The lack of affordable housing for low-income urban households in developing countries has resulted in a proliferation of slums and squatter settlements. There are many characteristics common to life in urban poverty: an appalling reality for one-fourth to one-third of all urban households in the world.

Roots: Most urban slum and shantytown dwellers were originally from rural areas and were driven to towns and cities by poverty.

Youth: Because rural migrants to cities and towns continue to have the large families common in the countryside, the average age of slum inhabitants is very low.

Overcrowding and Squalor: Population density in slums is the highest in the world. Overcrowding, lack of safe water, and inadequate waste disposal, drainage and sanitary systems create conditions hazardous to health.

Women householders: Women-headed households are among the poorest and typically represent a high proportion of those in informal settlements worldwide.

No services: Most slum households must fetch their water from a standpipe and deposit their waste in open drains.

Malnutrition and disease: Slum dwellers are dependent on cash to secure food. Because incomes are very low, children are malnourished.

Premature adulthood: Children are often pulled out of school to earn extra income. Many are abandoned or leave home.

Polluted environment: Poor cities have some of the worst levels of air pollution in the world.

Sources: Compilation based on material from the UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), Cities in a Globalizing World – Global Report on Human Settlements 2001; Earthscan Publications, London, 2001; and UNCHS; the State of the World’s Cities 2001, UNCHS, Nairobi 2001.

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