Book Review: Planet of Slums and Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters; a New Urban World

Both these books are on a topic that will interest readers of Environment and Urbanization – the urban “slums” and informal settlements that now house around one-sixth of the world’s population. Both books are also generating interest in this topic outside of specialist discussions on urban development. Despite the very different bases from which they are written, they share some conclusions, especially very negative opinions of the role of local civil society organizations. This commentary on these two books is less of a review and more a discussion of why I think this damns the processes that are most important in addressing the problems these books describe.( )

In one sense, the books could not be more different. Planet of Slums is based on a careful, wide-ranging review of available literature on this topic by an author who has previously published several highly-regarded books on urban issues. Shadow Cities is written by a journalist, and is based primarily on the author’s experience of living in “slums” in four cities.

The core of Planet of Slums is a series of chapters describing in detail, and with many examples, the very poor living conditions in which hundreds of millions of urban dwellers live in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. It describes how “slums” grow and develop, drawing both on historical and contemporary accounts; it also covers well the diverse forms that “slums” take. It discusses the many anti-urban and anti-migrant policies of both colonial and post-colonial governments that have contributed to their growth. It emphasizes how poverty is created or exacerbated by government “slum” eviction programmes, and how these are often justified by “criminalizing” their inhabitants. It also emphasizes the much-reduced scope for low-income groups to illegally occupy land on which they can build housing – which, over the past five decades, has been an important means through which many have built or acquired their own home. It describes the health problems that “slum” dwellers face and the increases in urban poverty associated with structural adjustment; also, the highly exploitative nature of most work in the informal economy. The author highlights how cities, instead of being a focus for growth and prosperity, become a dumping ground for a surplus population working in unskilled, unprotected and low-wage informal service industries and trade. He suggests that “…the future of human solidarity depends on the militant refusal of the new urban poor to accept their terminal marginality within global capitalism” (page 202).

Shadow Cities is based around the author’s account of his time spent living in squatter settlements in Mumbai, Istanbul, Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro. There are also chapters on the role of squatters in building cities in Europe and the United States. From this, the author reflects on housing and urban development and on property rights. The book’s main theme that “squatters are building the cities of tomorrow” is pertinent, although hardly original. What these books share is strong opinions on the ineffectiveness of local organizations working in cities to address the problems they describe. This includes local governments, local NGOs and grassroots organizations. In Planet of Slums, local NGOs are dismissed as having “…proven brilliant at co-opting local leadership as well as hegemonizing the social space traditionally occupied by the Left” (page 76). Shadow Cities dismisses local NGOs, mainly on the basis of the author’s visit to three NGOs in Nairobi.

Shadow Cities also dismisses the work of federations formed by “slum” dwellers. The chapter on Mumbai suggests that the approach of the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India to addressing the problem of slums is “feel-good” organizing; the author also suggests that this Federation ignores corrupt political structures and avoids confrontation to obtain international support. But what this Federation does, within its