Cities Slums And Gender In The Global South

Developing regions are set to account for the vast majority of future urban growth, and women and girls will become the majority inhabitants of these locations in the Global South. This is one of the first books to detail the challenges facing poorer segments of the female population who commonly reside in ‘slums’. It explores the variegated disadvantages of urban poverty and slum-dwelling from a gender perspective. This book revolves around conceptualisation of the ‘gender-urban-slum interface’ which explains key elements to understanding women’s experiences in slum environments. It has a specific focus on the ways in which gender inequalities are can be entrenched but also alleviated. Included is a review of the demographic factors which are increasingly making cities everywhere ‘feminised spaces’, such as increased rural-urban migration among women, demographic ageing, and rising proportions of female-headed households in urban areas. Discussions focus in particular on education, paid and unpaid work, access to land, property and urban services, violence, intra-urban mobility, and political participation and representation. This book will be of use to researchers and professionals concerned with gender and development, urbanisation and rural-urban migration.

Inclusive Urban Development in the Global South emphasizes the importance of the neighbourhood in urban development planning, with case studies aimed at transforming current intervention practices towards more inclusive and just means of engagement with individuals and communities. The chapters explore how diversity of gender, class, race and ethnicity, citizenship status, age, ability, and sexuality is taken (or not taken) into account and approached in the planning and implementation of development policy and interventions in poor urban areas. The book employs a practical perspective on the deployment of theoretical critiques of intersectionality and diversity in development practice through case studies examining issues such as water and sanitation planning in Dhaka, indigenous rights to the city in Bolivia, post-colonial planning in Hong Kong, land reform in Zimbabwe, and many more. The book focuses on radical alternatives with the potential to foster urban transformations for planning and development communities working around the world.

Reducing Urban Violence in the Global South seeks to identify the drivers of urban violence in the cities of the Global South and how they relate to and interact with poverty and inequalities. Drawing on the findings of an ambitious 5-year, 15-project research programme supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the UK’s Department for International Development, the book explores what works, and what doesn't, to prevent and reduce violence in urban centres. Cities in developing countries are often seen as key drivers of economic growth, but they are often also the sites of extreme violence, poverty, and inequality. The research in this book was developed and conducted by researchers from the Global South, who work and live in the countries studied; it challenges many of the assumptions from the Global North about how poverty, violence, and inequalities interact in urban spaces. In so doing, the book demonstrates that accepted understandings of the causes of and solutions to urban violence developed in the Global North should not be imported into the Global South without careful consideration of local dynamics and contexts. Reducing Urban Violence in the Global South concludes by considering the broader implications for policy and practice, offering recommendations for improving interventions to make cities safer and more inclusive. The fresh perspectives and insights offered by this book will be useful to scholars and students of development and urban violence, as well as to practitioners and policymakers working on urban violence reduction programmes.

While cities often act as the engines of economic growth for developing countries, they are also frequently the site of growing violence, poverty, and inequality. Yet, social theory, largely developed and tested in the Global North, is often inadequate in tackling the realities of life in the dangerous parts of cities in the Global South. Drawing on the findings of an ambitious five-year, 15-project research programme, Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South offers a uniquely Southern perspective on the violence–poverty–inequalities dynamics in cities of the Global South. Through their research, urban violence experts based in low- and middle-income countries demonstrate how "urban violence" means different things to different people in different places. While some researchers adopt or adapt existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks, others develop and test new theories, each interpreting and operationalizing the concept of urban violence in the particular context in which they work. In particular, the book highlights the links between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities based on income, class, gender, and other social cleavages. Providing important new perspectives from the Global South, this book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and students with an interest in violence and exclusion in the cities of developing countries.

For women and girls, urbanization is often associated with greater access to education and employment opportunities, lower fertility rates, and increased independence. Yet women are often denied the same benefits and opportunities that cities offer to men. Moreover, women are frequently excluded from efforts to create more equitable and sustainable cities. Women living in urban slums particularly endure multiple hardships, with basic needs such as durable housing and access to clean water and improved sanitation facilities often going unmet. This analysis, based on data from 59 low- and middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Southern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, finds that women and their families bear the brunt of growing income inequality and failures to adequately plan for and respond to rapid urbanization.

With more than half the world’s population now living in urban areas, urbanisation is undoubtedly one of the most important phenomena of the 21st century. However, despite increasing recognition of the critical relationship between economic and social development in cities, gender issues are often overlooked in understanding the complexities of current urbanisation processes. This book seeks to rectify this neglect. Gender, Asset Accumulation and Just Cities explores the contribution that a focus on the gendered nature of asset accumulation brings to the goal of achieving just, more equitable cities. To date neither the academic debates nor the formulated policy and practice on just cities has included a focus on gender-based inequalities, discriminations, or opportunities. From a gender perspective, a separate discourse exists, closely associated with gender justice, particularly in relation to urban rights and democracy. Neither, however, has addressed the implications for women’s accumulation of assets and associated empowerment for transformational pathways to just cities. In this book, contributors specifically focus on gender and just cities from a wide range of gendered perspectives that include households, housing, land, gender-based violence, transport, climate, and disasters.

The city is the home of prosperity. It is the place where human beings find satisfaction of basic needs and access to essential public goods. The city is also where ambitions, aspirations and other material and immaterial aspects of life are realized, providing contentment and happiness. It is a locus at which the prospects of prosperity and individual and collective well-being can be increased. However, when prosperity is restricted to some groups, when it is used to pursue specific interests, or when it is a justification for financial gains for the few to the detriment of the majority, the city becomes the arena where the right to shared prosperity is claimed and fought for. As people in the latter part of 2011 gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, in front of London’s St Paul’s cathedral, or in New York’s Zuccotti Park, they were not only demanding more equality and inclusion; they were also expressing the need for prosperity to be shared across all segments of society. What this new edition of State of the World’s Cities shows is that prosperity for all has been compromised by a narrow focus on economic growth. UN-Habitat suggests a fresh approach to prosperity beyond the solely economic emphasis, including other vital dimensions such as quality of life, adequate infrastructures, equity and environmental sustainability. The Report proposes a new tool – the City Prosperity Index – together with a conceptual matrix, the Wheel of Prosperity, both of which are meant to assist decision makers to design clear policy interventions. The Report advocates for the need of cities to enhance the public realm, expand public goods and consolidate rights to the 'commons' for all as a way to expand prosperity. This comes in response to the observed trend of enclosing or restricting these goods and commons in enclaves of prosperity, or depleting them through unsustainable use. The Report maps out major policy steps to promote a new type of city – the city of the twenty-first century – that is a 'good', people-centred city. One that is capable of integrating the tangible and more intangible aspects of prosperity, and in the process shedding off the inefficient, unsustainable forms and functionalities of the city of the previous century. By doing this, UN-Habitat plays a pivotal role in ensuring that urban planning, legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks become instruments of prosperity and well-being.