Debating Urban Housing Needs

Some one in two people in the world now live in cities and the projection of the population living in cities in Southeast Asia in 2025 is expected to multiply equally rapidly. Furthermore, the population forecasts of the distribution of this urban population is that the majority will be concentrated in the largest metropolitan areas or regions. A 2001–2002 survey released by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions informs us that as many as 7 million persons living in 60 countries were forcibly evicted from their homes. Similarly some 6 million and more people were living under the threat of forced eviction in 38 countries.

Housing remains a major issue particularly in the developing world. The resistance that is mounted against forced eviction is often met by brutal reprisal. People who are being removed from their homes are fighting against not only the devastation of their neighbourhoods and communities but also the destruction of their livelihoods. These livelihoods depend on key social ties and networks that are extremely place-bound. Odd-job contract workers on construction sites or other urban businesses require a network of persons who know where to contact them. The fragility of these networks is such that, once the people move away, contact can be broken and never re-established. Hence forced evictions can cause havoc to the economic and social well-being of urban poor families.

Rapid population growth and the phenomenon of in-migration — rural–urban, circular, or temporary — have been major contributory forces in explaining the heady pace of urbanization in Southeast Asia. Such rapid urban growth has often been held accountable for the abject housing and general living conditions in the major cities of the region — Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, and Ho Chi Minh City. Squatter and slum communities have been featured almost as regularly as the pre- 1997 economic boom in the countries in which these cities are located. There are reports that in the metropolitan centres in the Philippines, squatting has become a serious problem, especially in the capital and largest city, Metro-Manila. According to reports, the degree of overcrowding and squalor of the slums with their unsanitary and often life-threatening conditions defy description.