Urban population in developing countries has grown 6.8 times between 1950 and 2000. While it has merely doubled in the developed world in the corresponding period a rapid urbanization has put tremendous pressure on existing infrastructure and public services; pollution too is on and most strikingly, the population of the urban poor is increasing in many developing country cities.

1. Topic: City Environment and Living Conditions
(URBAN GEOGRAPHY)
Academic Session: 2016-17
Subject: Urban Geography
Apoorva Mathur
&
Dr . Kuldip Singh Kait

2. INTRODUCTION
• Urban population in developing countries has
grown 6.8 times between 1950 and 2000.
• While it has merely doubled in the developed
world in the corresponding period a rapid
urbanization has put tremendous pressure on
existing infrastructure and public services;
pollution too is on and most strikingly, the
population of the urban poor is increasing in
many developing country cities.

3. • Rural to urban migration has been observed as
a major component of urban growth in
developing countries.
• Cities have always placed demands on their
sites and their hinterlands. In order to extend
their usable territory, urban developers often
reshaped natural landscapes, leveling hills,
filling valleys and wetlands, and creating huge
areas of made land.

5. CITY ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
• Social Challenges
• Environmental challenges
• Buildings
• Greening the city Economy
• Waste
• Social Inequity

6. LIVING CONDITIONS
The living conditions during
urbanization were terrible,
trash piled up in the streets,
drinking water was poor,
sewage systems were
ineffective, air quality was
terrible, animal droppings were
everywhere.
It wasn't perfect, but was much
healthier than a box shaped
apartment with no air shaft.
People usually moved up and out
of the slums. The slums would
then be re-inhabited by the next
group of immigrants

7. Living conditions in cities
• Pollution: coal was used to heat houses, cook
food and heat water to produce steam to power
machines in factories. The burning of coal
created smoke, which led to terrible pollution in
the cities.
• Overcrowding: due to large numbers of people
moving to the cities, there were not enough
houses for all these people to live in. Low wages
and high rents caused families to live in as small
a space as possible. Sometimes whole families
lived in one room.
• Disease: typhus, typhoid, tuberculosis and
cholera all existed in the cities of England.
Cholera reached England for the first time in
1830, and there were further major epidemics in
1832 and 1848. Overcrowding, housing of a low
standard and poor quality water supplies all
helped spread disease.

8. • Waste disposal: gutters were filled with litter
and the streets were covered in horse manure,
collected by boys to sell to farmers. Human
waste was discharged directly into the
sewers, which flowed straight into rivers. In
London, Parliament had to stop work because
the smell from the Thames became too much.
• Poor quality housing: houses were built
very close together so there was little light or
fresh air inside them. They did not have
running water and people found it difficult to
keep clean. Houses often suffered from damp
due to their thin walls and roofs made out of
cheap materials. Many households had to
share a single outside toilet that was little
more than a hole in the ground.
• Lack of fresh water: people could get water
from a variety of places, such as streams,
wells and stand pipes, but this water was
often polluted by human waste.

10. LIVING CONDITIONS IN SLUMS
• Slums are informal settlement
characterized by substandard
housing, overcrowding and squalor.
Nearly 1 billion people live in the
slums worldwide and this is projected
to grow to 2 billion by 2030.
• Slums lack basic sanitation services,
supply of clean water, reliable
electricity, timely law enforcement,
schools, hospitals and other basic
services.
• Slums lead to epidemics, are
vulnerable to natural and unnatural
hazards, unemployment, rampant
child labor, increase in crime rates
and violence, informal economy etc.
• Slum-dwellers stay in shanty
structures in unhygienic environment,
not by choice but by compelling
circumstances.

11. SLUM UPGRADING
These services include land tenure, infrastructure
development, education, transport and
communication.
Slum upgrading is not simply about water or drainage
or housing. It is about putting into motion the
economic, social, institutional and community activities
that are needed to turn around downward trends in an
area. These activities should be undertaken
cooperatively among the political groups and society
The activities tend to include the provision of basic
services such as housing, streets, footpaths, drainage,
clean water, sanitation, and sewage disposal, access to
education and health care.

12. Slum upgrading is most effective when linked with
other initiatives or goals, such as:
• Health and education
• Poverty alleviation
• Environmental and sanitation improvement
• City-wide infrastructure and transportation
expansion.

14. CONCLUSION
The actual focus should be on removal and relocation and
rehabilitation of the slum areas.
For this the governments must undertake vigorous urban
planning, city management, infrastructure development, slum
upgrading and poverty reduction.
Governments often fail to recognize the rights of the urban poor
and incorporate them into urban planning, thereby contributing
to the growth of slums.
In addition, many countries simply cannot respond to rapid
urbanization quickly enough. People are coming to cities far
faster than the planning process can incorporate them. Often,
they find their own land and build a shack before the
government has a chance to learn of their existence.

15. The Slum Rehabilitation Act 1995 was passed by the
government of the Indian state Maharashtra to protect the
rights of slum dwellers and promote the development of slum
areas. The Act protected from eviction, anyone who could
produce a document proving they lived in the city of Mumbai
before January 1995, regardless if they lived on the pavement
or other kinds of municipal land. The ACT was the result of
policy development that included grassroots slum dweller
organisations, particularly SPARC. Through the Act pavement
dwellers were for the first time into the classification of
households that are entitled to land for relocation. Following
the enactment of this legislation, the government of
Maharashtra and the Municipal Corporation of Greater
Mumbai set out a special policy for planning the relocation of
the 20,000 households, using the information from a census
Mahila Milan and NSDF completed in 1995.