Poverty and inequality are the main problems that affected the world today. Overpopulation and poverty manifest themselves most dramatically and visibly in the housing conditions of the cities. Those unable to afford regular housing, or to purchase undeveloped land, congregate in illegal or squatter settlements (shantytowns), especially around the major metropolises.
According to Sachs, the main causes of poverty are different economic development of the nations, legal and social problems, and the inability of small governments to fight diseases and improve medical services. The poverty that affects the urban poor is particularly felt by women, whose health and psyches are closely tied to their roles as wives and mothers. Violence, calamity, and fear have become part of the life of many urbanites in recent decades. Wars between nations, civil wars, revolutions, riots, and protests have all complicated life in the cities and compounded already pressing urban problems. “Poverty is a result of corrupt leadership and retrograde cultures that impede modern development” (Sachs 52). Depending on the specific country, numbers ranging from dozens to hundreds of thousands of persons have died as the result of violent conflicts. Even more, have been injured, and millions have become displaced persons, either internally or as official international refugees. “People are the “poorest of the poor,” or the “extremely poor” of the planet. They all live in developing countries (poverty does exist in rich countries, but it is not extreme poverty)” (Sachs, p. 14).
We should be concerned about world poverty because it influenced developed nations and their development. Poverty can be compared with diseases that affected third world countries and but infected the developed countries as well. In fact, there are millions of refugees in the Middle East, more than any other region in the world (a figure that does not include the millions displaced within countries). The struggle for power and control of governments is one of the most prominent issues–and conflicts–facing the world today. Headed by monarchies and dictatorships, and only a few democracies, the region’s political systems are anachronistic compared to those in much of the world; and the people want a greater voice in their own destinies. In most cases, opposition to the government is led by specific groups, especially within cities and particularly in the national capitals. Examining a number of factors of urbanization, they emphasize that it is not simply urban growth and huge population increases that cause political unrest. Rather, specific grievances or sharp declines in the status quo (food prices or availability of employment opportunities in particular) are more significant (McKibben, p. 115).
In order to eliminate poverty countries should invest in medicine and healthcare, educate people about diseases and support local economies. The author suggests what factors will lead either to amelioration of problems, simmering (no improvement but no violence), or the outbreak of political violence. Migration continued unabated, fueled initially, by the new government’s promises of land and housing in the cities. An extremely high rate of natural population growth also spurred urban expansion (Sachs, p. 74). The local government system, consisting of provincial local administration (an extension of the office of centrally appointed provincial government responsible for certain local functions), municipalities, and villages, was based on the principle of delegation, and not devolution, of authority. The duties of the local governmental units were delineated in great detail by numerous laws. The central government also had close control of the financial resources of the local governmental units (McKibben, p. 150).
Women are unable to achieve normal personhood through motherhood, their predicament highlights the cultural imperative of motherhood, the pressures that all women experience on the way to becoming full-fledged mothers, and the resultant desires of women to prove themselves “productive” in the reproductive realm, thereby “tying their husbands with children.” the gender politics of marriage among the urban poor, focusing explicitly on the identity and marital crises that revolve around the reproductive dilemmas of infertility and excess fertility. “The truck could rush women with childbirth complications and children with acute complications of anemia to the hospital” (Sachs, p. 253). Although most poor urban husbands do not exercise their socially sanctioned power and authority in the negative ways to be described in this paper, many still do, precipitating marital crises for their unempowered wives. Such conjugal crises will be described in the stories of two women, whose names and those of their husbands have been changed to protect their privacy. As a result, their children may be malnourished and sickly, and infant and child mortality is an experience common to many poor urban families.
The commercial portions of the informal sector are located largely in public space and at transportation nodes with high-density pedestrian traffic. Service portions are usually hidden from public view, especially those in the marginal, illegal, and female-based portions of the informal sector. Gender dimensions within the informal sector have generally been underestimated and unappreciated. Police intervention, licensing, and administrative supervision serve to fashion a position for the informal sector within the larger urban economy. The lack of alternative economic modes also serves to perpetuate it. As such, the informal sector can be defined as a special economic niche within a unitary but structurally diverse economic system, rather than part of a parallel or dual system. Participants in the informal sector follow highly patterned internal organization and regulation; it is not a spontaneous or unstructured activity, despite terminology suggesting the opposite. Some historical studies of the urban Middle East also show that the informal economy has been present in one degree or another for many centuries (McKibben, p. 160). The crisis facing modern cities is reflected in the health and nutritional status of their residents. Although economists may argue that household incomes are the most unambiguous measure of household well-being, many planners also consider health and nutritional status as key summary indicators of quality of life. Similar to income, health status and nutrition are not only outcome measures but they predict productivity and economic growth (Sachs, p. 78).
I agree with Sachs’s conclusions and suppose that massive investments in health, education, food security, and housing will be required if the continued urbanization is to be linked to economic growth and increased equity of access to the satisfaction of basic human needs. Much of the city’s recent growth has been characterized by absorption of additional generations and population from the rural areas into old, dilapidated housing and even into structures not intended for permanent habitation; a large portion of new construction has been of the informal, “wildcat” type outside of oversight or adherence to health and safety standards. The shortage of housing units is more than a quarter-million by official estimates, and almost all of the poor population lives in substandard housing. The pressure on housing has resulted in the utilization of practically every available space within the city for human dwelling purposes. Analysis of large-scale trends and statistics related to urban crisis reveals important information about major migrations, population shifts, and economic interactions, but it also necessarily neglects the microlevel politics of individual daily lives and routine relationships (Sachs, p. 77). By examining a movement such as the new veiling in Cairo through a small-scale study, we can better understand important aspects of these larger trends. People’s own accounts of the crises they face in their everyday lives emerge, allowing us to understand in concrete terms how political change is played out and giving us important new information about abstractions such as “Islamic fundamentalism,” “population explosion,” “mass poverty,” and “urban crisis.” By listening to women in the lower-middle class, it is possible to see the realities of urban crisis and political change. The degree to which these pressure points are problematic can vary from high to medium to low, and they tend to vary between large and small to medium-sized cities as well as between cities in developing countries and those in developed countries. Hence, we find that all of the pressure points, except for recreation and crime, are high for the large cities in developing countries; but only energy, education, and health are high-pressure points for small and medium-sized cities in developing countries. The cities of the Middle East would generally fit this pattern, except that crime is probably a low-pressure point even in the largest cities. Perhaps the result of strong family values and the pervasive moral influence of Islam, the low crime rate is at least one positive attribute of Middle Eastern cities compared not only to the rest of the developing world but to the developed world as well, where street crime is one of the worst urban problems.
References
- McKibben, Bill. Deep Economy. Times Books, 2007.
- Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty. Penguin, 2005.