Planet of Slums by Mike Davis - Essay Example

Saad Alsulaiti GEO106 Michael Castellon Front Range community college Introduction Mike Davis is a historian, political activist and an American writer, who is concerned with the nature of the urban landscape and effects of industrialization on societies. Mike is the author of the book, Planet of Slums. The author advocates a Marxist ideology as an alternative and is a renowned critic of neoliberal policies. The special issue on global slums of Mute magazine inspired the author to write the Planet of Slums. The author provides analysis of the social, environmental and economic state of cities situated in the global South and creates evidence in the facility of ardent despairing on global slums. The purpose of the report is to provide detailed analysis on reflection of the author on global slums and its ecological, economic, political and social consequences of urban poverty and the roots of slums in the post-modern time. Discussion The ambitious book of Mike Davies portrays a massive humanity exiled from the official economy of world and warehoused in shantytowns.The author discovers the future of an explosively unbalanced and radically incapable urban world. The rise of informal urban proletariat is also argued by Mike Davis. The author provides a global discussion about different aspects of slums. He also discuss about the diversity and necessity of housing across diverse lives of people. A number of different property arrangement and tenure in slums are also discussed in the book. The key objective of the book is to provide knowledge to readers about the transformation and growth of slums across the world. The major upheavals industrialization and imperialism are echoed by the contemporary third world urban poor. The core of the book resembled the painful moments due to industrialization in terms of conditions of living. The main argument presented by author is about negative aspects and roots of global slums. At start, the rising mega slums are being neglected by Davis from core program of political considerations. But, it can be realized from latter part of the book that author tries to provide vivid description of the cause of urban poverty on global scale. The author is looking in case of historical context and global scale rather than existing conditions and local governments (Davis 38). The influential book of Mike Davis is on the enormous growth of settlements all over the world. The overall purpose of the book is to provide a statement to the people that they are a planet of slums.The values of Davis is to provide statistical data and effective detailed analyzed work which can help readers to realize the number of people live in starving, poverty and oppressed. Davis argues that “Gaza – considered by some to be the world’s largest slum – is essentially an urbanized agglomeration of refugee camps (750,000 refugees) with two thirds of the population subsisting on less than $2 per day” (48). The author is not interested to provide reformist approach to focus on activist groups of people. According to the author, the reason behind the failure of most reforms is mainly due to treating symptoms rather than the source and cause of failure. The cause of failure of most reforms can be due to political and economic inequality. The author is more biased on exposing the political, social and environmental injustice rather than neglecting to focus on activist groups among the working and poor class of people. He starts with a discussion that urban population can be outnumbered by rural population. Davis wants to provide effective knowledge to readers about the negative aspects of mass production of slums, globalization, rapid urbanization and neo-liberalism. Methodology Methodology is also known as research method, which describes the whole process of analysis, interpretation sand data collection. The author provides a vivid description and charts on the global urbanization over the following 30 years. Davis also points out that rest of the urban growth will be without growth or industrialization. The author utilizes primary sources where delivers raw information and a windshield survey of cities that are located in the South. This process is data collection is gathered from a stranger in the North. Davis piles up information. Davis also incorporates secondary sources of information, including World Development Report 1995, Urban Indicators Database UN-HABITAT. The information of percentage of slim-dwellers is gathered from UN-HABITAT. The United Nations Human Settlements Program is initiated to focus for future development of cities. The population of third world megacities is gathered from urban Indicators Database. The book demonstrates the negative and common direction of prospect of urban in the emerging world. Urbanization without the industrialization is one of the mysterious trends which are discussed by author. The cause of this trend is solely due to the imbalances bought by number of multilateral organization. The author also notes that the urban migration is more regarded as the heritage of a worldwide political conjuncture despite the drawback of new jobs and technical progress. Despite describing several insights on global slums and urbanization, the author fails to emphasize on activist groups. The author has also been criticized by several critics on overly apocalyptic and anti-urban. The author is respectful of campaign of slum dwellers regarding the cause of political change. But most of the critical efforts are done by slum dwellers, NGOs and governments. Style Mike Davis is an American writer who is best known for native surveys in Southern California. Davis is phenomenal and flamboyant writer but lacks the sense of optimism that people living in slums can bring. The extent of slums described in the book is extremely poor. Readers have to consume severe sadness and negativity wrapped in the book. The rough and blunt style of writing provides a clear message to readers about what is going wrong. The style of writing is much more influential to grab the attention of readers rather than providing several changing methods to eradicate the people who are living in barracks and improving slums. The author provides detailed analysis on the condition of third-world cities urban slums. Davis predicts the usual suspects of the cause in every 10 pages. The World Bank and IMF are the usual suspects of the author. According to him, “Part of the blame must be assigned to the IMF which, in its role as the Third World’s financial watchdog, everywhere advocates regressive user fees and charges for public services but never proposes counterpart efforts to tax wealth, conspicuous consumption, or real estate” (68). In the Planet of Slums, Davis employs a concise staccato writing style, incorporating facts that are hard to deny. The readers can only believe his every line of black print, which he ingeniously furnishes with hard facts about global slums that are hard to swallow. The strong position, points and effective writing skills enables readers to focus on the statistics and number provided by the author. The minor flaw in the book does not shake the argument provided by the author in assistance through groups such as IMF and USAID. Personal evaluation The Book Planet of Slums is recommended for most of the curious folk and truth seekers to gain awareness on the topic. From personal point of view, the author put devotion and thought to each and every page to point the issue of urban migration and global poverty and sums up everything that are written regarding the global slums. The enchanting and powerful words used in the book can highlight the innovation and hope that slums can implement for the betterment of the society and declination of global poverty. I believe that the disregard shown by Mike Davis on implementation of traditional methods shows the level of instability and eventually it cannot help to provide an effective solution to solve the root cause of the problem. Conclusion The author provides detailed and effective analysis on the issue of urban poverty and root cause of slums, which justifies the approach and solidify the points mentioned in the book. Mike Davis provided piles of evidence to prove the economic, social, and political consequences of slums. The prime objective e of the book is to provide further warnings to the societies and cities and moreover draw attentions towards the report of UN. The book also provides some valuable facts about global slums and urban migration. Work Cited Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. New York: Verso, 2007. Print. Read More