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36281. Water for Big Cities: Big Problems, Easy Solutions?

Author:
Richard Middleton, John Kalbermatten, and Peter Rogers
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In large urban area of developing countries, about 30% of the population does not have access to safe water, and 50% does not have adequate sanitation. That means that over 500 million people do not have safe water, and 850 million people do not have proper sanitation. By the year 2020, there will be nearly 2 billion more people in urban areas needing these services. Putting it another way, in the next 20 years water supply coverage will have to more than triple, and sanitation coverage more than quadruple, if everyone in these countries is to be adequately served. To do this, even at a low consumption figure of 100 liters/person/day, will require an additional 88 BCM/year - both of water to be supplied and of wastewater to be safely disposed of.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Government, and Industrial Policy

36282. Urbanization and Security

Author:
Alan Gilbert
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
This paper will argue that no consistent or meaningful relationship exists between urbanization and security. For a start, the words urbanisation and security do not mean a great deal because they embrace too many cross-cutting ideas and processes. Second, researchers have found few consistent correlations between the numerous dimensions of security and urbanisation. Third, insofar as one can find a close correlation, independent variables usually account for the statistical relationship. Fourth, even when a direct correlation between security and urbanisation exists, the direction of causation is by no means obvious. Finally, every country and every city contains so much internal variation that most generalisations across nations, let alone across regions, are rendered meaningless.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Civil Society, Development, and Government

36283. Population, Urbanization, Environment, and Security: A Summary of the Issues

Author:
Ellen Brennan
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
One of the most striking features of world population growth is the rising predominance of the developing world. Currently, 81 million persons are added annually to the world's population—95 percent of them in developing countries. The second striking feature is related to urban growth. Although the growth of world urban population has been slower than projected twenty years ago, it has nevertheless been unprecedented. In 1950, less than 30 per cent of the world's population were urban dwellers. Between 1995 and 2030, the world's urban population is projected to double—from 2.6 to 5.1 billion, by which time three-fifths of the world's population will be living in urban areas (United Nations 1998b). As in the case of total population, there will be a significant redistribution of world urban population between the developed and the developing regions. Currently, 59 million new urban dwellers are added annually— 89 percent in developing countries. By 2025-2030, 76 million will be added annually—98 percent in developing countries.
Topic:
Security, Demographics, Environment, and Industrial Policy

36284. Organized Crime: Its Influence on International Security and Urban Community Life in the Industrial Cities of the Urals

Author:
Yuriy Voronin
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Russia is facing new difficulties as a result of negative processes in the economy, the deterioration of interethnic relations, and the social polarization of its society, which have created a direct threat to the security of the urban life in the country. This threat is a consequence of the increase in the proportion of the population living below the poverty line, the stratification of society into a small group of rich citizens and a vast majority of needy citizens, and the escalation of social tension, especially in the industrial cities of the Urals, Siberia, and other regions. At present there is a twenty-eight fold difference between the richest ten percent of the Russian population and the poorest ten percent. Although this unequal distribution of wealth is not very different from what existed in the pre-Revolutionary period in Russia, the striking discrepancy is shocking to a population that was accustomed to an ideological commitment to equality and -- despite the collapse of Communism -- continues to retain the socialist ideal of economic parity. Citizens perceive that they have been "robbed" of the assets that they were supposed to have inherited from the Soviet state. Ironically, the new holders of wealth are an alliance of former Communist Party bureaucrats, organized criminals, and dishonest businesspersons. This so-called "gangster industrial complex" is as oblivious to the needs of the people as was the former Soviet ruling elite.
Topic:
Security and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Asia

36285. Public Housing in Washington, D.C.: With Moscow in Mind

Author:
Vyacheslav Glazychev
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The pitiful state of public housing in Washington, D.C., was well known in 1994, when Vyacheslav Glazychev, president and founder of the Academy of the Urban Environment in Moscow, was here trying to understand the function of the Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and in 1997 when he returned to spend several months as a Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Based on his observations of Washington, D.C. and his extensive experience in Moscow, he found that despite the obvious differences in handling the issue of public housing in Washington, D.C. and Moscow, at least one thing is comparable: in both cities money spent on maintenance and repair has been insufficient while priority has long been given to new construction.
Topic:
Economics and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

36286. Challenging Traditional Participation in Brazil: The Goals of Participatory Budgeting

Author:
Pedro Jacobi
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Using the mechanism of “participatory budgeting” implemented in the city of Porto Alegre, Pedro Jacobi analyses a new practice of resource allocation in several Brazilian urban areas. He comes to the conclusion that participatory budgeting is an effective tool in the democratization of the city's management— helping to break old patterns of clientelist relations. According to Jacobi, the new mechanism promotes decentralization of municipal decision-making and increases public control over the city's investment policies.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
South America and Latin America

36287. The Legacy of Habitat II: Issues of Governance

Author:
K.C Sivaramakrishnan
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Debate on how the Habitat II Conference in Istanbul influenced thinking on issues of urban governance will have to be preceded by some understanding of what was sought and what was achieved at the conference. The Istanbul conference was an international “happening” that began with a series of events before and during the conference itself. Habitat II adopted a Global Plan of Action (GPA) and an Istanbul Declaration (ID) as the official documents of the conference, summarizing the discussions and the outcomes. This paper is limited to the discussions and recommendations of the GPA on the issues of urban governance, which are gathered mainly in its part D, under the title “Capacity Building and Institutional Development.” To what extent does this chapter reflect an understanding of the realities of urban governance? What is the assessment of the new challenges in this regard, in the context of major political, economic, and social shifts across the world in the wake of increased globalization of trade, investment, and information?
Topic:
Economics, Government, Industrial Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Istanbul

36288. Yet Another Transition? Urbanization, Class Formation, and the End of National Liberation Struggle in South Africa

Author:
David Everatt
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
South Africa is one of the most unequal societies on earth. While all South Africans now share equal political rights, they have very different social, economic, and other needs. This is true among and between black South Africans. The black middle class and new ruling class elements have left the townships to live in formerly white-only suburbs, leaving townships more evenly poor. Resentment among squatters, backyard dwellers, and formal homeowners result from high levels of exploitation of these informal settlement residents by their (black) landlords. ANC appeals for township residents to pay their rent and service charges have been ignored. This divide between the black South Africans in turn impacts politics at the local level. Those living in backyard or informal dwellings lack an organizational home. Fear of reprisal from landlord-cum-political leaders prevents many poorer township residents from attending ANC meetings. At the bottom, below even the squatters, lie the migrants from outside South Africa, blamed for crime, dirt, disease and for taking away the few social and economic opportunities that exist. The ANC cannot promise a radical transformation of South African society or economy, bringing poorer citizens back into the fold with talk of dramatic redistribution.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Industrial Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

36289. Territorial Exclusion and Violence: The Case of São Paulo, Brazil

Author:
Raquel Rolnik
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
One of the single most defining features of Brazilian cities today is their dual built environment: one landscape is produced by private entrepreneurs and contained within the framework of detailed urban legislation, and the other, three times larger, is self-produced by the poor and situated in a gray area between the legal and the illegal. In addition to being an expression of economic and social disparities, this contrast has profound implications for the form and function of the cities. The sprawl of what are here termed “precarious peripheries” has led to a great disconnection of poorly urbanized spaces from the city center where jobs and cultural and economic opportunities are concentrated. The effects of this persistent “territorial exclusion” are devastating and occur in both the peripheries and the city center.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Industrial Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Latin America

36290. Ethnicity, Capital Formation, and Conflict

Author:
Richard N. Cooper
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
"Development" implies change over time. More specifically, the term implies that particular features of the society, the economy and the polity increase in magnitude with the passage of time.This essay treats development as the process of structural change. As societies develop, they transform: towns grow, industry expands, and per capita incomes rise as labor shifts from employment in agriculture to employment in industry (Kuznets 1966; Polanyi 1944; Chenery and Taylor 1968 ). One source of increased incomes is a growing stock of productive inputs and, in particular, of capital. As each worker gains access to an increased stock of capital, each becomes more productive and the level of output per capita rises. Another source is technical change. In industry, possibilities exist for increasing returns to scale and for complementarities that agriculture lacks. Labor employed in town gains access to technologies that are more productive than those in villages. The shift of employment from agriculture to industry and from village to town therefore results in a rise in per capita output.
Topic:
Development, Ethnic Conflict, and Migration
Political Geography:
Africa