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Shanty town
An imijondolo, or Shanty town, in Soweto, South Africa Shanty towns (also called squatter camps or favelas) are settlements (sometimes illegal or unauthorized) of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap plywood, corrugated metal, and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity, or telephone services. Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, or partially developed nations with an unequal distribution of wealth. In extreme cases, shanty towns have populations approaching that of a city. This page is not in reference to the city of Shantytown, located in Marathon county, Wisconsin[1].
Origins
Shanty towns tend to develop on the outskirts of cities. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, shanty towns, often called "Hobo jungles,", "favelas" or "Georgie Slums" appeared in cities across North America because of massive unemployment. Some were nicknamed "Hoovervilles" because the residents blamed the economic conditions on then President Herbert Hoover, whose decisions were popularly thought to have caused the depression. Similarly in Canada, hobo jungles were dubbed "Bennettville" after Prime Minister Bennett. The first recorded use of the word shanty, as meaning a crude dwelling, was in Ohio in 1820. It may have been derived from the French Canadian word chantier, meaning hut in a lumber camp, from the French word for timberyard. Alternatively, it could have been derived from the Irish sean tí, meaning "old house" or from the Nahuatl word chantli "home". DangersShanty town residences are almost always built without a license. Since construction is informal and unguided by urban planning, there is a near total absence of formal street grids, numbered streets, sanitation networks, electricity, or telephones. Even if these resources are present, they are likely to be disorganized, old or inferior. Shanty towns also tend to lack basic services present in more formally organized settlements, including policing, medical services, and fire fighting. Fires are a particular danger for shanty towns because of the close proximity of buildings and flammability of materials used in construction.Shanty towns usually have high rates of crime, suicide, drug use, and disease. On the other hand, observer Georg Gerster has noted (with specific reference to the invasőes of Brasilia), "squatter settlements [as opposed to slums], despite their unattractive building materials, may also be places of hope, scenes of a counter-culture, with an encouraging potential for change and a strong upward impetus."[2] Examples
Cite Soleil, Haiti, 2002
Korogocho (Kenya) see korogocho.org Australia See also
The police crush a demonstration by the South African Shackdwellers' Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, 28 September 2007 ReferencesExternal links
de:Informelle Siedlung es:Asentamiento informal fr:Bidonville sr:Divlja naselja sv:Kĺkstad Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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