Operation Murambatsvina was a large-scale campaign by the government of Zimbabwe involving forced evictions and slum demolitions.
Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal redevelopment policy that aims at the demolition of informal, irregular, or low-income settlements, such as slums, tenements, and shanty towns, often justified by goals of infrastructure improvement, sanitation, transportation integration, or mitigation of hazard areas.[1][2]
Such policies generate profound socioeconomic impacts, such as the disintegration of community networks, the displacement of residents from their sources of income, and the overburdening of public services in peripheral resettlement regions. Interventions are commonly marked by conflict and organized resistance, where social movements often demand in-situ urbanization instead of pure and simple removal. Recent cases in various world metropolises continue to illustrate these tensions, involving protests against violent evictions and complex negotiations surrounding the right to housing.[3][4][5]
Slum clearance is still practiced today in various situations. During major international events, such as conferences and international sports competitions, governments are known to forcibly clear low-income residential areas as a strategy to impress international visitors and reduce the visibility of the host cities' apparent poverty, a recent and notorious example being the removal of Vila Autódromo during the construction of the Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Park.[8][9][10] Other attempts at slum clearance have occurred due to other motivations, such as the suppression of political opposition or attempts to keep certain communities under control.
Critics argue that forced slum clearance tends to ignore the social problems that cause slums. Poor families who may fall below the income threshold to afford replacement low-income housing, often families including children and working adults, need a place to live when adequate low-income housing is too expensive for them. Furthermore, informal settlements are often sites of informal economies that provide jobs, services, and livelihoods otherwise unavailable in the community.
Urban planners Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava argue that many aspects of informal settlements, namely the decentralized, mixed-use, and cohesive urban environment, are aspects worth preserving. It is argued that slum upgrading (economic integration, infrastructure assistance) is partly responsible for the rapid economic success of Tokyo.[11] Slum clearances do not remove the slum itself, and neglecting the needs of the community or its population does not eliminate the causes that create and maintain slums.[12][13]
Similarly, plans to clear slums in various non-Western contexts have proven ineffective without sufficient housing and other support for displaced communities. Academics describe these strategies as harmful in Nigeria, where the destruction of slums puts even more pressure on the already scarce housing stock, in some cases creating new slums in other parts of the community.[14] Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina was widely criticized by the international community, including a scathing UN report citing human rights violations along with flawed program design, estimated to have displaced at least 700,000 residents of informal settlements.[15]
Slum upgrading, also known as slum revitalization or slum improvement, is an integrated approach aimed at reversing the trends of decline in an area. These trends of decline can be legal (land tenure), physical (infrastructure), social (such as crime or education), or economic.[16] The main goal of slum upgrading is to transform slums into functional neighborhoods that meet the social needs of the community and improve integration into the formal urban economy.
Slum improvement is a term used primarily for projects inspired or contracted by entities like the World Bank and similar agencies. It is considered by its proponents a necessary and important component of urban development in developing countries. Many slums lack basic services from local authorities, such as the provision of potable water, sewage systems, sanitation, and solid waste management.
Governments around the world are opting for the strategy of "slum upgrading" as an alternative solution to slum clearance, aiming to improve the quality of services and infrastructure to match the community developed within the slum.[17] A leading example from Brazil is the Favela-Bairro program, conceived by architect Luiz Paulo Conde, which began in 1995.[18][19]
↑Collins, William J.; Shester, Katharine L. (2013). "Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal in the United States". American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 5 (1): 239–73. doi:10.1257/app.5.1.239. S2CID128788351.
↑Stephen K. Mayo, Stephen Malpezzi and David J. Gross, Shelter Strategies for the Urban Poor in Developing Countries, The World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jul., 1986), pages 183–203
↑William Mangin, Latin American Squatter Settlements: A Problem and a Solution, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Summer, 1967), pages 65–98
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