# percentage of Slums in world wide cities !?



## Klas (May 16, 2005)

what is the percentage of Slums of cities like Mexico city , Nairobi , lagos sao paulo ....... can anybody help with facts !


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## VanSeaPor (Mar 12, 2005)

Probbaly around 35% to 60%. Western cities would only have less than 5%.


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

I don't have any numbers, but I think that "slum" should be defined? One man's slum is another man's housing.


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

Wikipedia-definition of a "slum" 

IMO a slum is a rundown area made of shacks and abandoned (in sense of not maintained) buildings with no public services such as schools, health care, sewer pipes and garbage collection were the poorest of the poor live.


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## Nick (Sep 13, 2002)

DiggerD21 said:


> Wikipedia-definition of a "slum"
> 
> IMO a slum is a rundown area made of shacks and abandoned (in sense of not maintained) buildings with no public services such as schools, health care, sewer pipes and garbage collection were the poorest of the poor live.


Agreed.That is a clear cut definition of a slum.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

12% in Rio de Janeiro
7% in São Paulo

Those are figures for the 2 major Brazilian cities.

I think Salvador and Recife must have more than that.


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## Sniper (Jan 28, 2003)

VanSeaPor said:


> Probbaly around 35% to 60%. Western cities would only have less than 5%.


I live in a western country (but that's not the question)
in Porto Alegre (4th biggest city in Brazil) 7%


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## VanSeaPor (Mar 12, 2005)

Sniper said:


> I live in a western country (but that's not the question)
> in Porto Alegre (4th biggest city in Brazil) 7%


Hmmm, it appears I was way off. I thought the slum problem was very bad.


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

@Boom: Only 12% of Rio lives in a slum? What about the millions that live in Favelas in the north of Rio? If those aren't slums it is solely on a technicality.


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## Motul (Nov 8, 2003)

On the technicallity that they do in fact have running water and other services, perhaps? Which means that other than living in small ugly houses, they do have basic commodities...


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## JustHorace (Dec 17, 2005)

Manila has lots of slums. Locally, we call them squatters. 
But recently, much of the metropolis has undergone redevelopment.

The photo below is near the Fort Bonifacio Global City development project. So maybe in the near future, these slums are history.

And slums today in the Metro aren't as much as it was 10 years ago.

The percentage of the population living below poverty went down to 24.7% from 38% in 2000. So, the 40% figure BBC and CNN always show is not true.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Hong Kong had it's slums especially during the 70s. The government has managed to solve this problem through public housing.

There are still a few slums in the city most of them in the hillsides.

*Hong Kong slums (circa 1970s)*


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## datilguy (Jan 18, 2006)

Oi isnt Rocinha the largest slum in metro Rio?.....I thought it had around 480,000 people. But I'm not sure if thats a favela in Rio proper...or not.


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

If a city or country can eliminate a "slum" by just giving the area some running water that leads to common wells and a few basic services, which I have trouble imagining, then the elimination of the world's slums is only a technical change.

As the US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said about pornography versus art: "I can't define it but I know it when I see it." I'd say the same about a slum. And those favelas around Rio and the similar housing all over the world are definitely slums. They may each have a few different meager services, but they are still slums.

In my opinion, if you do not have a title of ownership for the land you live on and neither do those around you, then you live in a slum.


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## tkr (Apr 3, 2005)

Nick in Atlanta said:


> @Boom: Only 12% of Rio lives in a slum? What about the millions that live in Favelas in the north of Rio? If those aren't slums it is solely on a technicality.


You guys only know Rio because it's a famous city. But it's not THAT bad, like 50% living in slums. It's really something around 12%. Considering Rio has 11 million people (metro), you've got about 920,000 people living in slums. You find that a small number? I don't. By the way, the city in Brazil with most slums is Salvador, in the northeast.




datilguy said:


> Oi isnt Rocinha the largest slum in metro Rio?.....I thought it had around 480,000 people. But I'm not sure if thats a favela in Rio proper...or not.


Ofcourse it's a slum. And the correct number is around 150,000 people, not 480,000.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

shosho said:


> You guys only know Rio because it's a famous city. But it's not THAT bad, like 50% living in slums. It's really something around 12%. Considering Rio has 11 million people (metro), you've got about 920,000 people living in slums. You find that a small number? I don't. By the way, the city in Brazil with most slums is Salvador, in the northeast.
> 
> 
> Ofcourse it's a slum. And the correct number is around 150,000 people, not 480,000.


Just curious, Brasilia and Curitiba are some of the country's major cities with the least slums?


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

Nick in Atlanta said:


> In my opinion, if you do not have a title of ownership for the land you live on and neither do those around you, then you live in a slum.


How do you define this title of ownership exactly? I live in an area where most people have rented their flats but don't own them (which is really common in Germany).


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## grachtengordeldier (Mar 7, 2006)

Very good question as normally we only see shiny scycrapers here on SSC and never think of "normal" people living in these cities. Of course it's not all poverty and negative things (i don;t know the english word for ellende), but for Argentina, Brasil, Fillipines, Indonesia...we all know that may many people have hardly access to medical health, good food etc. 
Some posts I read here are quite naive. If some source says...ach well it's not that bad, only 5 %, they belive it immediately. From whom come these sources? 
As I said, I don't know the answer, but reality is sometimes not as bright as the shiny new highrises shown on the pictures. Even in the Netherlands or Belgium I could show you less nice neighbourhoods.


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Nick in Atlanta said:


> In my opinion, if you do not have a title of ownership for the land you live on and neither do those around you, then you live in a slum.


Hmm.. then I guess around 350.000 people live in slum in Copenhagen :lol:


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## grachtengordeldier (Mar 7, 2006)

This would count for 500.000 people in Amsterdam. It's very common in the Netherlands (as I think for many European countries) that people rent instead of owning their house. It's called social housing (sociale woningbouw), owned by more or less social democratic housing companies. I am one of those people living in a rented house owned by a housing company with a moderate rent. And still most of those houses are in a very good state. This is an achievement of social (social democrate/ socialist however you want to call it) politics. In The NL this exitst sinds 1902. We should be proud of it.
But that's not wat Nick in Antlanta meant I think...


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## datilguy (Jan 18, 2006)

@shosho-

Thanks for the correction on the population.  Also, I know its a slum, but my question was about whether or not Rocinha is in Rio proper, or not.


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## Nick in Atlanta (Nov 5, 2003)

Yes, we too have many people living in rental properties here in the US. But, if you are paying rent to live somewhere, your landlord has the title for the property and is leasing it to you in return for rent. This would not fit in my definition of a slum. 

An area is a slum if the residents do not have title to the property or they are not paying rent to the person who has title to the property.

Most of the slums that I have seen in person, like the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, have some resources like running water and other services, but no one there pays rent to a title holder or is a title holder of the land that they live on.

I'm not trying to criticize people who are too poor to move out of a "slum", I'm only saying that if the government provides some minimal services to a populated area that doesn't mean it is not a slum. It would be too easy to make slums and the people who live in them disappear by just providing a few minimal services.


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## tkr (Apr 3, 2005)

datilguy said:


> @shosho-
> 
> Thanks for the correction on the population.  Also, I know its a slum, but my question was about whether or not Rocinha is in Rio proper, or not.


Ah!  Sorry man, I think I read too fast what you said.. but yes, it's in Rio, surely.


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## tkr (Apr 3, 2005)

WANCH said:


> Just curious, Brasilia and Curitiba are some of the country's major cities with the least slums?


Out of the 14 brazilian cities with more than 1 million people, Goiânia, Brasília, Curitiba and Porto Alegre are the ones with less slums. My city, Goiânia, is the one with the least number.


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## vincebjs (Sep 11, 2002)

Western countries including the U.S. probably have less than 1% slums, if we are defining slums by having no access to running water and sanitation. I am pretty sure that even the worse poverty-stricken areas of Camden, NJ and East St. Louis, IL are not "slums" in that, although people get murdered everyday and ppl pay 90% of their income day-old groceries and rent for their rat-infested water-damaged apartment, they still have clean running water, garbage disposal, and free public education, unlike the slums of Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

I think that if a city has more than 5% slums, then it cannot be considered an economically developed city. If you have more than 20%, then no matter how many mansions you have in the hills, your city is 3rd world.


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## datilguy (Jan 18, 2006)

Most of the Cape Flats have new, title-held houses.


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## gaucho (Apr 15, 2003)

I think that if a city has more than 5% slums, then it cannot be considered an economically developed city. If you have more than 20%, then no matter how many mansions you have in the hills, your city is 3rd world.
__________________

Like...did you invented this by yourself...? Ive never heard about this...


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## gaucho (Apr 15, 2003)

But I believe Rio has more than 12% living in the slums, but its not like most foreings believe as well, the city is not a big slum surrounding some posh areas.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

I would agree that the definition being used here is misleading; I think
an area can have running water and still be a slum. To me, if there are no
services available it is not only a slum, but a "shanty town". The figures given for some of the world cities seem optimistically low based on this definition. 
I will be in Sao Paolo in a few days and will report back!


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

In Nairobi, about half the population live in slums.

The city population is around 3 million.
Kibera Slum houses 1 million, and the other slums may house another 500,000.

Slums, however probably account for less than 10% of Nairobi's land area.

Most of Nairobi looks like this (from above):











Kibera from the air:











Nairobi skyline from the West:


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## redstone (Nov 15, 2003)

In some cities, there are actually rural villages surrounded by new development. They are far from slums. Some even own cars.

One example is Kuala Lumpur.


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## Spearman (Aug 29, 2005)

^^  Yes, sadly Nairobi has much poverty. You don't see it when you're in the centre, but you see it driving out of town. I spoke with a charity worker who said refugees from sorounding war-torn countries contribute to making crime so bad; even the police will only enter Kibera heavily armed and in convoys....


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

^^AndI thought my city has the worst slums!


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

OtAkAw said:


> ^^AndI thought my city has the worst slums!


 What city would thay be?

Hogwartsville?


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