Slum Upgrading - Criticism

Criticism

Despite some successes and the support of the World Bank and the UN-HABITAT, not all people believe slum upgrading is the ideal choice for solving the problem of slums. In fact, there are a number of different players – such as local politicians – who would like to see the status quo concerning slums stay the same. Yet beyond petty local politics, there are major problems with the slum upgrading approach, some of which have to do with the very nature of many slums themselves. For example, in order to lay infrastructure for slum upgrading projects, the governments inevitably have to buy land. However, this raises tremendous difficulties when trying to figure out which land to buy, since slums are (by definition) so densely populated that some houses are literally on top of one another, making it difficult to bring any sense of organization to the areas.

The second problem with slum upgrading stems from the fact that land ownership is not clear. Many times slum dwellers are either transient dwellers or have informal arrangements with the community around them. As a result, as many governments try to go in and establish land rights, difficulties ensue. The World Bank has attempted to separate land ownership deeds and the actual development of infrastructure, but this creates whole new problems of its own. After all, if ownership is not clearly established, tenants are often unlikely to pay for the utilities they receive as a result of the slum upgrading projects. Developing nations cannot afford to provide free utilities for an extended period of time, so this creates a huge problem for attempts at slum upgrading.

Another criticism of slum upgrading is that the infrastructure built as a result must be maintained. In fact, because many governments try to cut the costs of slum upgrading via lower quality infrastructure, subsequent costs of maintenance are often higher. In fact, a minority (47 percent) of the World Bank's urban projects are considered sustainable. Thus, for many of the projects, the one-time cost is not enough: slum upgrading projects are long-term commitments unless they are made with the ability to recover costs through revenue.

Finally, there is difficulty in establishing community and group efforts to bring about real improvement within the slum community. Slums are areas in which violence and conflict are rampant – yet often outside of the scope of knowledge of the government. Because community participation can significantly help the people who are actually doing the slum upgrading by shedding light on community issues that would otherwise hamper slum upgrading efforts, not engaging the community (either from a lack of effort or inherent lack of ability) makes slum upgrading much more difficult.