SLUM AREA

A slum area has been defined as a squalid, dilapidated, overcrowded area inhabited by an inferior social and economic class. Usually, it has overcrowding in old, obsolete, dilapidated buildings which lack light, air, and sanitary facilities. Slum can be defined as a group of buildings or an area characterized by overcrowding, deterioration, unsanitary conditions, and the absence of facilities or amenities which enhance good living condition, which therefore endangers the health, safety or moral of the inhabitants of the community.  It can also be described as an environment in which a set of forces interact to give rise to a devalued physical and social image of an area by a larger community.  A slum area has proved to be physically, socially and emotionally harmful to the residents. Two schools of thought have contrasting views the causes of slums. One school of thought believes that the dirty living habits of slum dwellers and the neglects of building constitute a slum. The other school of thought is of the view that physical deterioration encourages slum habits in people. Whatever be the case, slum areas are generally not prestigious areas but are usually areas lacking proper planning.

The word “slum” is a catchall for poor housing of every kind as well as a label for the environment.  The same word denotes a mansion turned into furnished rooms or tenement and a cardboard carton sheltering a human being. Blighted areas as defined by George (1999) “is any area in which large majority of the buildings are old and in which fundamental repairs are no longer being made”.  Two criteria are: employed for the above definition namely:

a) The social image of the area

b) Its physical condition

Slum can be said to be a dilapidated and overcrowded area inhabited by an inferior social class of people. They include cabins, shanties, dens, dugouts, sheds, stalls and other manifestation or poverty. In Lagos, for example there are some areas, which can be termed as slums. These include Makoko, some parts of Iwaya – Okoagbon, Igbehinadun, Pedro (where the houses were made of bamboo sticks, on swampy land area), Mushin and Ajegunle, among others.

Classification of slums

Slum dwelling is not always a symbol of retrogression; it could be an advancement from being homeless to finding temporary shelter.  For example a young man sleeping under the Obalende bridge who suddenly gets a room in the then Maroko would definitely rejoice, as it is a step forward; unlike a man who has just been ejected from his 3 – Bedroom flat and now shares a room with a friend(he will be feeling depressed). The people living in slum areas do so because the economy of the city needs their services. It is the home for traders, craftsmen, stewards, and civil servants etc. Slum can be of two categories:

1. Districts of which had been slums right from their inception; unsanitary and wretched housing condition exists here because of the original arrangement, construction and types of building materials used in the area; and
2. Squalid housing results from misuse of dwelling units originally planned for less intensive uses.

A slum may be open-end, dead-end slum or new and old slum

1. Open-end slum is derived from the nature of the slum and the kind of people the slum accommodates. Areas such as Mushin, Oshodi, are often referred to as “transit camp” because they are inhabited by immigrants who would move at better opportunities. Some facilities exist but are not adequate and not in the required substandard.
2. Close-end/dead slum is a totally rejected area where the inhabitants are poor, impoverished and unemployed and are constrained to the area since they have no better option.
3. New or old slum: areas are those which are not really slums, but they lack some essential facilities.

 Causes of slum

Slums are not only caused by deterioration of buildings but also by inadequacy of space standard resulting in congestion of various uses and inadequacy of circulation space.  Low capital formation of the less privileged group where the income they generate is only enough for sustenance and little capital is left to utilize for improving their homes or keeping their environment healthy for human habitation.  The poor financial position of such residents is the main reason 6-10 persons live in a room.  In addition, rural-urban migration has compounded the problem as the poor migrant are unable to find decent living, hence, they find solace in cheap and poor quality housing in filthy environments.

The major causes of slum, according to George (1999), are outlined below:

1. Inadequate urban planning: Based on the problem of instability, no meaningful planning schemes could be carried out by the government. Despite the high rate of urbanization and population growth of many Nigerian cities, housing and planning are not receiving adequate attention. The planning authorities are not adequately equipped to carry out their functions.
2. Economic factors: Abject poverty has become a major obstacle to achieve the desire of good housing. This in turn has resulted in low environmental condition, resulting slums.
3. The nature of traditional cities: There are two identified causes of slum under this sub heading and they are:

• Physical characteristics: Most city cores in Africa, especially Nigeria are characterized by overcrowding notorious rural landscape, substandard and obsolete building structures and lack of planning.
• Socio-economic characteristics: Slums do not occur by themselves but by the socio-economic activities of the inhabitants. That is why slum areas, which are usually located in the city, demonstrate the image of an unkempt, shantytown, unhealthy and squalid environment. This also includes poor sanitation, environmental neglect, and lack of adherence to basic hygiene codes.

Demographic problems: Population growth of city cores is very dynamic and unpredictable.  The demographic multiplication is of two causes-high birth rate of the inhabitant on one hand and high rate of rural-urban migration on the other. The increase in population is not in proportion with the housing, social facilities and employment opportunities. Majority of the population are under-aged, which results in high dependency ratio. This in turn contributes immensely to vicious cycle of poverty, which keeps per capital income too low for any meaningful provision for housing.

Others causes of slum are:

• Deterioration of building due to poor architectural design, poor construction materials, non-conformity with town planning rules and regulations.
• Inadequacy of space standard resulting in congestion of various uses.
• Break down of infrastructural facilities, which include pipe borne water supply system, lack of maintenance of drains and roads resulting in stagnant pools breeding mosquitoes.
• Land tenure system, which encourages the subdivision of land to each member of the family resulting in small plots that cannot accommodate a good living standard.
• Overpopulation due to rural-urban drift
• Change in the use of building e.g. the change of a single household unit into two, three or sometimes four household units. 

Features of a slum neighbourhood

The prevalent features of a slum area are outlined below:

• There are serious accessibility and circulation problems: This is as a result of extremely narrow roads, potholes on roads etc. There is always traffic congestion of both human and traffic at most hours of each day. Sometimes persons go through other people’s compound to access their own house.
• Poor buildings: Houses here are characterised with obsolescence (physical, functional and economical); the houses are substandard, deteriorating, etc.
• Overcrowding: The affliction of slum living is further intensified by overcrowding and lack of privacy. ‘Crowding’ in these instances means that the houses are crowded onto available space; it also refers to crowding within the house itself.
• Poor or complete absence of waste disposal: One of the most troublesome aspects of slum life is the indiscriminate disposal of human excrement into ditches shared by dozens of families, directly on nearby canal, ponds, etc.
• Poor or complete absence of public infrastructural facilities: infrastructures such as pipe borne water are absent and are often replaced by shallow well-water which sometime sucks polluted water from open drains or stagnant water in the area.
• Epidemic outbreak such as tuberculosis, dysentery, typhoid and cholera among others.
• Poor drainage system: Some areas do not have good drainage system.
• Drug addiction: The slum area can be a fertile ground for breeding drug addicts who use drugs to ‘ease’ their suffering.
• Lack of recreational space and change of use of residential buildings is prevalent.
• Over-population: It is a general phenomenon to find more people occupying a given space – indicating that the residential density in slum neighbourhoods is very high.

The impact of slum on housing management practices

Housing management may be defined as the conscious direction and control of investment in real property with the aim of securing optimum return. Property management is the supervision, and control of interests in landed property with the aim of securing optimum return.  Housing management practice can be affected by slum in the following ways:

• The incidences of slum in the society make the original housing management objectives unachievable. Since slums areas are characterized by poor, dilapidated buildings and surroundings there is a high degree of obsolescence.
• Slum results to a reduction in building value. Since buildings are in a bad state of repairs, they will not command high rentals and consequently, fees for managing properties will be low.
• The impact of these slum areas on housing management is that it causes decline in values in a neighbourhood, since it affects the whole neighbourhood and not an isolated building.
• Slum areas are usually densely populated and overcrowded resulting to rapid depreciation as available facilities are over stretched, negatively affecting the rentals.
• Security and regularity of income: This is the ability of a property to yield income regularly. Due to the fact that the slum harbours low-income earners, the situation of default of rent is often high.
• As a result of the common social and cultural attachment of the people in slum areas, it is difficult for the housing managers and government to embark on slum clearance to upgrade the areas and thus prevent such areas from turning into slum settlements.
• The housing manager, in the course of undergoing routine inspection, is usually insulted/harassed by the residents of the area because they lack proper knowledge regarding the management need of the area.
• Hygiene problem is high because with poor sewage system, the nature and class of the people inhabiting the area makes it very difficult for the housing manager to control this class of people as they constantly litter their surroundings indiscriminately.
• Non-conforming uses: Building uses are often change indiscriminately, for example a residential building used as shop and (other uses in these areas) thereby creating more management problem.
• Reduction in property value: Location is a major determinant of property value.
• Miscellaneous problems: There are greater incidences of housing metropolitan problems in the areas. These include solving problems of determination of boundaries, e.g. fences or walls, common parts, landlord services, minor nuisances, etc.

Though newly constructed buildings still become obsolete but the degree of obsolescence varies depending on age of the buildings or buildings not properly maintained. Slum/squatter settlements reduce the value of properties thereby reducing the amount that the owner can obtain from the property, and the amount of management fees accruable to the property manager.

How to minimise the effect of slum

Due to the pressure on urban area as a result of urban growth and urbanization, many places have deteriorated, resulting in incidences of dilapidated buildings and structures in such areas; necessitating comprehensive renewal programmes for amelioration. During this process the building may be demolished and the street pattern and land use completely redesigned, or it may be retained by extensive renovation. The renewal measure may maintain the form of conservation rehabilitation and upgrading or total redevelopment.

• Conservation: This measure prevents blight/slum by preserving an area that could cause environmental hazard from further deterioration. It is used in neighbourhood with near standard quality but with some deficiencies in environmental infrastructure.
• Rehabilitation: This is the restoration of a deteriorating neighbourhood onto a good condition. Rehabilitation is used as a renewal technique in the neighbourhood where the degree of deterioration can be contained. This involves repairs of worn out area or spot clearance. In rehabilitation, people retain ownership of their properties and enhance it by self-effort and with support from government through the provision of facilities and services such as roads, water, electricity and such other facilities that may be lacking in the area.
• Upgrading: This programme involves the provision of basic infrastructural facilities and services as a short-range economic measure of improving the housing situation. It will work in an area where only renovation is required to improve the physical environment.
• Redevelopment: A more advanced case of blight/slum usually attracts total clearance. Acquisition for redevelopment, and sometimes a change of use may become inevitable. This planning technique is normally considered where conservation and rehabilitation are unable to bring out a desirable environment. The development process is similar to that of rehabilitation in that survey is made, renewal plan formulated, a public hearing is held and if found viable, approval is given by the local planning authority; and project will be ready for execution.