“ Outline the nature and causes of the housing problems in LEDC’s. Critically evaluate the response of private and public bodies to the problem.
...in public utilities. However most slum areas are not very suitable for comfortable living. There can be lack of appropriate housing including no electricity, no water or proper sewage disposal. This can cause disease, which can be passed on throughout the slum area and possibly to the surrounding urban area. The most common element of informal settlements is that the land on which the housing is built has been acquired illegally. Without the planning permission given there can be no demands for proper site services and amenities. The term ‘pirate urbanisation’ has been used to describe this. An example of this was in Heliopolis favela in Sao Paulo Brazil. In the 1970’s rapid rural to urban migration occurred due to the employment opportunities created from industrialisation. The land was originally public land, and by 1994 70% of the housing constructed was without regulation and without security of tenure. Throughout the 1970’s groups exorcised illegal influence over the settlement resulting in the creation of residential societies. Over time the land became more valuable with laws being put in place to restrict further expansion and security of tenure. Until the 1960’s, the common response of developing world governments was to force the people off the land, bulldoze the land, and construct government owned housing units (i.e. ‘clearance and renewal’). Shantytown clearance schemes were intended by the governments to deter rural to urban migration and to slow down the rate of urbanisation to a pace they could cope with. Shantytowns also conveyed the wrong image to other countries and were seen as a threat to the value of established housing areas. The policy of ‘Clearance and renewal’ was roundly criticised. The government addressed the needs of wealthy minority before the needs of the poor and segregated them. The governments have been largely unable or unwilling to build the number of housing units required by new in-migrants and the rent on the government built housing has generally been beyond the means of the vast majority of low-income families. Such schemes have only been successful in Hong Kong, Singapore and Saudi Arabia. In these cases, the government has had enough money to provide adequate and the economy has expanded sufficiently so that workers can earn enough money to be able to afford the rents charged for dwelling units. In countries such as Mexico, a rent control policy was introduced to make private rented housing more affordable to low-income families. The policy offered some protection to low paid workers, but rent control discouraged landlords from spending on the maintenance and upgrading of the houses, leading to a deterioration in the living conditions of the tenants. Rent control also discouraged private developers from building further housing units. During the 1970’s it was gradually accepted that most developing world governments could not build sufficient houses to solve the housing problem, so some form of ‘self help’ housing programmes had to be introduced. In these site and service and with upgrading existing housing ar...