Environment

Poverty and Urban Environmental Conditions

Environmental problems exacerbate urban poverty. Poor cities and poor neighborhoods suffer disproportionately from inadequate water and sanitation facilities and indoor air pollution. Poor people are often forced to live in environmentally unsafe areas, steep hillsides and flood plains or polluted sites near solid waste dumps, open drains and sewers, and polluting industries.

For example, in an incident in Manila, the Philippines, a wall of refuse collapsed on squatters’ houses in Manila’s biggest dump (Payatas dump); at least 60 people were killed and dozens were missing. Such sites are often the only ones available for housing of the poor because they are unattractive to other potential users and land use policies make other locations unaffordable. The poor may have less fear of eviction in such marginal areas, but they are at much greater risk from natural and man-made disasters and from pollution. Noise pollution is also very high in certain locations. Among people living close to the suburban railway tracks (as close as ten feet away), medical doctors have recorded cases of neurosis caused by unbearable levels of noise. Poor environmental conditions lead to poor health, which aggravates poverty and often results in lower educational levels, as well as loss of income owing to sickness, disease, and increased spending on health care, which may deplete household savings. Poverty prevents people from moving to safer areas or investing in improved environments where they live. Hence, it is necessary to improve the environmental conditions of the urban poor. Population growth and physical expansion, however, are outstripping the ability of many cities to provide basic health and environmental services. By 2025, it is estimated, almost 65 percent of the world population (and an even larger share of total national economic wealth) will be concentrated in cities and towns, making it an enormous challenge to ensure that such growth is managed without seriously damaging the urban environment or the health of urban residents.

Climate Change

The impacts of climate change and natural disasters pose a number of risks to cities due to the high concentration of people and economic assets and, in many cases the hazard prone location of cities on coastal areas and along rivers. This makes them vulnerable to rising sea levels, storm surges, and floods. Within cities, impacts of climate change and disasters are distributed unevenly among urban populations. Low-income households have limited choices for location, particularly where the land available for housing is scarce or unaffordable. As a consequence, in many cities there are high concentrations of poor households typically living in slums, on land at high risk from landslides, sea-level rise, and flooding. The urban neighbourhoods that are most at risk from extreme weather events and natural disasters are made even more vulnerable by overcrowded living conditions, the lack of adequate infrastructure and services, including water, sanitation, drainage, solid waste collection, and unsafe housing, inadequate nutrition and poor health. When a disaster hits, impacts can include the loss of these basic services, damage or destruction to one’s home, reduction or loss of livelihoods, and the rapid spread of malnutrition, and water- and vector-borne diseases (particularly malaria). (See Urban Environment and Climate Change web site.)

Possible Interventions:

• Solid waste management. Large municipalities and metropolitan regions are encouraged to undertake city-wide strategic planning to design and implement integrated solid waste systems that are responsive to dynamic demographic and industrial growth. Strategic planning starts with the formulation of long-term goals based on the needs of a particular municipality, followed by a medium and short term action plan to meet the goals. The city-wide strategic plan should match service levels to user demand and affordability especially for the urban poor. (See Solid Waste Management web site).

• Water supply, sanitation, and wastewater management. Poor cities and poor neighborhoods suffer disproportionately from inadequate water and sanitation facilities. These issues are central to the environmental agenda and among the prime responsibilities of city governments. (Also see slum upgrading programs in sector-based program examples).

• Industrial pollution management. Efforts should focus on guidance for good practice in pollution management, on support for integrating environmental elements into the privatization of highly polluting industries, and on facilitating the application of innovative regulatory instruments.

• Cleaner fuels. indoor pollution due to household level energy sources is also a major cause of health poverty in cities. In may Central European countries switching from coal to gas in household eating and cooking has been effective in improving air quality.

 Back to top