Squatter Settlements

Areas of dense, low-quality housing around many large cities in the developing world, usually formed by illegal occupation, or “squatting,” of unclaimed land. Squatter communities are created by the migration of poor, rural residents to cities who are drawn there by the push-pull concept, especially the allure of higherpaying jobs. Over the past forty years many urban areas in the developing world have witnessed a surge in new arrivals from the hinterland they serve, and the supply of local housing has simply been unable to keep pace with the increase in population. New residents have therefore been forced to build ramshackle sheds on unclaimed or public land. 

Globally, an enormous number of people live in squatter settlements, with some estimates running as high as one billion, and in some cities the residents living in such conditions may approach one-quarter of the population, although exact figures for the number of people living in local squatter neighborhoods are frequently difficult to obtain. In the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America squatter settlements are locally referred to as barrios, while in Brazil a community of illegal residents is called a favela. The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city, has more than 600 of these settlements, and the United Nations estimates that about 26 percent of Brazil’s total population lives as squatters. In South Africa the local squatter settlements are called shanty towns.

The shanty towns found around South African cities have expanded exponentially over the past 20 years, due to the elimination of the laws that prohibited blacks from settling in many urban areas. Under the system of apartheid, the white-dominated government had created some squatter communities by forcefully relocating illegal residents to maintain racial segregation in urban areas; but as apartheid was dismantled, many rural blacks migrated to the cities and established new shanty towns. 

Regardless of where the squatter settlement is located, all such developments share some basic characteristics. Housing is inferior, often built haphazardly on unstable ground like the sides of hills and ravines. Building materials are usually scrap wood and sheet metal, cardboard and plastic. Most of the structures lack flooring, and frequently thousands of shacks, perhaps homes to ten thousand people, are constructed without any plumbing. Because the settlement is illegal and unplanned, in most cases streets are unpaved, narrow, and lack any naming system or other means of identification, just as individual residences have no numeral system of location. Running water is often available only at some distance, because water lines are usually not supplied to squatter settlements by municipal governments, and communal spigots are frequently the only source of water.