Is 'slum' a problem for a city's infrastructure? If yes then why doesn't it solve by simply giving apartment quarters and uplifting the face of a slums? Are we asking the right questions?

Muhammad Zeeshan Zaheer

Matrikel-Nr: 4057739

The way cities are expanding and consuming the resources we should pause and rethink the direction we choose to go forward. As Slums are a part of the urban fabric, they are in a high contrast economically socially. At numerous level it is seen as a failure of the city. In this article I want to discuss some underlying solutions that I believe can bring out these Slums (Katchi Abadi's) as we have known them to another level where they actively become members of a growing city. But first we have to understand the context of discussion where I am doing my study, also the city plays an important role as in how it thinks grows and responds. As I would like to call it “ Living cities”.

“Slums are the problem of failed policies, governance, corruption in appropriated regulations, dysfunctional land markets, unresponsive financial system and fundamental lack of political will.” Arif Hasan (An urban architect, activist social researcher and writer)

In this article I would be discussing few approaches that can be adapted to improve the conditions of slums while considering the expansion of cities in third world countries such as the one I grew up in known as “Lahore”; capital of Punjab province . It is a culturally rich city and cultural capital of Pakistan. By meeting the Pakistani people one can tell if they are from Lahore because of their carefree,witty and by their reckless nature towards abiding by road traffic laws. These people are obese and even after knowing their obesity problem, wouldn't care much about diet because as they proudly say ' One who hasn't seen Lahore, isn't born yet '. Ignoring the fact that there s limit to which Lahore can take, over population and pollution are badly affection the city as it was once know “ City of Gardens”

With a rich history dating back over a millennium, Lahore is a main cultural centre of Punjab and Pakistan. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains an economic, political, transportation, entertainment, and educational hub. It is referred to as the "Mughal City of Gardens" due to the historic presence of gardens in and around the city dating back to the Mughal period.

Lahore is referred to as the cultural heart of Pakistan as it hosts most of the arts, cuisine, festivals, film-making, music, gardening and intelligentsia of the country. Lahore has always been a centre for publications, where 80 percent of Pakistan's books are published and remains the foremost centre of literary, educational and cultural activity in Pakistan. It is also an important religious centre as it is home to hundreds of temples, mosques, and shrines like Data Durbar Complex. According to the 1998 census, Lahore's population was 6,310,000. A 2010 government estimate now puts the population at 10,000,000. It is ranked 25 in the most populated urban areas in the world and the 8th largest city within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Lahore has expanded almost double area-wise in the last 12 to 14 years. In 2010, Lahore was ranked as a Gamma+ world city. The Guardian has rated Lahore as the 2nd best tourist destination in Pakistan.

Due to exponential rural to urban migration and also international refuges, after Islamabad Lahore has been taking in settlers. Pakistan's Power crisis already hitting the boundaries. Lahore has being over populated where land value has been inflated out of the reach of most public. Electricity crisis causes electric cut for seven to ten hours. And in other areas up to 15 hours. Informal communities settle in Lahore where supply and demand already has a huge gap. Due to urban migration, there are scattered slums in the city. Government in 1985 litigation act legalized a lot of slums. But the problem of slum needs a more widespread solution. There are numerous non governmental organizations (NGO's) that have been working on slums (katchi abadi) education and trying to make them a productive part of city but the support from municipality has been missing whereas corruption has been to the max.

A lot of research and analysis has been done on the limits of growth by group of think tank including Dennis Meadows. The have projected cities and analyzed the chain of supply-demand and resources f the world.

We have seen that positive feedback loops operating without any constraints generate exponential growth. In the world system two positive feedback loops are dominant now, producing exponential growth of population and of industrial capital. In any finite system there must be constraints that can act to stop exponential growth. These constraints are negative feedback loops. The negative loops become stronger and stronger as growth approaches the ultimate limit, or carrying capacity, of the system's environment. Finally the negative loops balance or dominate the positive ones, and growth comes to an end. In the world system the negative feedback loops involve such processes as pollution of the environment, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and famine. The delays inherent in the action of these negative loops tend to allow population and capital to overshoot their ultimately sustainable levels. The period of overshoot is wasteful of resources. It generally decreases the carrying capacity of the environment as well, intensifying the eventual decline in population and capital. The growth-stopping pressures from negative feedback loops are already being felt in many parts of human society.

The major societal responses to these pressures have been directed at the negative feedback loops themselves. Technological solutions, have been devised to weaken the loops or to disguise the pressures they generate so that growth can continue. Such means may have some short- term effect in relieving pressures caused by growth, but in the long run they do nothing to prevent the overshoot and subsequent collapse of the system. Another response to the problems created by growth would be to weaken the position feedback loops that are generating the growth. Such a solution has almost never been acknowledged as legitimate by any modern society, and it has certainly never been effectively carried out. What kinds of policies would such a solution involve? What sort of world would result? There is almost no historical precedent for such an approach, and thus there is no alternative but to discuss it in terms of models-either mental models or formal, written models. How will the world model behave if we include in it some policy to control growth deliberately? Will such a policy change generate a "better" behavior mode?

At this point I would like to talk about a concept that is commonly known as “slum”. These Slums, or Shanty Towns or Katchi Abaadi's are mostly illegal settlements and have a very drastic compromise on basic health necessities(water, electricity, security, hygiene). The infrastructure problems more or less are the same in all slums. But the things that makes them different are social factors, economical factors and also level of corruption. After studying these case studies notions have to be understood as to how municipality deals with different slums and how slum inhabitants react to treatment.

“Slums themselves are the physical manifestation of several overlapping forces. On the one hand, they are the manifestation of deep poverty, unrealistic regulatory frameworks, ill-conceived policies, inadequate urban planning, weak institutional capacity, and larger macroeconomic factors. But on the other hand, slums are a manifestation of the ingenuity and resilience with which extremely disadvantaged populations have organized themselves in the face of these very challenges.” Approaches to Urban Slums.

On this point we should understand these urban colonies that gather and live together as a colony inside an urban fabric because of their special social, economic or religious interest. These Slums (Katchi Abadi as known locally) have their on hierarchical system that they follow inside it. Slums themselves are the physical manifestation of several overlapping forces. On the one hand, they are the manifestation of deep poverty, unrealistic regulatory frameworks, ill-conceived policies, inadequate urban planning, weak institutional capacity, and larger macroeconomic factors. But on the other hand, slums are a manifestation of the ingenuity and resilience with which extremely disadvantaged populations have organized themselves in the face of these very challenges.

Slum dwellers in the face of such adverse circumstances is remarkable. Evidence demonstrates that slum dwellers collectively make a substantial contribution to urban and national economies, and that many towns and cities would cease to function effectively without the people who live in slums. What slum dwellers really need is a chance to improve their own lives, and to make a positive contribution to the city. Plenty of evidence shows that resources spent on improving the lives of the poor are investments that will yield global economic and social returns. Affordable and successful adaptive measures for existing slums have, and can, increase the well-being of millions of slum dwellers. These measures also further unlock the productivity of the urban poor, creating a powerful upward spiral that strengthens both urban and national economies.

As cities in developing countries prepare to take on the range of challenges posed by slums, it is essential that key knowledge about these measures be organized and disseminated in a format that can be readily used to create the momentum necessary for policy changes, national level programs, regulatory reform and city level projects.

There are series of long and short term approaches that are needed to improve urban situations as a whole. Adaptive approaches are affordable and meaningful strategies that improve the situation of existing slum dwellers and further strengthen their integration into the social and economic fiber of the city. Broadly speaking, adaptive approaches involve upgrading the level of urban services in slums: physical, social, and economic. They also include pragmatic solutions for dealing with the tricky issue of land and tenure. Adaptive approaches have been proven to increase the well-being of millions of slum dwellers while simultaneously strengthening urban and national economies. In addition to physical services, adaptive approaches include a range of social services. Social services in upgrading initiatives can include education, health facilities, sporting facilities, day care, community facilities, and the creation or strengthening of institutions that help new migrants integrate themselves into the city. Social services should not be taken lightly; they often contribute to increased economic growth, reduced crime, and better education and awareness.

Projects may also include economic services to generate employment in the area and to raise incomes. Economic assistance can include training, job placement, credit and technical assistance to small businesses, establishment of new community-owned enterprises, micro finance opportunities, and loans for housing and for building materials. If implemented correctly, such services will unlock bottlenecks to development and make way for economic revitalization in the area.

Often the trickiest issues in improving slum conditions have to do with land and tenure. In order to propose meaningful solutions to tenure, planners and policy makers need accurate knowledge of land ownership patterns and precise criteria for the selection of beneficiaries. The equitable allocation of benefits between beneficiaries is extremely important.

Who owns the land? Is it owned by the local government, the parks department, a transportation authority? Is it in the freehold ownership of a few absentee landlords? Has it been leased to private landlords by a public agency, and is it now informally squatted upon by the slum dwellers? If informal land markets exist, how do they work? Is some of the land under customary or traditional administrative structures? Does all the land implicated in the project site fall under a single ownership pattern? If not, what are the different patterns? Appreciating and working through the complexity of these issues, while also understanding the social and economic complexities rooted in land ownership, will ultimately structure the approach to devising appropriate tenure arrangements for households.

Often, and with good reason, the appropriate tenure arrangements are more complex than simply handing out individual land titles. Innovative forms of collective tenure allow projects to accommodate the lowest-income households that cannot immediately afford outright ownership. Since payments are collective, such arrangements also accommodate the irregularities in individual income through community-based strategies such as revolving-credit schemes.

Collective tenure can also allow communities to negotiate from a position of much greater power and thereby secure themselves successive improvements to their neighborhood. A collective leasehold agreement can help to discourage premature resale and speculation. Such collective agreements decrease the likelihood of the beneficiary cashing in on a land title and moving to squat elsewhere in the city in the hope of repeating the process again. Tenure is often the most contentious issue in upgrading, and proposals need to be carefully crafted to suit the particular realities of a given situation.

Institutional arrangements in the implementation of adaptive approaches vary from case to case. It is crucial to underscore the central role of local governments and their leadership in the process. It is also important to identify the existing and potential roles of other key stakeholders-the poor themselves, national and provincial governments, civil society groups, the private sector, and other development partners.

Policy makers and local officials will need to pay particular attention to the financial dimension of programs and projects. This involves issues of cost allocation across various stakeholders, the careful targeting of subsidies when required, and protocols and mechanisms for cost recovery. Flexibility in the choice of possible services and service standards will accommodate a range of income brackets and address issues of affordability and equity.

To create pluralistic systems of supply, governments must consider specific policy options for increasing the supply of land, material, services, and credit in ways that can meet the needs of increasing, and largely poor, urban populations. Some options include sites and services, the acquisition of rights-of-way, land pooling and readjustment, requests for proposals, and companies limited by guarantee.

Recently, the focus is increasingly on efforts to encourage a wide range of innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors, together with third-sector groups such as NGOs and community-based organizations. These opportunities are changing the role of the public sector in influencing urban land and housing markets and the poor's access to these markets.

Which brings us to the point that solving the issue of slums is more complex as it has been thought so far. Public and Private sectors need to work together to come towards solving the problem for slums and shanty towns all around the world. Here I would end this report with Aristotle's quote:

Most persons think that a state in order to be happy ought to be large; but even if they are right, they have no idea of what is a large and what a small state. To the size of states there Is a limit, as there Is to other things, plants, animals, implements; for none of these retain their natural power when they are too large or too small, but they either wholly lose their nature, or are spoiled. Aristotle, 322 B.C.