasing number of children within slums ,due to no awareness of birth control. The male of a family starts seeking new ways to feed these children which becomes almost impossible in their limited wages. Due to this factor, they stoop themselves so low that they are willing to do a crime for their family and feed them by hook or by crook. This is the root cause of criminal activities that takes place in our society (Bolay 284). Benefits of Slums to a Common Man/Community: The people increase in slums day by day due to migration of individuals from rural to urban areas. Since, rural opportunities are limited, migration takes place. People might think that there are almost nil benefits to a common man due to people living in slums but people in slums contribute a lot to save the planet we live in, Planet Earth, while many are busy destroying it. It is because of people in slums that a common man can travel without feeling much degraded, this involves bus drivers, rickshaw drivers. It is because of people in slums that a common man or a community can construct any monument with in any architecture without much hard work, this involves masons labors, carpenters, plumbers and etc. It is because of people living in slums that lower class people or even people having middle class social backgrounds can ejoys variety of foods through different tuck shops. Although the government is striving to improve the facilities of people living in slums, the benefits they provide a community or common man cannot be ignored. Impact on Country’s Outlook through Slum These countries mainly involve Third World countries or under developed countries like India, Pakistan and Africa. Ethiopia and Uganda are regarded as least facilitated countries as a result of high number of slums present. Uganda is said to be the most dangerous city when it comes to criminal activities according to census that took place in 2002.Slums take place as a result of poverty that gives rise to criminal activities (Patel and Thomas 741). Policies to Help Rehabilitate Slums Every government that settles in tries to introduce new policies to help the people living in slums. The conclusion has been the same either to resettle the lives of people living in slums or either to upgrade the lives of people living in slums. Some nations opt to upgrade the lives of people in slums where the manpower is facilitated with benefits as a common citizen. In contrast, some government officials seek manipulative ways sabotage the people living in slums to such a level that they have no other option other than resettle. It is often promised by the government that after resettling, residents of slums would be offered with good lifestyle but later these promises turn out to be fake and with the mere objective to use that piece of land of slum in something productive and in their personal interest. Conclusion Manpower is the key objective for any nation to prosper. The permanent impact in the lives of the people can be made when government does not look up slums as some object and consider it as a part of society that needs to be taken care of. It could be productive for the government if they utilize their resources on the promises they had promised in order to assure their vote bank. It’s a win situation for the political powers if they do not degrade the children of slums and offer them education. It is not known may be a genius can originate from slum. Works Cited Beinart, W., & Dubow, S. (Eds.). Segregation and apartheid in twentieth century South Africa. London: Routledge, 2013. Print. Bolay, Jean-Claude. "Slums and urban development: questions on society and globalisation". The European Journal of Development Research 18.2 (2006) 284–298. Print. Moreno, Eduardo López. Slums of the World: The Face of Urban Poverty in the New Millennium? London: UN-HABITAT, 2003. Print. Patel, Ronak B. and Thomas F. Burke. "Urbanization—an emerging humanitarian disaster". New England Journal of Medicine 361 (2007) 741–743. Print. Rogers, D. Can infrastructure prevent a planet of slums? Construction Research and Innovation, 4.2 (2013) 30-33. Print. Smith, Keith. Environmental hazards: assessing risk and reducing disaster. London: Routledge, 2013. Print. Read More