People are moving to cities in droves. In 1950, two-thirds of the world’s population lived in the countryside. New York was then the only settlement with more than 10 million people. Today there are 20 such megacities, and more are on their way.
Most of these megacities are in developing countries that are struggling to cope with both the speed and the scale of human migration. Estimates of the future spread of urbanization are based on the observation that in Europe, and in North and South America, the urban share of the total population has stabilized at 75%-85%. If the rest of the world follows this path it is expected that in the next decade an extra 100 million people will join the cities of Africa, and 340 million the cities of Asia: the equivalent of a new Bangkok every two months. By 2030 nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will be urban.
In the long run, that is good news. If countries now industrializing follow the pattern of those that have already done so, their city-dwellers will be both more prosperous and healthier. Man is gregarious species, and the words" urbane" and "civilized" both derive from the advantages of living in large settlements.
History also shows, though, that the transition can be uncomfortable. The slums of Manchester were, in their time, just as awful as those of Nairobi today. But people moved there for exactly the same reason: however nasty conditions seemed, the opportunities of urban life outstripped those of the countryside. The question is how best to handle the change.
If there is one thing that everybody agrees on, it is that urbanization is unstoppable. Migrants attempting to escape poverty, and refugees escaping conflict, are piling into cities in what the executive director of UN-HABITAT, Anna, Tibailjuka, describes as" premature urbanization,"
Dr Tibaijuka believes it might be possible to slow the pace of migration from the countryside with policies that enhance security and rural livelihoods. There is room for debate, though, over whether better rural development in any form can seriously slow the pace of urbanization-- or even whether such a slowdown would be a good thing.
Michael Mutter, an urban planning adviser at the British government’ s Department for International Development (DFID), says that the relevant indicators suggest that in many countries the effective" carrying capacity" of rural areas has been reached. As happened in Europe in the 18th century, population growth and technological improvements to agriculture are creating a surplus population. That surplus has to go somewhere to earn its living.
Indeed, some people go so far so to argue that governments, international donors and aid agencies spend too much on rural development and neglect the cities. Most countries have a rural development policy, but only a few have urban ones. DFID, for example, spends only 5% of its budget directly on urban development. Moreover, these critics point out that, although rural areas often have worse sanitation, illiteracy and homelessness than cities, such figures are deceptive. Being illiterate, homeless or without access to a flush toilet are far more serious problems in a crowded city than in the countryside.
Of the many lessons being learnt from past urban-development failures, One of the most important is that improvements must involve local people in a meaningful way. Even when it comes to the poorest slum-dwellers, some governments and city authorities are realizing that people are their own greatest assets. Slumdwellers International is a collection of "grassroots" federations of people living in slums. Its idea is simple. Slum-dwellers in a particular place get together and form a federation to strengthen local savings and credit schemes, and to lobby for greater co-operation with the authorities. Such federations are having a big impact on slum-upgrading schemes around the world.
By surveying local needs ’and acting as voices for shim-dwellers, these federations have been able to show the authorities that slum-dwellers are not simply a homogenous and anonymous mass of urban poor, but are real people in need of real services. They have also been able to apply pressure for improvements in security of tenure—either through temporary guarantees of residency or, better still, formal ownership. Such secure tenure gives people an incentive to improve their dwellings and is thus the crucial first step to upgrading a slum into a suburb.
Over the past six years, South Africa’s government has been pursuing an active programme of housing improvement. The government quickly realized that, with the poor in the majority, providing social housing for ail would be impossible. The minister for housing, Sakie Mthembi-Mahanyele, says the approach that has worked so far has been a combination of government, the private sector and the poor themselves. The poor, says Mrs. Mthembi-Mahanyele, have responsibilities, and the government meets them halfway. Those with an income are expected to contribute some of it to the building of their houses. Those without are asked to contribute" sweat equity" by helping to build with their own hands.
South Africa has also transferred ownership of more than 380,000 council houses, worth more than 28 billion rand ($2.7 billion) to private individuals. With these houses as collateral for loans, owners have already started to upgrade and improve their properties. There is still a long way to go. An estimated 2-3 million more houses are needed. She adds that the government is still wrestling with financial institutions to get a better deal for the poor.
It can be inferred from the passage that Nairobi is______