About one billion people live in slums worldwide. Slums are areas where people live in poverty in small shacks that lack sanitation. The shacks are often very small, made of low quality materials, and many people could live there at once. Slums have a negative effect on human populations because they can be the cause for diseases, create antisocial behavior, and they put people’s property at risk. Living in slums may get people sick.
Slums can be the cause for diseases. Slums are unsanitary. According to Nils Blythe, “…sanitation is poor with open sewers along the alleyways.”(Blythe7) The food and water can carry diseases that could be deadly especially to young children. Because human waste is not disposed of properly in slums, diseases are produced and they may infect people. Antisocial behavior is also a big problem in slums.
Slums could create antisocial behavior in young people. According to Sheri Fink, young people in slums, “are being socialized in this very hostile environment, and some of them become very angry, so slums are also breeding grounds for antisocial behavior."(Fink 6) Some of these people become loiters that use drugs. Since people in slums do not have a lot of opportunities they join gangs and do drugs. In addition, slums could put peoples’ property at risk.
Slums put peoples’ property at risk. Many people living in slums do not own where they live. According to Elisabeth Eaves, “The frontier of free land is essentially over. Squatting has now been privatized."(Eaves 10) People that are new to slums have to settle in sites that are prone to natural disasters and that are hard to get to. In many cases people living in slums have to pay rent for land that is technically free but sometimes the land is dangerous. In conclusion, slums have a negative effect on human populations.
It is predicted that 2 billion people will live in slums in 2030. Slums have a negative effect on human populations because they can be the cause for diseases, create antisocial behavior, and they put peoples' property at risk. Diseases are common in slums because they lack sanitation. Slums could create antisocial behavior in young people. Slums could make people live in dangerous places. Many people live in slums but many people over the world are helping them.
Works Citied
Blythe, Nils. BBC News. 26 Feb 2008. Mumbai’s Slum Life Poses World Problem.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7265333.stm>
Eaves, Elizabeth. Forbes. 6 Nov. 2006. Two Billion Slum Dwellers.
<http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/third-world-slums-biz--cx
_21cities_ee_0611slums.html>
Fink, Sheri. Cities of the Poor I: Life in the Slums (Kenya). 18 Dec 2011. Public Radio
International: The World. <http://www.theworld.org/node/6669>
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