NEW – News

CSD 13: The Slums must help themselves

Expectations that CSD 13 would correct the almost total failure of the Johannesburg-Summit regarding settlements and local development were bitterly disappointed. CSD 13 again failed to deal with the problems of the cities in the north or the east (environment, traffic, financial, social) as well as with the urban consequences of economic globalisation, privatisation, sub-urbanization, population changes.

Housing on the Defensive

Prices are escalating, unaffordability is rising, with people paying more and more of their incomes for housing problem; segregation is not declining and often increasing; security of tenure is a problem not only in the Third World but also in Canada and the United States, where foreclosures and evictions are increasing; housing is in short supply absolutely almost everywhere. Even in developed countries homelessness is a continuing problem and there are cut-backs in social provision. What explains this situation, 85 years after the first publicly-built housing in the United States, 70 years after the New Deal’s housing programs, more than a century of social welfare programs featuring housing in most developed countries, decades of declarations and setting of ambitious housing goals by international agencies and the United Nations? Peter Marcuse proposes a radical back-to-basics review of the housing situation, what explains it, and what can be done about it.

Privatization of Clifton Beach

Where would the common man be in the glittering world of five-star hotels, private lagoons, shopping plazas, high-rise buildings and other urban monstrosities? What happens to the traditional donkey cart races, the congregation of youths on New Year's Eve and lakhs of common visitors who go to the Clifton beach for innocent enjoyment of sea breeze, the sandy beach and a view of the immemorial Arabian Sea. Extract from V. A. JAFAREY's letter to the daily Dawn Karachi See below details of this letter and other news items on Clifton Beach's privatization.

Briefing on homelessness and landlessness

Special Rapporteur on Right to Adequate Housing said that the driving forces behind homelessness were poverty; rapid economic globalization, which had worsened inequality in housing and land ownership; increasing trends towards privatization and land speculation; lack of affordable housing options; unplanned and involuntary urban migration; large-scale development and infrastructure projects, including dams that led to mass displacement; and ongoing conflicts around the world.

Brazil Landless Workers Movement

Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Portuguese, is the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 landless members organized in 23 out 27 states. The MST carries out long-overdue land reform in a country mired by unjust land distribution. In Brazil, less than 3% of the population owns two-thirds of the land on which crops could be grown.

Social Production of Habitat: a Sustainable Alternative for the Development of Human Settlements?

The overall UN HABITAT (ROLAC) research on Social Production of Habitat in Latin America intends to analyse current modalities of “Social Production of Habitat” (SPH) as a viable alternative to conventional approaches addressing urban shelter problems in impoverished human settlements. It is the intention, as an outcome of this work, to draw-up conclusions and recommendations based on a case study analysis.

Translate Rights into Action

Orientation on the recognition, realization and defense of local dwellers’ human rights within all strategies towards human settlements development is a basic pre-requisite in order to avoid or overcome social exclusion and poverty. Promoting rights mobilizes peo-ple to work on their own solutions, builds capacities for responsible and democratic re-forms and allows duty holders to work on sustainable responses to basic needs. Instead of treating people as a problem human settlement policies must reaffirm people as key to solve the problems.