during my recent trip to Cambodia I did myself the disservice of bringing along with me a book that has been sitting on my reading pile for about a year -- Planet of Slums by Mike Davis.
In this little book, Davis "explores the future of a radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world."
A slum is characterized by overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure, which equates under most circumstances to economic and social marginality.
ok fine, we understand that. the problem that Davis brings to our attention is that UN research indicates that in 2005 more than 1 billion people in the world live in slums, and the number is not getting smaller, but increasing exponentially.
some of us may have seen slum areas in Canadian or US cities, but Davis indicates that in the developed world, slums only account for about 6% of urban dwellers. in the developing world, on the other hand, 78% of urban dwellers live in settings defined as slums. That is, in most cities in the developing world, the majority of the population live in slum housing. In Bombay, India for instance, with a population of over 20 million, 10 to 12 million live in conditions identified by the definition i mention above.
Davis, a historian, an urban theorist, social commentator, and a Marxist socialist, has been criticized for this book as "overly apocalyptic." He describes the slum reality, with a particular critique of neo-liberal monetary policies, IMF structural adjustment programs and and NGO collusion with DeSoto's bootstrap capitalism.
so my challenge on the Cambodia trip, was to be reading this book and looking out the window to observe exactly what Davis is describing. Rampant global capital taking over Phnom Penh, rapid industrialization and urbanization of surrounding villages up to an hour away from the capital, and the accompanying social disruption, overcrowding, unhygenic water and sanitation and economic marginalization.
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