Choices and decisions: Locating the poor in urban land markets

Abstract

World cities face a bleak future. Global capital, state failure, structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and a misguided non-profit sector collude to create a world of ‘megaslums’ which are ‘characterised by overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure’ (Davis 2006:22). Davis argues that slums are the product of structural processes in cities whose growth is ‘driven by the reproduction of poverty, not by the supply of jobs’ (ibid.: 16). In trying to understand growing poverty in the global economy, leading economist Dani Rodrik contends that the increasing asymmetry between capital and labour values, the decoupling of markets and regulatory institutions, and growing informalisation of work is leading to high levels of inequality and poverty within developing countries and between developing and developed economies.