4 ms·

Your photo shows a natural stage of development of most rapidly industrializing places. (Actually, this is the second stage of development for most neighborhood

Your photo shows a natural stage of development of most rapidly industrializing places. (Actually, this is the second stage of development for most neighborhoods, after a first stage consisting of all temporary structures with no infrastructure or services whatsoever.) Shanty towns looked just like this in quickly growing American and European cities 100–150 years ago. And look like this today throughout Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, ... People living in those conditions are not permanently poor and hopeless. They are upwardly mobile (albeit from a very low baseline, often as rural peasants forced off their land by lack of rural economic opportunity), with neighborhoods improving rapidly, and generally quite a dynamic economy. Come back and take another photo of precisely the same spot in 25 years and you will see something dramatically different: decently constructed permanent structures; proper plumbing, electricity, sanitation, roads; real city services; and in general an integrated normal city neighborhood as the city keeps pushing outward. Many of the kids growing up in those shanty-towns today will be small-business owners, and plenty of their kids will be highly educated white-collar professionals. Observers who try to interpret poor neighborhoods with middle class standards end up so focused on the apparent discomfort involved that they can’t see the parts that are ingenious, fascinating, hopeful, and rapidly improving.

molmalo 7y ago
Maybe it worked that way in some other countries, but in a lot of places in Latin America, that is not how it works. Most slums just get more crowded, larger, and managed by thugs (lately, drug dealing foreign cartels are taking over) over time. For example, take a look at Villa 31, a slum near Buenos Aires's downtown, in 1935 [1], around the time it first appeared, and now [2]. After almost a century, the precarious buildings are just getting higher, and more densely populated. Several attempts where made to relocate the people along the years, but having a high percentage of the population being illegal immigrants, it becomes highly unpopular to just give those people a new apartment, while there's a housing deficit. Lately, there's been more efforts in providing them a housing solution, because a judicial ruling forced the government to do it. But even then, there's no sign of the population in the slum being reduced (probably because they are replaced by newcomers, mostly illegal immigrants, that need a "first place to live" close to the downtown). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Villa_Desocupaci%C3%B3n_%28Villa_31%29%2C_Buenos_Aires%2C_1935.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Villa_De... [2] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31#/media/Archivo:Villamiseria5.JPG https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31#/media/Archivo:Villam...
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > having a high percentage of the population being illegal immigrants, it becomes highly unpopular [...] Presumably the great-grandchildren of residents from the 1930s are not still “illegal immigrants”. > probably because they are replaced by newcomers Oh... so this is not actually the same people living there. Well what happened to the families who lived in this place 25, 50, or 80 years ago?
animal531 7y ago
You are correct about people having chances to be upwardly mobile, but in my experience in Africa that means that eventually they just move away to a more decent area. The low economic areas grow very fast due to an influx of more poor people, but they don't develop much over time. If anything they tend to degrade due to extremely poor service delivery etc.

molmalo 7y ago

Maybe it worked that way in some other countries, but in a lot of places in Latin America, that is not how it works. Most slums just get more crowded, larger, and managed by thugs (lately, drug dealing foreign cartels are taking over) over time. For example, take a look at Villa 31, a slum near Buenos Aires's downtown, in 1935 [1], around the time it first appeared, and now [2]. After almost a century, the precarious buildings are just getting higher, and more densely populated. Several attempts where made to relocate the people along the years, but having a high percentage of the population being illegal immigrants, it becomes highly unpopular to just give those people a new apartment, while there's a housing deficit. Lately, there's been more efforts in providing them a housing solution, because a judicial ruling forced the government to do it. But even then, there's no sign of the population in the slum being reduced (probably because they are replaced by newcomers, mostly illegal immigrants, that need a "first place to live" close to the downtown). [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Villa_Desocupaci%C3%B3n_%28Villa_31%29%2C_Buenos_Aires%2C_1935.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Villa_De... [2] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31#/media/Archivo:Villamiseria5.JPG https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_31#/media/Archivo:Villam...

jacobolus 7y ago
> having a high percentage of the population being illegal immigrants, it becomes highly unpopular [...] Presumably the great-grandchildren of residents from the 1930s are not still “illegal immigrants”. > probably because they are replaced by newcomers Oh... so this is not actually the same people living there. Well what happened to the families who lived in this place 25, 50, or 80 years ago?

animal531 7y ago

You are correct about people having chances to be upwardly mobile, but in my experience in Africa that means that eventually they just move away to a more decent area. The low economic areas grow very fast due to an influx of more poor people, but they don't develop much over time. If anything they tend to degrade due to extremely poor service delivery etc.