Approaches to Urban Slums: A Multimedia Sourcebook on Adaptive and Proactive Strategies (Wbi Learning Resources Series)

Slums represent the worst of urban poverty. Hundreds of millions of slum dwellers around the world face the daily challenges of severe inadequacies in some of the most basic human requirements: access to water, sanitation, shelter, health and education. Inadequate planning, hostile attitudes towards slum dwellers and counter-productive policies have not only exacerbated the problems faced by slum dwellers they have simultaneously stymied the growth of urban and national economies. While the problems faced by existing slum dwellers are complex and brutal enough, urbanization is now proceeding at unprecedented rates in developing countries, and within 30 years it is expected that the number of people living in slums will double. We now have a tremendous opportunity to forestall these challenges of the future, while also addressing the challenges of the present. The authors of this multimedia sourcebook have built on a diverse and extensive body of knowledge that has accumulated over 30 years. They have synthesized our content in an effective multimedia arrangement to make sure that complex subject matter is dealt with in the most user friendly format. By distilling the key lessons and their implications for future work in the area, the multimedia sourcebook will serve as a platform for effective capacity building, policy changes and investment programs in developing countries.