While definitions, causes and solutions are still highly contested, Frederick Kusambiza provides some insights into the current state of affairs regarding urban poverty.

URBAN poverty is a widely researched topic but one which still preoccupies the minds of policy makers and academics alike. Academics and development practitioners continue to look at causes of urban poverty from different perspectives and to explore various possible solutions to the problem.

Urban poverty, broadly associated with urbanisation, is in many cases a direct result of rural-urban migration. As many of the rural poor seek escape from areas with little or no opportunities, thousands migrate to urban areas in the hope of securing employment.  But most find no solace in moving to already-crowded urban areas.

Urbanisation has only compounded existing problems especially in the urban areas of less developed countries, leading to a greater demand and consumption of available goods and services. Given the enormity of the challenge, this article does not begin to scratch the surface of the problem. However, it does aim to provide some insights into the current state of affairs regarding urban poverty.

Cited causes of urban poverty
As was noted at the World Urban Forum (WUF) in Vancouver in 2006, about 1 billion people live in slums within urban areas.  Local authorities are under increasing pressure to provide adequate services, especially to people living in slum areas.  A paper presented at the forum by humanitarian organisation, CARE, cited four factors as the causes of urban poverty among people living in urban slum areas, based on different developing countries.

These factors are:
i) The lack of opportunities to earn a living;
ii) The lack of access to services;
iii) The lack of good governance; and
iv) The lack of community power.

All four factors are linked and generally require either an economic or socio-political developmental intervention. However, a solution to urban poverty would require a multi-pronged approach encompassing a wide range of interventions. Although South Africa is not among the countries cited, the four factors listed in the CARE research apply to local conditions here.

The lack of opportunities to earn a living refers to the obstacles faced by the urban poor in slum areas where urban poverty is most prevalent. Many people living in such areas do not have the means to conduct any gainful business. Yet this is one of the main ways in which such people can integrate into society and eventually join the mainstream economy. Even so, due to the hardship usually faced by communities in slum areas, people living in these areas inevitably become more creative and entrepreneurial in order to make ends meet. Being able to create economic activities within a reasonable proximity of their shacks helps many to avoid travelling long distances in search of work or possible economic activities elsewhere. Here, government should assist in making it easier for the poor to run their small businesses so that they can improve their lives, but this is not always the case in reality. Local authorities should relax by-laws or grant concessions to the urban poor in order to assist them to find creative and local solutions to supporting themselves.

Good governance, which is a socio-political issue, is characterised by high levels of transparency and accountability from local authorities. But the lack of good governance in some cases elicits the unwillingness of local authorities to relate to poor communities or creates weak relationships between the two.

Communities in slum areas need to be informed of the challenges and steps taken by governments to enable local authorities to address their problems. Political will is in most cases non-existent because of these power relations as slum dwellers lack the economic muscle that would give them a voice. Many of them are not well educated and they may not be able to engage with municipal officials, councillors or mayors to fight for better services in their areas. Many local authorities view them as an eyesore and their existence is taken as temporary with no identified long-term solutions. Most of the attention and resources are directed to the ‘high-priority’ areas. As a result, social amenities and the infrastructure remain under-developed while the urban poor remain alienated from local authorities.

These two factors – lack of voice and economic muscle or power – leave poor communities in slum areas vulnerable to top-down political decisions and usually exclude them from basic services which they are entitled to. Communities end up ignored with no basic information, which could provide them possibly with skills or the ability to work their way through an often-complicated network of policies.

Deliberations held at the World Urban Forum in 2006 revealed that a number of local authorities, to a large extent, lacked understanding that appropriate engagements, partnerships and relationships had to be built in an inclusive manner with communities in slum areas for the authorities to better understand challenges and develop practical solutions.

Approaches that have emerged in the past
The number of people living in slum areas is still growing and the crisis is more apparent in less-developed countries due to rapid urbanisation. This is usually accompanied with no matching expansion of social-economic infrastructure in towns and cities. Those already living in the slums are ‘settled in’ and they are developing coping strategies to help them survive.

Different approaches to ‘confronting urban poverty’ have been suggested by researchers. Urban development practitioners have also tried different methodologies in pilot projects to curb this problem. All these efforts apply in different situations and environments in different parts of the world. Regulatory tools (such as municipal by-laws) or urban planning should be constantly reviewed and linked to upgrading informal settlements making this approach a key urban developmental intervention. This approach would enable different parties, including the communities themselves, to start creating local economic activities to generate income.

Most research has shown that urbanisation is here to stay and therefore planning and management of human settlements should emphasise rural-urban linkages, by understanding that both rural and urban areas form the ends of the continuum of human settlement. Calls for urban integration are mounting among development practitioners and here in South Africa, the government seems to understand the need to actively promote urban integration.

However, some of the approaches introduced in the urban renewal programmes are seen as weak or not fully supported and it remains unclear why local authorities appear reluctant to embrace these initiatives to the maximum.

Until local authorities begin to take the very real urban and rural linkages into account when planning for the future of their towns and cities, the problem of urban poverty will not go away.

The Local Government Transformer Vol. 13 No. 3 Jun/July 2007