ABSTRACT
At present, an estimated 863 million people-approximately one out of every three people in the cities of the developing world-live in informal urban settlements, also known as slums. By the year 2050, this number could reach three billion, more than a third of the world’s total population (UN 2013a; UN 2013b). Stigmatized and marginalized, slum dwellers are often voiceless in the politics of urban development. They lack access to water, sanitation, structurally sound housing, and public space. They endure overcrowding, chronic unemployment, poverty, and disease. They face the constant threat of natural disaster and eviction from untitled land. Despite these hardships, slum dwellers demonstrate remarkable fortitude. Carrying out their lives in an environment of scarcity, they survive and even flourish. Step by step, they improve the quality of their homes and forge tightly networked communities (Spencer 2009). They build high-density neighborhoods with few environmental externalities, intimate scale, and an accretive, organic beauty seldom found in formal urban precincts (Figure 15.1). Slums are difficult places to live, but they are not ghettoes of despair. While their residents face enormous challenges, they are far from impotent victims.
