World Resources Institute | By: Robin King | GPE – December 20, 2017:
There has perhaps been more attention paid to affordable housing this year than any in recent memory, but it took a tragedy to make it so. The horror of Grenfell Tower started a national conversation in the United Kingdom about inequality and the ways urgent community feedback gets lost in government bureaucracy. But more broadly, it is symptomatic of the insufficient attention being given to affordable housing everywhere as the world becomes more and more urban.
Originally published October 02, 2017: A third of all urban dwellers worldwide – 1.2 billion people – lack access to safe and secure housing. The gap is worst in lower- and middle- income countries, where some cities are growing so quickly that governments cannot build out services and infrastructure fast enough to accommodate new arrivals. The result is millions living in inadequate conditions and fraying trust in governments.
In the same week that more than 80 people died in West London earlier this year, a Nigerian court ruled the government had acted unconstitutionally when it forcibly evicted more than 5,000 people from waterfront slums in Lagos. The population of Lagos has nearly doubled in the last two decades and is on track to surpass 24 million people by 2030.
Similar stories play out every day in cities around the world. In March, a landslide at Ethiopia’s largest dumpsite killed at least 65 people as it flattened precarious houses built on top. And during the run-up to the 2016 Olympic games, Rio is estimated to have displaced up to 60,000 people to make way for new facilities, highlighting the vulnerability of people in Brazil’s favelas.
If current trends continue, by 2025 as many as 1.6 billion people around the world will lack access to affordable, adequate and secure housing…
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