Urbanization is often associated with greater independence and opportunity for women – but also with high risks of violence and constraints on employment, mobility and leadership that reflect deep gender-based inequalities.
The Asian Coalition for Community Action is challenging the traditional model of aid by providing small grants to low-income communities to upgrade the ‘slums’ or informal settlements in which they live.
David Satterthwaite asks why representatives from the federations and networks of slum or shack dwellers were absent from almost all the official events and wonders when their priorities will get the attention they deserve.
The new issue of the journal Environment and Urbanization – published today – reveals how organisations of the ‘illegal’ urban poor have made themselves matter to city governments by mapping and documenting their informal settlements and the people and businesses in them.
Three new briefs are now online and free to download:
Getting land for housing; what strategies work for low-income groups?
What role for mayors in good city governance?
Citizen driven action on urban poverty reduction.
In urban areas, the struggle by low-income groups to get housing and basic services is often a struggle to get land on which to build or to get tenure of land they already occupy.
The April 2009 issue of Environment and Urbanization is on the theme of City Governance and Citizen Action. It includes an editorial and several papers discussing the roles of mayors and civil servants in addressing urban poverty.
