Ghettos and slums

Photos of Lavantille Trinidad and Tobago an area know for its narrow streets and houses stocked on top of each other heading down the mountain side, high crime and violence and its high level of people living in poverty. As a non national student that was one of the first place i was told about when i arrived in Trinidad and Tobago and was firmly warned not to go into the area. After being here for almost two years i made some friends who are from the area and they don't seem so bad matter of fact they seemed nothing like the people that where described to me.

More than one billion people nowadays live as slum-dwellers in informal settlements characterized by vulnerability and poverty. Rural-to-urban migration, together with the natural population growth of cities, constitutes an urbanization trend that has since accelerated its pace. The 'normal' situation in slums can, in several ways, be classified as a 'crisis', and violence levels often contribute to situations akin to 'armed conflict'. Cities are sites of great progress and prosperity in many areas, bringing wealth and opportunities to many of their citizens. However, they are also home to less advantaged groups, whose lives are characterized by poverty and a near absence of opportunity for improvement.

Their vulnerability is generally greater, as they are more exposed to and affected by natural disasters and forms of urban violence than the more affluent sections of the cities. Moreover, these vulnerabilities are chronic and increasingly severe. The opportunities and progress that cities provide act as a magnet for many who aspire to reap the benefits. Millions of people are drawn by the prospect of a better life, in which they can share in the opportunities that the city offers.

Economic prospects are the most important factor underlying urban influx. In many cases the rural-to-urban flow is stimulated by the dire situation in rural areas, where poverty and lock of progress drive people out of their habitat. As it is often the younger people who look for new opportunities, these push-and-pull trends in many cases create a vicious circle that leads to even greater rural deprivation. At the same time many city dwellers, in their struggle to seize urban opportunities, become and remain trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and vulnerability, and their deprivation can in fact be worse than in rural areas.

Within most cities, the image of progression is offset by the presence of growth of areas with a high concentration of poverty and destitution.  The rural-to-urban migration is largely made up of people with low education and limited financial means. They therefore usually have no other option than to live in informal settlements, characterized by a lack of basic infrastructure and absence of services.  These areas are the locus for concentrated poverty and corresponding vulnerability and their inhabitants are exposed to multiple hazards and violence. A generally applied label is 'slum', particularly when referring to the destitute face of these areas.  The presence and rapid growth of slums underlines that they cannot be considered an unfortunate by-product of urbanization that will disappear as cities develop and the incomes of their inhabitants improve. Instead, it needs to be addressed as a development issue.

The United Nations defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following conditions: durable housing, sufficient living area, access to improved water and to sanitation, and secure tenure. The classification of an urban flood can vary widely: a few inches of water may be considered a nuisance in a developing country (even though it may have an impact on socio-economic activities) but a disaster in a developed country – hence the notion of ‘hazardous area’ has multiple interpretations. Yet it is clear that slum-dwellers make up the poorer parts of cities, where their vulnerabilities and capacities are exposed to disaster risk both more frequently and to a greater degree of intensity, and where they experience more violence and insecurity than in the cities’ more affluent parts.
The slum areas also perform important functions for cities and, moreover, for the economic progress and social stability of countries. They provide accommodation for low-cost labor – economic development and slum growth are mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, the make-up of slums, often reflecting the ethnic, religious, and/or cultural background of their inhabitants, provides a network that can in normal circumstances, as well as in times of crisis, absorb migrant influx and mass movements of displaced people, for whom the city functions as a safe haven. It is argued, however, that rather than poverty breeding violence, violence promotes poverty by driving out capital and hampering investment and economic growth. Inequality, as perceived in the poorer communities, is cited as a more important underlying cause than poverty for the crime and violence that people experience. This inequality is manifest in unequal access to education, health care, and employment opportunities and in the limited or absent infrastructure compared to other, more affluent, parts of the city. However, although violence is not an exclusive feature of cities, the scale and severity are usually greater in urban areas. Much violence (be it, for example, intra-family, street robbery, or territorial-based gang wars) results in homicide, and data suggest that this correlates among other things with rapid rates of urbanization.

In many cities, urban crime is predominantly committed by young men – if not poverty driven, their involvement in crime is certainly a means of obtaining status and prestige.
Since the age brackets for young people (0-19 years) are disproportionately large in slum areas compared to non-slum areas, the many young slum-dwellers make ideal recruits for street gangs.
In this respect, media coverage of crime, particularly by the 'tabloids' and sensational press, reinforces distrust and contributes to increased fear and a feeling of insecurity among the general public Cultural and social values also play a role in the prevalence of violence: social networks can be powerful informal control mechanisms, with their normative structures tempering the perception of inequality.

The interwoven-ness of poverty, marginalization, and violence in the poor and neglected sections of the city fosters urban segregation ('fractured cities') and contributes to the emergence of 'no-go' areas, characterized by an 'unrule of law'. In contested areas where police and special police forces try to restore law and order, violence may involve political assassinations and can in fact turn into guerrilla and paramilitary conflict, in particular as a spill-over of economic and institutional crime when politicians resort to violence to pursue economic gains.

The security of people in slums is affected by violence as well as disaster risk, both which hamper socio-economic development and consequently obstruct people's ability to strengthen their resilience.
People need access to five vital resources for sustainable living. These resources, usually termed 'capital', together constitute their livelihood. 'Human capital' can be labor, skills, or knowledge; 'natural capital' consists of land, water, forests, and so forth; 'physical capital' can be food stocks, livestock, equipment, and the like; 'financial capital' is money (savings, loans, credit); and finally 'social capital' concerns the quality of relations between people (help from neighbors, religious organizations, NGOs, political parties, etc on the basis of common rules, norms and sanctions).