Outline the problems of housing in LEDC cities

Since 1950 the majority of LEDC’s have been transformed from rural to urban societies. The speed and scale of the current urbanisation in LEDC’s is much greater than it was in 19th century Europe; cities are growing faster and to much larger sizes. There are two main components to this growth; natural increase, which in 1995 accounted for 63% of the increase and rural to urban migration, the cause of the other 37% growth. Cities like Cairo and Mexico City receive more than 1000 new migrants every day

While economic growth leads to urbanisation, it is also true that in many LEDC’s high rates of urbanisation are found even when economic growth is slow. It is therefore the speed of growth and the lack of money at all levels that creates the housing problems in LEDC cities. National and urban governments have usually given housing a low priority. It is assumed that housing is not a productive investment compared with roads, bridges, ports and power stations. When funds are scarce housing drops down the list of priorities. Research has shown that in Mexico City and Lima spiralling inflation caused real wag

The problems of housing vary from city to city and from area to area within cities. The spontaneous housing or shanty towns are often to be found in areas of poor terrain or drainage conditions. In Rio de Janeiro the favelas are often located on steep slopes, prone to landslips in times of heavy rain. In Manila in the Philippines squatter settlements have grown up on the swampy land near to the harbour. In some areas squatter settlements develop on private land, which may well be reclaimed leading to the bulldozing of houses. While spontaneous housing built by the poor themselves often makes up more than half of the housing in large cities, it is not the only housing available to the urban poor. The amount of conventional housing is very limited but renting still remains an important option. In Calcutta and Bombay as well as in most Latin American cities, more than 50% of households are in rented accommodation. Many tenements have been sub-divided and rooms let to provide income for the landlord or main tenant. There is also much illegal building of shacks at the rear of dwellings; especially those situated on plots within easy reach of city centre employment. Access to possibilities of employment is of prime importance to recent arrivals to the city. (The ‘Bridgeheaders’ of Turner’s Housing Model). Even within spontaneous settlements there is a lot of evidence of self-built houses being extended and part let to other families to increase income. This leads to huge overcrowding and increases the pressure on services.

In conclusion, it is probably fair to say that the self-help housing schemes adopted by most LEDC cities since the late 1970’s have been the most successful in improving the living conditions for some of the urban poor. However, in the future more fundamental changes may be required. There needs to be a redistribution of resources within the cities so that the rich minority pay more to help finance housing and basic service programmes for the low paid. Alongside this there is a need for an end to land speculation which is putting the cost of land and housing beyond the reach of many low earners. Some thought also needs to be given to job creation schemes, which will bring more of the urban poor into the formal economy and so give them regular incomes en

Some topics in this essay:
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