GEOG 2400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Least Developed Countries, Gated Community, Overurbanization
GEOG 2400
Asia
Urbanization in Least Developed Countries
Trajectory
• Globally, slum growth outpacing urbanization, slum populations growing by 25 million annually
• 1/3 of urbanites in Asia live in slums
• Asia hosts the largest share of people in slums
• Not very urbanized
• Asia is second least urbanized, before Africa
• Biggest rural population: Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos
• Laos and Cambodia, highest % of urban slums
Problems
• Overurbanization
o Asia and pacific regions has largest absolute number of people in poverty in the world
o Poverty becoming concentrated in urban centers
o Almost 200 million people moved to Asian cities in the first decade of 21st century
o 40% live on less than $2 per day
o Speed and scale of urbanization increasing due to:
• Poor transportation,
▪ Worst traffic in 2014: Jakarta
• Pollution and environmental issues
▪ More than 2.1 million people in Asia died prematurely from air pollution in 2012
▪ 65% of all air pollution deaths are now in Asia
▪ 11/20 most polluting cities are in Asia
▪ Worst in East Asia, 4th leading cause of death
▪ Mongolia, extreme pollution due to use of charcoal
• Lack of sanitation and related health problems
▪ 5 million preventable deaths in children younger than 5 by 2025
▪ 1/2 of population in global south suffering from on/more of main diseases
associated with inadequate water and sanitation
• Housing
▪ Jakarta: 25% squatters
▪ Manila: 40% in squatter, 45% in slums
▪ Bangkok: 23% in slums and squatters
o Not enough resources to give rural population dignified lives
• Insecure Tenure
o 2012: 250 squatter homes demolished in Kathmandu
o 2015: Quezon City (Manila) 500 families' homes demolished
o 2015: Kampung Pulo in East Jarkarta - 1,500 households or some 3400 people
• Land Grabbing
o Land deals that happen without the free, prior, and informed consent of communities that
force farmers from their homes
o Mostly for sugar cane, soy, and palm
o Done by government or private stake holders
Dealing with Squatters
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"squatter is the major human symbol of the Third World City" (Davis)
Some squatters have rights to their land per the State, but often overlooked if land is valuable
• Evictions
o Comes with repression of street vendors
o Ghettoization of low-income groups
o Justification: crime ridden/illegal tenure
o Part of urban trends of segregation, separating the wealthy and poor
• Relocation
o State-led development and relocation of residents to new areas
o Removing people from their land and placing them somewhere else
• Isolation
o Gated communities and 'fantasy' enclaves
o Architecture of fear: iron gates, roadblocks and checkpoints, wall topped by glass shards,
barbed wire, high perimeter walls, emergency alarms
o Transportation infrastructure: vehicle based (rather than mass transport), roads
(proliferation of roundabouts to prevent hijackings)
Accumulation by Dispossession
• David Harvey
• A process through which low-income communities are dispossessed of valuable land and
resources that will generate capital gains for the state or the market
• Dispossession takes place largely through urban development and gentrification projects
• Space (often land) is essential for the right to the city
• Right to the city
o Form of critical scholarship and a mode of political activism
o Coined by Lefebvre in 1960s
o Class project, concerned with the relationship between capitalism and urbanized
o Advocate rights of urban residents to live, work, play; both democratic rights and social-
cultural rights and access to urban resources (education, transportation, housing, green
space, water), regardless of legality
o The right not only to participate in the advantages of urban resources but to participate in
the production of urban space
History:
• 1900, nearly all of Southeast Asia under western rule (except Thailand)
• Post WWII: independence
• 1970s and 80s: Successes of Asian Tigers
o Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore
o Massive growth, rapid industrialization, free trade, low taxation, state-led growth
o Key leaders in manufacturing and export led growth
o 1997, Economic Crisis, resulted in structural adjustment
o SAPs imposed
o 2000s, lost decades
Structural Adjustment
• 60s-70s, debt-led growth
• Leverage debt to restructure third world economies through loans
• Open economies, rolling back the state, free market liberalization, privatization of state resources
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find more resources at oneclass.com