Over the next three years, the Urbis team will post relevant articles published by other organizations and individuals. The following is a preliminary list of some of the documents we have identified as potentially useful.
The articles are separated into seven categories critical to urban development and organizational capacity building: Slum Background, Slum Upgrading and Water/Sanitation Services, Land Tenure and Evictions, Governance, Gender, Financial Tools, and Capacity Building.
Slum Background
Challenge of the Slums (Purchase required)
“The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. It presents estimates of the numbers of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors that underlie the formation of slums, as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It also evaluates the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades. The report argues that the number of slum dwellers is growing and will continue to increase unless there is serious and concerted action by all relevant stakeholders. The report points the way forward and identifies the most promising approaches to achieving the Millennium Declaration target on improving the lives of slum dwellers.”
United Nations Human Development Programme. (2003). Challenge of the Slums. Retrieved 29 August 2008
Urban Policies and the Right to the City
The joint public debates with UN-HABITAT and UNESCO on “Urban Policies and the Right to the City” served as a forum on the concept of the “Right to the City” and its potential relationship to inclusive and socially sustainable urban policies. Panel participants came together in 2005 from diverse backgrounds in order to present success stories of good governance and participatory planning in a wide range of cities and to introduce existing tools that aim to address human rights’ issues in the cities.
UNESCO. (2005). Urban Policies and the Right to the City. Retrieved 2 September 2008
Unmaking the Slums: Emerging Rules, Roles and Repertoires
The paper focuses on Africa, “although it will also allude to lessons learned from experience on other continents. These as well as similar efforts by UN-HABITAT, research institutions, and think-tanks (London’s International Institute for Environment and Development being the most prolific) are aimed at shifting the focus from slums as buildings to their status as places where people live, work, and die.”
Yahya, Saad S. (2007) Unmaking the Slums: Emerging Rules, Roles, and Repertoires. Stetson Law Review, 36. Retrieved 2 September 2008
Slums of the World: The face of urban poverty in the new millennium? (Purchase required)
This paper “presents the results of a first global enumeration of slums at the country level. The data are analyzed and comparisons established at sub-regional and regional levels while trying to understand what is happening globally. This document is the culmination of attempts to come to grips with changes in the way we measure slums, starting by providing an agreed universal definition of this type of settlements and a clear methodological approach. The preliminary estimations presented in this document represent a baseline year level that permits the preparation of quantitative estimates for future trends. By providing the methodology and the quantitative knowledge base, the document strives to enhance the use of information on urban poverty, as a powerful policy-making tool to help induce the desired structural changes for poverty alleviation.”
UN-Habitat. (2003). Slums of the World: The face of urban poverty in the new millennium? Retrieved 2 September 2008
Squatters and the Cities of Tomorrow (Subscription required)
“About 1 billion people live in squatter communities throughout the world, and while these communities face significant challenges, life is vibrant and squatters are collectively the largest builder of housing in the world. Based on the experience of living for two years in squatter communities in Brazil, Turkey, Kenya and India, the paper describes the everyday experience as well as the legal, political and organizational challenges of people living in so-called slums. It refutes the three popular myths that (1) squatter communities are emblems of human misery, (2) everyone in these communities is impoverished and starving, and (3) squatters are the enemy of civil society. Instead, the challenges and achievements of everyday life in the communities are contextualized and the paper concludes by emphasizing the need for organizing in the communities to secure title, access to services and avoid evictions through successful initiatives from the squatters themselves, not global institutions” (p.71).
Neuwirth, Robert. (April 2007). Squatters and the Cities of Tomorrow. City Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 11(1): 71-80
The World Goes to Town (Subscription required)
“WHETHER you think the human story begins in a garden in Mesopotamia known as Eden, or more prosaically on the savannahs of present-day east Africa, it is clear that Homo sapiens did not start life as an urban creature. Man's habitat at the outset was dominated by the need to find food, and hunting and foraging were rural pursuits. Not until the end of the last ice age, around 11,000 years ago, did he start building anything that might be called a village, and by that time man had been around for about 120,000 years. It took another six millennia, to the days of classical antiquity, for cities of more than 100,000 people to develop. Even in 1800 only 3% of the world's population lived in cities. Sometime in the next few months, though, that proportion will pass the 50% mark, if it has not done so already. Wisely or not, Homo sapiens has become Homo urbanus.”
The World Goes to Town. (3 May 2007). The Economist. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
Slum Upgrading and Water/Sanitation Services
Assessing Benefits of Slum Upgrading Programs in Second Best Settings
“Slum upgrading programs are being used by national and city governments in many countries to improve the welfare of households living in slum and squatter settlements. These programs typically include a combination of improvements in neighborhood infrastructure, land tenure, and building quality. In this paper, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model to compare the effectiveness of alternative slum upgrading instruments in a second-best setting with distortions in the land and credit markets. We numerically test the model using data from three Brazilian cities and find that the performance of in situ slum upgrading depends on the severity of land and credit market distortions, and how complementary policy initiatives are being implemented to correct for these problems. Pre-existing land supply and credit market distortions reduce the benefit cost ratios across interventions, and change the rank ordering of preferred interventions. In the light of these findings, it appears that partial equilibrium analysis used in typical cost benefit work overstate the stream of net benefits from upgrading interventions, and may in fact propose a misleading sequence of interventions.”
Dasgupta, Basab & Lall, Somik V. (August 2006). Assessing Benefits of Slum Upgrading Programs in Second Best Settings. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
Reframing Urban Assistance: Scale, Ambition and Possibility
This paper identifies “contradictions between the scale of needs for urban services and the scale of urban assistance.” It asserts that “urban assistance needs to be understood and evaluated in terms of the broader issues facing the developing world. Its financial scale, roughly $2 billion a year for 130 countries, is about 10 percent of the present budget for reconstruction of the 16 acres at Ground Zero in New York. This enormous gap between need and ambition is itself the primary issue that needs attention if urban assistance is to be relevant and significant in the contemporary world.”
Cohen, Michael. (February 2005). Reframing Urban Assistance: Scale, Ambition, and Possibility. Urban Update, Comparative Urban Studies Project Policy Brief, 5. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
Environmental assessment in slum improvement programs: Some evidence from a study on infrastructure projects in two Dhaka slums (Purchase required)
“This paper reports findings from a study on slum improvement projects to show the difference that environmental assessment (EA) can make in such interventions and to suggest mechanisms for its integration into such projects. The findings are based on a field survey that was carried out in two slums of Dhaka where infrastructure projects were implemented. In one slum, the EA process was considered in designing and locating infrastructure and in the other it was not. The survey results traced the severe problems that existed in both slums before the implementation of infrastructure improvement projects and reveal that after the intervention the situation has considerably improved in the slum where EA was conducted. In contrast, some problems still persist in the other slum where EA was not considered. To make it worse, the newly built infrastructures have even given rise to a set of new problems. In order to avoid such negative outcomes from development interventions, the paper finally develops the mechanism for integration of EA into slum improvement project” (530).
Chowdhury, F.J. and Amin, A.T.M.N. (2006). Environmental Assessment in Slum Improvement Programs: Some Evidence. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 26: 530-552.
Retrieving the Baby from the Bathwater: Slum Upgrading in Sub-Saharan Africa (Subscription required)
“Drawing on project experiences over a thirty-year period and academic literature, this paper focuses on the question: what has worked in slum upgrading in Africa? We find that efforts to regularize land titles to confer de jure security of tenure have not been encouraging. By contrast, infrastructure investment efforts have performed better—they have conferred de facto security of tenure and also ameliorated living conditions. Over time project-based learning and microlevel innovations have helped improve upgrading performance. To create broader and sustainable benefits, however, upgrading needs to go to scale. We propose an upgrading strategy with the following elements—a programmatic approach that links slums to citywide systems, is channelled through government, and combines a community-demand and participation approach with supply-side constraints and rules of access” (p.486).
Gulyani, Sumila & Basset, Ellen M. (2007). Retrieving the Baby from the Bathwater: Slum Upgrading in Sub-Saharan Africa. Environmental Planning and C: Government and Policy, 25: 486-515
Dimensions and Approaches for Third World Water Security
“A rapid expansion of urban systems, particularly in less-developed countries, pose considerable challenges. Urbanization also provides opportunities for socio-economic progress. Relative contribution from the urban sector to national economic growth is very high. The fate and the role of the socio-economic system in local, regional and national development hinges on many circumstances. Apart from delicate social issues, deficiencies in water provision, internal distribution and a hazardous water and environmental quality represent basic and tangible daily problems. Urban water security requires fresh thinking at two levels. Some kind of basin authority (corresponding to a county council, i.e. a formal administrative and regulatory body for the geographical area within a river basin) in combination with a national water policy is required, notably in countries that contemplate, or are in the process of implementing, regional and sometimes inter-basin schemes to augment supply to growing conglomerations. Similarly, the generation of large volumes of waste water and the associated threat to downstream areas cannot be effectively tackled through conventional urban planning. Within the urban area, and particularly in non-regulated parts, there is an urgent need for institutional arrangements that facilitate operations for providers who have the capacity and ability to function under the prevailing circumstances. Introduction of effective production and treatment technologies are other necessary and urgent prerequisites to reach urban water security in Third World cities.”
Lundqvist, Jan, Appasamy, Paul & Nelliyat, Prakash. (19 November 2003). Dimensions and Approaches for Third World Water Security. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
“The cases reviewed in this article document the range and diversity of local government initiatives that improve the lives of slum dwellers. Acting on a range of challenges requires a multifaceted approach.
Infrastructure is a dominant component. This reflects the priority placed on access to services. Water supply is a particularly important issue for women and girls who in many cultures have traditionally been assigned the task of fetching water for the family. Concern with sanitation among slum dwellers increases in parallel with the deterioration of conditions in the settlements, as densities rise and overcrowding becomes the norm with multiple families on the same lot, sharing highly inadequate facilities.”
“Adequate access roads, drainage, and transport are essential to integrate peripheral and marginalized settlements in the urban fabric and economy. In the face of growing disparities and economic downturns, promoting local development has to include the necessity of opening up employment and income generation opportunities for impoverished populations. Local authorities are the level of government most directly involved, even where national and international funding is available to support sectoral programs. The case studies reflect the growing importance of local initiatives to support small businesses and micro-enterprises, with and without outside support.
Housing is addressed through a variety of mechanisms ranging from subsidized credit to providing accommodations, to resettling populations living in environmentally hazardous zones, to developing serviced sites and housing for lower income groups. The importance placed on living conditions by slum dwellers can be gauged from the speed at which home improvements are initiated after security of occupancy is granted and settlements regularized. All wage earners in the household contribute cash, building materials and supplies, labor, and furnishings.”
Seragledin, Mona, Solloso, Elda & Valenzuela, Luis. (March 2006). Treating People and Communities as Assets: Local Government Actions to Reduce Poverty and Achieve Millennium Development Goals. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
Land Tenure and Evictions
Breathing Life into Dead Theories about Property Rights: de Soto and Land Relations in Rural Africa
“Presumption of a direct causal link between formalization of property rights and economic productivity is back on the international development agenda. Belief in such a direct causal relationship had been abandoned in the early 1990s, following four decades of land tenure reform experiments that failed to produce the anticipated efficiency results. The work of Hernando de Soto has provided the springboard for this revival. De Soto argues that formal property rights hold the key to poverty reduction by unlocking the capital potential of assets held informally by poor people.
De Soto’s justifications of formal title do not differ much from justifications that were advanced for ambitious land tenure reforms in various sub-Saharan African countries, starting with Kenya in the 1950s. Introduction of formal title in the African areas was seen as the key to solving problems of land degradation and improving agriculture by providing farmers with security of tenure that would create incentives for further investment in the land.
This paper argues that there are five shortcomings in both the old and contemporary arguments for formalization of land title. First, legality is constructed narrowly to mean only formal legality. Therefore, legal pluralism is equated with extra-legality. Second, there is an underlying social evolutionist bias that presumes inevitability of the transition to private (conflated with individual) ownership as the destiny of all societies. Third, the presumed link between formal title and access to credit facilities has not been borne out by empirical evidence. Fourth, markets in land are understood narrowly to refer only to ‘formal markets.’ Fifth, the arguments in favor of formalization of title as the means to secure tenure ignore the fact that formal title could also generate insecurity.”
Nyamu-Musembi, Celeste. (October 2006). Breathing Life into Dead Theories about Property Rights: de Soto and Land Relations in Rural Africa. Retrieved 29 August 2008
“This publication on Secure Land Rights for All demonstrates how secure land rights are particularly important in helping to reverse three types of phenomena: gender discrimination; social exclusion of vulnerable groups; and wider social and economic inequalities linked to inequitable and insecure rights to land. It argues that policymakers should adopt and implement the continuum of land rights because, no single form of tenure can meet the different needs of all social groups. However, a range of land tenure options enables both women and men from all social groups to meet their changing needs over time. The publication can assist policy-makers to understand and apply the practical ways in which people’s land rights can be made more secure, while at the same time improve land policies as a basis for the better, fairer and more sustainable urban and rural development.”
UN-Habitat. (25 April 2008). Secure Land Rights for All. Retrieved 2 September 2008
ACHR - 10 Alternatives to Eviction
ACHR discusses how different community networks in Thailand are showing that linking, planning, saving, discussing, preparing, negotiating are the most effective eviction busters. This site gives examples from ACHR's experience in Bangkok, Thailand, that provide a reference point for other communities facing the threat of eviction around the world.
Governance
Decentralization and Democracy: A Global Perspective in 2007
"This paper is the conclulding chapter to the first Global Review of Decentralization and Local Democracy (GOLD) of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) in Barcelona. The GOLD report consists of nine chapters, seven regional reviews, each prepared by experts from the respective region, together with a chapter on metropolitan governance. The concluding chapter, prepared by Tim Campbell, PhD, summarizes the findings, observations, and conclusions in the entire report."
Pro-Poor Urban Governance: Lessons from LIFE, 1992-2005
“In 1992, the Rio Earth Summit brought the concept of environmentally sustainable human development to the foreground of development practice and underlined the interconnectedness of human rights, population, social development, women and human settlements. It was at this historic event that the Local Initiative Facility for Urban Environment (LIFE) found its origins. In the ensuing 13 years, LIFE has sustained and built upon the Summit’s energy and principles, making a difference to the lives of millions of human beings and instituting processes that will make a difference to the lives of many more.
This publication is primarily intended to report on, after over a decade of implementation, LIFE’s experiences in strengthening participatory local governance to improve the conditions under which the urban poor live. It thus complements a 1997 publication on the first five years of LIFE’s lessons. This publication seeks to inform those who are involved in making large-scale, sustainable improvements to the urban environment to benefit the urban poor. It is aimed at local governance actors, from civil society and local government, who daily face and address the challenges of urban environment and urban governance; the staff of development organizations and donor governments who must constantly inform their investment strategies and priorities; and national and global policy-makers who must oversee the process of policy change to reflect the lessons of experience. It is also intended for LIFE members, partners and affiliates to reflect on the achievements of the program and the challenges it faces as they look to the future.”
United Nations Development Programme. (2005). Pro-Poor Urban Governance Lessons from Life 1992-2005. Retrieved 2 September 2008 from
Measuring and Strengthening Local Governance Capacity: The Local Government Barometer
“Those working to achieve the Millennium Development goals increasingly recognize good governance as a fundamental requirement for reducing poverty and achieving sustainable human development.”
“As governments, institutions, and donors continue to search for successful models of decentralized governance, the lack of relevant tools and strategies to analyze local governance effectiveness becomes evermore apparent. Local governance cannot be measured simply through quantifiable indicators, but must include the perceptions of the citizens and the government, and the relationships all actors have with each another. The process of building the capacity for good local governance is equally complex, since it involves a cross-section of actors that includes the government itself, the private sector, and civil society at large.”
“Since early 2006, the Local Governance Barometer has been in its Piloting and Testing Phase.
Over the last year, SNV, Pact, and IDASA have undertaken fifteen pilots in six countries including South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon, Ecuador, Ghana, and Tanzania.”
Bloom, Evan, Sunseri, Amy & Leonard, Aaron. (20 May 2007). Measuring and Strengthening Local Governance Capacity: The Local Government Barometer. Retrieved 2 September 2008
Gender
The Challenge of Poverty (with article "Female Headship and the Feminization of Poverty")
“It is commonly believed that households headed by women are poorer than those controlled by men. But a closer look at intrahousehold relations, coupled with a broader concept of poverty that focuses on social deprivation, reveals that women — and indeed other household members — may often be better off without a male partner. It will not be possible to devise policies that address the structural bases of gender inequality without first debunking the myth of a close association between female headship and poverty.”
Chant, Sylvia. (May 2004) Female Headship and the Feminization of Poverty. In Focus. Retrieved 2 September 2008
Urbanisation and Urban Poverty: A Gender Analysis
“Urbanization and urban growth have accelerated in many developing countries in the past few years. While natural population growth has been the major contributor to urbanization, rural-urban migration continues to be an important factor. The processes of urbanization and the nature and scale of rural-urban migration have to some extent been shaped by gender roles and relations. While male migration has been the most predominant form of migration, in parts of Latin America female migration is common and has been influenced by decisions in rural households over who should migrate and for what reason. In other parts of the world, particularly South East Asia, the demand for female labour has meant that more women are migrating in search of employment.
Feminist researchers have pointed out that much of the literature on women, gender and urban poverty issues has fallen outside the mainstream. Urban planning has focused, to a large extent, on physical and spatial aspects of urban development. However, there is increasing recognition of the discrimination women face in relation to access to employment, housing, basic services etc., and the need more effort by some governments and international agencies to reduce this.
A gender equality perspective of urban poverty is important because men and women experience and respond to poverty in different ways. Access to income and assets, housing, transport and basic services is influenced by gender-based constraints and opportunities. Gender-blind urban services provision may not meet the needs of women if their priorities are not taken into consideration.”
Masika, Rachel. (October 1997). Urbanisation and Urban Poverty: A Gender Analysis. Retreived 2 September 2008
Financial Tools
Household Savings and Residential Mobility in Informal Settlements
“Strategies to help the one billion people worldwide who live in informal settlements have mainly focused on slum upgrading, sites and services programs and tenure security. In contrast, there has been less attention on what enables slum dwellers to transition into the formal housing sector, which has the dual benefits of improving service access and escaping social stigma. In this paper we investigate residential mobility among slum dwellers in Bhopal, India. Our analysis shows that one in five households succeeds in getting out of a slum settlement, and a major determinant is the household’s ability to save on a regular basis. Due to limited outreach of institutional housing finance, most slum dwellers rely solely on household savings for purchasing a house. These findings underscore the urgent need to improve savings instruments for slum dwellers and to downmarket housing finance to reach the poorest residents of rapidly growing cities in developing countries.”
Lall, Somik V., Surr, Ajay & Deichmann Uwe. (May 2005). Household Savings and Residential Mobility in Informal Settlements. Retrieved 2 September 2008
Capacity Building
"This paper draws on quantitative evidence and case examples from both developed and developing countries to construct a typology of mainstream modes of city learning. Case observations suggest that the best learners are deliberate and systematic, finding or creating new knowledge, converting it to use, and storing learning experiences that draw on collective memory. Useful knowledge of learning resides in two main forms: one is hard data, stored in documents, computers, or specialized units of government; another is soft data stored in professional and social networks that link a wide array of actors in the community, not just staff in the city bureaucracy. The overarching conclusions of the paper are that several kinds of learning systems can be observed, that these should be explored more carefully, that policies can help to facilitate learning, and that a radical departure from customary policy, especially in donor institutions, may be needed to effectively meet requirements of institutional capacity building in cities of the developing world."
Tim Campbell, PhD, Copyright Urban Age Institute, 18 Mar 2008
Current Research on Building the Capacity of Community Development Organizations
This paper looks at a general theme of building organizations that build communities and specifically addresses “questions of leaders aging out, nurturing new leadership, defining capacity, testing the theoretical elements of capacity, and assessing the role benefits play in attracting and retaining talent. The papers are exciting in that they present or summarize new data on the capacity challenges facing community-based development.”
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. (2004). Section II: Current Research on Building the Capacity of Community Develoment Organizations. Building Organizations that Build Communities. Retrieved 2 September 2007 at
Middle Class Activism and Poor People's Politics: An Exploration of Civil Society in Chennai
“The word ‘activist’ is used very commonly in conversations with and about middle class people in Chennai. Someone, for example, who runs a well-endowed organisation promoting music, dance, and drama might well describe herself as a ‘cultural activist.’ Why is it that middle class people feel the need to use such a term? It seems possible that middle class people have either failed to take on leadership roles in the sphere of political society (the domain of political parties), or have vacated that sphere- as they have done according to the electoral studies which have demonstrated their declining political participation- so they have increasingly found in civil society the domain for their self-assertion. They have responded to their impotence in the political sphere by devoting their energies to activism in civil society, and in doing so de-valorise party political activity in the manner of the former banker, now noted civil society ‘activist’, who described politics as a dirty river. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of middle class activism in the sphere of ‘civil society’ in Chennai, and to explore its relationships with the politics of the poor people. The ‘exploration’ means both examining ways in which, or to the extent which, middle class activism still represents the urban poor and whether or not, or in what ways poor people are able to engage in activism in civil society.”
Harriss, John. (October 2005). Middle Class Activism and Poor People’s Politics: An Exploration of Civil Society in Chennai. LSE Working Paper Series, 05-72. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
