Poverty & Deprivation in Urban Areas (DP IB Geography)
Revision Note
Written by: Bridgette Barrett
Reviewed by: Jenna Quinn
Poverty in Urban Areas
Poverty is defined as an individual not having the resources needed to meet a certain standard of living
In urban areas, poverty often means that people do not have:
Basic services such as clean water, sanitation and electricity
Adequate housing
Access to healthcare and education
There is wide variation in wealth across urban areas
In HICs, the poorest areas are usually found in the inner city areas around the CBD
In contrast, the poorest areas are the squatter settlements usually found at the rural urban fringe
Poverty and deprivation lead to a variety of problems in urban areas
All cities have levels of inequality, but LICs are amongst the worst affected
Many low-income families are 'pulled' to informal settlements around towns and cities, looking for a sense of 'belonging' with others in the same situation
In other areas without a strong social network or cities with recently arrived large populations, high levels of crime, begging and petty theft are more common
Overall, this creates urban poverty that degrades both the physical and social environment around that area
This makes it difficult for people to escape from poverty and they fall victim to the vicious 'cycle of poverty’ and urban poverty becomes ingrained within the city
Combined with a lack of suitable work, housing, water supply, sewerage, solid waste disposal and pollution, the quality of life for people in cities is low
Poverty and deprivation are passed on from one generation to the next
Children will tend to get less parental support and usually have to attend inadequate schools
They also tend to leave school early with few qualifications
Lack of qualifications means they cannot find well-paid employment and rely on social handouts
Children they have will be born into this cycle and so families remain ‘trapped’ and unable to improve their circumstances
This feeds into a lower quality of life
Deprivation in Urban Areas
Deprivation is connected with poverty and occurs when a person’s well-being falls below an acceptable minimum standard
The minimum standard varies from country to country and applies to several different aspects of daily life
It is about more than just not having enough money
There are several indicators of deprivation, including:
Economic: Access to employment and levels of income
Social: Crime rates, levels of health, access to health care and the proportion of lone-parent families
Environmental: Noise, air pollution and derelict land
Political: Opportunities to vote and participate in the community
Physical: Levels of pollution, vandalism, graffiti and quality of housing
Housing: Level of amenities, overcrowding, central heating
Informal Activity in Urban Areas
Informal housing
Availability and affordability of housing cannot keep up with the rate at which the urban population is increasing in LICs and MICs
This leads to people building their own homes on any vacant land using scrap materials like cardboard, corrugated iron and plastic
The UN defines informal settlements as:
Contiguous settlement where the inhabitants are characterised as having inadequate housing and basic services
They are unplanned and unregulated housing (informal settlements) with little sanitary facilities, fresh water or reliable energy supply
The characteristics of the land include that it is:
Not usually owned by the residents
In areas of no economic value
On the urban edges or fringes
Along main roads or railways
Clinging onto the side of steep slopes
Depending on the country, these informal settlements, or squatter settlements, are also called:
Favelas in Brazil
Shanty towns in the West Indies and Canada
Bustees on the Indian subcontinent
Skid row in the USA
Townships in South Africa
In developing countries, about a quarter of urban inhabitants (1.6 billion) live in these impoverished squatter settlements and by 2030, the UN estimates that 1 in 4 people on the planet will live in some form of informal settlement
Some cities have 'mega-slums', which are extensive overcrowded areas usually within megacities
The largest are found:
Nairobi, Kenya, with a population of 1.5 million, is crowded into 3 sprawling slums of mud huts and tin shacks, - Kibera being the largest of the 3
Neza, Mexico City, Mexico, has a population of 1.1 million people
Dharavi, Mumbai, India, has 1 million people in a warren of narrow lanes, interconnected shacks and single-room living spaces that double as factories
Orangi Town, Karachi, Pakistan, has an estimated population of 2.4 million people across 8000 acres of concrete block homes, with 8–10 people sharing two or three rooms
Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa, has a population of 400,000 in iron and wooden shacks
These unregulated areas of housing present serious risks such as fire, flooding and landslides
Informal settlements typically suffer from:
Poor, overcrowded, small housing, built very close together using inadequate material and with uncertain electricity supplies
They have restricted access to water supplies
Little to no sanitation facilities and no solid waste disposal, which leads to a polluted and degraded local environment
There are inadequate health facilities, which, along with poor living conditions, increase sickness and death rates
The population in these areas have insecure living conditions as they may be forcibly removed by landowners or other authorities
Informal employment
Urban areas, particularly in LICs have rapidly growing populations and job creation cannot match the pace of growth
As a result, unemployment and underemployment are not unusual
People will often work on street corners doing informal work like shining shoes, giving haircuts, providing transport, selling water or food
These jobs are often unskilled and labour-intensive and require little money to set up
The informal economy leaves cities without income to provide adequate services as workers pay no taxes
It also makes wages and working conditions difficult to regulate
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