Who Made Us Poor?

Reference: Grigg, V. (2005). Cry of the Urban Poor. GA, USA: Authentic Media in partnership with World Vision.

Slum children
Longing for a piece of bread,
Abandoned,
No-one reaching them, touching them:
Broken homes,
Lack of love,
Slum billions needing a Saviour.
Go, live down, among,
Proclaim Calvary’s love song:
Salvation of the suffering . . .
Lies in him.
For in him the structures
of the mega-cities integrate.

The same kind OF analysis with which we looked at the conditions of poverty may be applied as well to its causes. Gunnar Myrdahl’s Asian Drama suggests twenty-nine categories, in which he defines macro-level causes.¹ Michael Harrington suggested other causes in his analysis that sparked the “War on Poverty” in the United States.² Both of these lead us to theories concerning the causes of urban poverty at micro and macro levels.
    The worker among the poor must be conversant with the range of causes and types of poverty. At the same time, he or she must somehow not be overly preoccupied with anal­ysis beyond that which facilitates effective non-destructive action. This chapter seeks to present some of the major patterns of thinking that have emerged concerning the squatters.

Myrdahl drew heavily on Max Weber’s lifetime monu­mental works. They are perhaps the most useful source for an analysis of the relationships of poverty, culture and reli­gion. The religious-cultural roots are apparent when con­trasting the general levels of poverty between poor Catholic areas of the world and those with significant Protestant in­puts or those of Hindu background. His works are import­ant as one looks at poverty in any given city.³
    But the church planter must not only deal with these religio-cultural causes. International patterns of urban pov­erty have their roots in places other than local religious val­ues, as has been seen. These causes also require responses. Within the broader context of Western modern­ization and its correlated urbanization, a number of theo­ries of poverty, explanations of causes, and identification of potential solutions have been developed. None is complete. Each situation requires a model and response appropriate to the factors that impinge on it.

Poor of the city, or city of the poor?

Louis Wirth, building on Weber, defines the industrial city as one that is “achievement-oriented and prizes a ra­tionally-oriented economic system. It is predominantly a middle-class city.”⁴

But within the third-world city are the pockets of mi­grant poor we call squatters, often known as “peasants in cities.” They make up from 20-90 percent of the urban pop­ulation, and many are now second or third generation resi­dents of the city. But are they seen as part of this middle-class modern city? Are they a people in their own right with a separate identity from middle-class city people? Are they the poor of the city or are the cities, cities of the poor? How do squatters, poverty, and the city relate to each other?

Squatters, poverty, and cities

Let us turn more specifically to our target communities of squatters. Early approaches to the study of the squatters viewed them negatively. Later approaches developed which perceived them positively and developed themes of self-im­provement and acculturation of “peasants in the city.” These were in conflict with the negative problem-solving, city-planner approach which saw squatters as a blight on city planning and political stability.

Later approaches derive from a concept of culture in transition. The city-planner approach has an inherent dual-level perspective on the city.⁵ McTaggart highlights these issues of social dialectics in the city. Others devel­oped the theme of “marginality”—people on the margins of society and power.

1. The acculturation theme

Generally, squatters are viewed as a manifestation of urbanization and modernization processes. In spite of distortions, squatter areas provide necessary social and economic functions. They continue to exist because they meet the needs of the poor and provide a place for adap­tation to the culture of the city. This is known as the ac­culturation process. Squatter areas become a zone of transition from peasant society to urban. This percep­tion minimizes the problem of conflict between dual economic and social systems in the same city. It perceives them as providing a cushion and geographic stability.

The degree of acculturation is dependent on local condi­tions, and is neutralized by physical and environmental disorder or difficult relationships to bureaucracy.

Within this school of thought numerous studies have been developed about mechanisms of adaptation to the “transitional” society. A typical path followed by the mi­grants is outlined by Meister:

a. The individual brings from the country the sum total of standards and values that prevail in his own environment and clings to the same tradi­tions in town.

b. The new mode of life and rural values clash. The migrant fails to find steady work. The children fall under the influence of other displaced urban
children; the father loses control and former val­ues are repudiated. With heavy drinking and de­sertion, the family unit disintegrates.

c. The migrant comes to accept urban life. He has some job successes and begins to develop urban goals in terms of desirable places to live, con­sumer goods preferences, and begins to partici­pate in formal groups. Although some migrants
adapt by delinquency, and others through partic­ipation and leadership in migrant development programs, it is important to emphasize that in
most cases, there is successful urban adapta­tion.⁶

McCreary summarizes discussion on the experience in Oceania, following the same lines. First, there is loss of direct contact with indigenous social controls and mis­sions influence, and a non-acceptance of responsibility for collateral kin. The extended family loses its supportive function, although kinship networks continue to function, placing additional strain on traditional values. A new urban social structure develops, with the mother moving into the center of the family and the father be­coming a declining figure. Youth form marginal groups and tend to lose direction. Disorientation at the per­sonal level is expressed in delinquency, violence, prosti­tution and excessive drinking.⁷

2. Poor peoples’ perspective

Anthropological studies tend to be more sympathetic to the views of the poor than do those of sociologists or planners. Ethnographs such as Jocano’s Slums as a Way of Life show how squatters perceive their lifestyles as positively and gradually integrating into the city, yet not without turmoil and breakdown.⁸

Dominique LaPierre’s City of Joy tells of a priest’s long­ing for his people to return to the romantic countryside. Eventually a couple does return, only to be brought back to the city and to reality when they lose all to a ty­phoon.⁹

The poor will not go back. This indicates how they feel about their lives in the city. They are hooked. For all of the deprivations and depravity, they are better off. They have hope. They have access to health and education for their children. They are city dwellers, urbanites who no longer fit back in the home town. They have come from being hopeless, landless farm laborers. They are moving into the city of gold. The momentary problems of the slums can be suffered for such a glorious dream —even for a generation or two.

3.  John Turner’s self-improvement model

Growing out of a sympathetic understanding of the squatters and the reality of limited finances governmentally for housing programs, squatter areas are seen as providing a context for self-improvement housing. These meet the standards of the squatters but not the unreal­istic housing standards of the bureaucrats that tele­scope the development process and require high finance.¹⁰

This approach leads to flexible, progressive develop­ment, with minimal use of government finances or ex­pansion of government bureaucracy—encouraging an optimum use of resources. The approach of self-help housing for the poor has grown from this conceptual view.

Dwyer, while sympathetic to this approach, criticizes its omission of the cost and alternative-use aspects of land.¹¹ This is quite a reasonable position for a profes­sor in Hong Kong, where island land use is at a pre­mium. In the deserts of Lima, it ceases to be an issue. There, we find some of the most extensive and success­ful examples of self-developed communities. There are mixed analyses of the extent to which self-im­provement occurs, and these tend to be determined by the geographical and historical relationships that have emerged in each city.

0.      Slums as a problem

Despite a sympathetic anthropological approach, Oscar Lewis agrees with Juppenlatz’s perception of the slum as a place where poor people live in subnormal condi­tions.¹² This view is predominant among policymakers. Slum dwellers are perceived as people who flout the law and live in areas that are unsanitary, fire hazards, and full of crime—barriers to development that can para­lyze city planning.

This perspective results in forced relocation. To help them is to condone illegal behavior. The squatter is not perceived as going through acculturation to socially ac­ceptable behavior. Instead, he is perceived as being ex­posed to continual erosion of family control, of community and traditions, accompanied by loss of iden­tity and importance. The result is social disorganization, chaos, crime, and prostitution.

5. Class conflict and social dualism

Squatters are inevitably pushed into a political situation of class conflict by the unsympathetic approaches of the city bureaucracy. McTaggart talks of the squatter areas as being the “anti-system,” that soften the blows of socio-economic dualism.¹³

Oscar Lewis developed the concepts of duality of Lamp-man¹⁴ and Harrington¹⁵ into the culture of poverty the­sis.¹⁶ His analysis set the stage for a concept of dual cultural systems within the city. Portes views the matter less from a cultural perspective and more from a social analysis of structures, explain­ing that the aspect of self-help is dependent on strong social cohesion resulting from long conflict.¹⁷ It is the dialectics (going back and forth between two extremes) of the system, the official hostility and opposition to squatter activity, that is a prerequisite for self-improving elements to emerge.

    Alinsky develops this concept of cause and effect into a mandate to increase tension at points of conflict in order to affect change.¹⁸ And indeed, this thesis finds general acceptance in most literature built around class-conflict theories.

    As Christians, we immediately are aware of ethical prob­lems with this pattern of thinking. It directly contrasts with the reconciliation the gospel offers to conflicting groups. We should be aware, however, that many social workers among the poor, both Catholic and Protestant, have this as their underlying framework.

    The class-conflict thesis is not vindicated by research on relationships between squatters and the urban middle and upper classes. Research by Hollensteiner, Laquian, and others in Southeast Asia shows a strong relation­ship between the poor and the middle and upper classes, upon whom squatters depend for patronage.¹⁹ There is no strong sense of antipathy between the two classes.

    Class conflict theory predicts the squatter as being po­tentially radicalized. This is not evident in first genera­tion squatters. It may be with their children and grandchildren—second and third generation squatters. In Brazil, for example, there has never been a revolt or insurrection from a favela, despite the violence of the marginales in the favelas.

    Squatters tend to be conservative, not revolutionary. They are too absorbed in problems of survival and of their own security to be interested in anything else. Laquian, Mangin, Turner and others confirm this, asso­ciating squatters with the conservative ideologies of the petit bourgeousie.²⁰ Lack of a revolutionary spirit is also the result of their rural conservative roots.

    While we do not observe a generalized conflict between classes in Third World cities, there are localized and limited conflicts between squatters and landowners over the legitimacy of squatter land rights. Christian re­sponses are essential. They are extensions of a theology of reconciliation in the context of defending the poor against injustice.

6. Political participation

Squatters soon learn that exerting pressure on the polit­ical system is to their advantage. Even where they have no legal voting rights, they can bring strong pressure to bear through community organizations. Political oppor­tunism and symbiosis are part of the ethos of the slums. On the other hand, often the power of the land­owning elite neutralizes any pressure squatters might try to exercise.

Politicians have little choice in these cities. They are faced with both conflict and chaos or with securing cooperation between upper and lower classes—rich and poor. This cooperation enables gradual develop­ment, utilizing the resources of the poor and, to a large extent, according to the desires of the poor. Political wisdom can lead cities away from conflict, marginality or other extremes developed from the dialectic philoso­phies mentioned above.

7. Marginality

While the classes in the city are not necessarily in con­flict nor totally separate, the rift between them leads to the squatter being viewed as a citizen of the city but de­nied all the rights of the city. Thus squatters can only become marginally productive—culturally, socially and economically.

Park used the term “marginality” to refer to cultural hy­brids—people living on the margin of two cultures and societies.²¹ Cuber spoke of “those who occupy a periph­eral position between two unrelated cultural structures, complexes, or units.”²²

This perspective juxtaposes the problem of poverty and the variable rates of modernization within a society. Joan Nelson asks three questions: Do the urban poor recognize themselves as marginal? Is the urban poor population a surplus from an economic point of view? Or rather, have they been prevented from economic par­ticipation?²³

Andre Gunder Frank comments, “These poor are not so­cially marginal but rejected, not economically marginal but exploited, and not politically marginal but repressed.²⁴

The sheer size of the populations of the urban poor in cities like Lima or Calcutta mitigates against this marginality thesis. As John Maust comments, “No longer is it accurate to call the newcomers and slum-dwellers ‘marginalized.’ Rather than being on the fringes of Lima society, they have become the majority.”²⁵

8. Modernization and marginality

McGee understands that there is a relationship between the degree of modernization in a city and the marginalization of the squatter economic system. As a city modernizes, squatters become less marginal, that is, more integrated, and there is a greater degree of jus­tice. In other words, the faster the rate of modernization in a city, the shorter amount of time a migrant spends in “transition.”

Johnstone, along the same lines, defines various cities into three categories:

a. Those such as Hong Kong and Singapore, where rapid industrialization predicts continuing uplift and integration of the squatter communities.

b. A second group such as Manila or Bangkok, where the gross national product is rising and urbanization is rapid, and yet there are institu­tional problems to hinder progress. Here older settlements will become integrated, and newer
and structurally unstable ones have the poten­tial in time for uplift.

c. A third group, where there is economic stagnation, such as in Saigon, Calcutta and Lima. Here there is a far larger dualism, a traditional bazaar economy, and potential conflict.²⁷

Interestingly, of the ten cities surveyed in this book, Bangkok and Sao Paulo are two of the most modern­ized, industrialized and prosperous cities in the Third World. Squatters are integrated into the work force with high levels of employment. Economically they become well off, with high levels of comfort in their squatter homes. But in both these cities, land-rights laws pre­clude ownership and self-help upgrading of the areas of slums.

In Lima or Calcutta, where there is economic stagna­tion, the majority of the populations are squatters. These cities have almost entirely become the slum. The poor are city-dwellers with rights, and there is social integra­tion (if the continuance of caste can be considered a form of social integration).

Obviously the issue of social integration is more com­plex than the macro-economic condition of the city. Land rights are a major factor. The size of the city and percentage of squatters is another. Prevailing cultural patterns and historical experiences are also involved.

Some personal observations may be included here from walking through these cities. Where industrialization has increased more rapidly, there is a lower percentage of slum population. Smaller cities have a lower percent­age of urban poor in the city. Cities in tribal societies have a higher percentage of urban poor because tribal peoples take more time to make the cultural and tech­nological transition needed when entering urban soci­ety. Capitalism is significantly better for the poor than a Marxist society. This last statement has been ade­quately argued by Peter Berger.²⁸

9. Economic dualism

There are economic theories built on dualistic perspec­tives. Geertz differentiated between two economies in the modern third-world city, the firm-centered economy and the bazaar economy.²⁹ In the late 60s and early 70s, the World Bank and United Nations-related agen­cies talked freely of formal and informal sectors.

Perhaps Santos’ well-documented study is a zenith of these economic analyses. Santos defines his thesis this way:

 At a national level, new economic demands are su­perimposed over existing ‘traditional’ ones. The eco­nomic system is thus forced to accommodate both new and inherited social realities, and faces the need for dynamic modernization. This applies equally to the productive and distributive systems. Two economic circuits are created, responsible not only for the economic process, but also the process of spatial organization.

The upper circuit is the direct result of technologi­cal progress and its most representative elements are the monopolies. Most of its relations take place outside of the city and the surrounding area and operate in a national or international framework.³⁰

Santos defines the lower circuit economy as:

The maintenance alongside the modern circuit, of a non-modem economic circuit consisting of small-scale manufacturing and crafts, small-scale trade and many varied services.³¹

It is not independent of the upper circuit, however, but locked into it in a relationship of cause and effect. This thesis clearly is dualistic in basic premise, and Santos does not seek to define these as two poles of a spectrum but as two separate systems. In his native Sao Paulo, his analysis might be accurate. In other cities, the pat­terns may not be as clearly dualistic. My own experience would be that more affluent cities tend to have a clearer differential between upper and lower circuits.

In Calcutta, for example, where the percentage partici­pation of the labor force has fallen from 67 percent in 1901 to 37 percent in 1971, one may talk of two cir­cuits. But the lower circuit takes on the role of the sig­nificant economic circuit in terms of the numbers of residents employed in it. This lower circuit, or informal sector, accounted for 82 percent of economic units and 30 percent of the employment in 1971.³²

McGee has a theory about the self-inflationary nature of the lower circuit. A continual influx of people creates an expanding market. The division of labor within the lower circuit stimulates the productive use of capital and the speed of transactions, thus raising profits. The lower circuit creates its own service sector.

In a context where there is decay and retraction in the upper circuit, such as in Calcutta or Lima, we would ex­pect a similar lack of growth in the lower circuit. People in the lower circuit, unable to provide services to people in the dwindling upper circuit, have to make an income by providing services to others within their own im­poverished circuit. The number of hours worked, how­ever, must increase to make the same income. The number of transactions must also increase. As a city be­comes more and more impoverished, it also becomes a hive of increasingly useless and rapid activity.

Notes

1.Myrdahl, Gunnar, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of the Nations, 1968
2.Harrington, Michael, The Other America: Poverty in the United States, Penguin, 1965.
3. Weber, Max, The City, New York: The Free Press, 1958; and The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, tr Talcott Parsons, London: Unwin.
4.Wirth, Louis, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44:1–24, July 1938.
5.McTaggart, W.D., “Squatters’ Rights or the Context of a Problem,” Professional Geographer 23(4), October 1971, pp 335–359.
6. Meister, A., “The Urbanization Crisis of Rural Man,” Ceres, 1970.
7. McCreary, J.R., “Urbanization in the South Pacific,” Living in Town: Problems and Priorities in Urban Planning in the South Pacific, John Harre ed., Suva,
Fiji: South Pacific Social Sciences Foundation and School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, 1973.
8.Jocano, F. Landa, Slums As A Way of Life, Manila: New Day Publishers, Box 167, Quezon City 3008, 1975.
9.LaPierre, Dominique, City of Joy, Doubleday, 1985.
10.Turner, John F., “Barriers and Channels for Housing Development in Modernizing Countries,” Peasants in Cities, W. Mangin ed, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970
11. Dwyer, D.J., The City as Centre of Change in Asia, Hong Kong: University Press, 1972.
12.Juppenlatz, Morris, Cities in Transformation, University of Queensland Press, 1970.
13.McTaggart, op. cit.
14.Lampman, Robert V., Poverty: Four Approaches, Four Solutions, Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon Press, 1966.
15.Harrington, Michael, The Other America: Poverty in the United States, Penguin, 1965.
16.Lewis, Oscar, “The Culture of Poverty,” Scientific American, Vol. 215, No. 4:3–9, October 1966.17.Portes, A., The Urban Slum in Chile: Types and Correlates,” Land Economics, Vol 47(3) 1971, pp 235–247.
17.Alinsky, Saul, Reveille for Radicals, New York: Vintage Books, 1969.
18.Laquian, A. A., Slums Are For People, East-West Centre Press, 1971.
19.Mangin, William, “Squatter Settlements,” Scientific American, Vol. 217 No. 4, October 1967, pp.21–29; and Peasants in Cities: Readings in Anthropology of Urbanization, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.
20.Park, Robert E., “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 33, no.6, May 1928, pp 881–3.
21.Cuber, John F., “Marginal Church Participants,” Sociology and Social Research, Vol. XXV, No 1, 1940, pp. 57–62.
22.Nelson, Joan, “The Urban Poor: Disruption or Political Integration in Third World Cities,” World Politics Vol. 22, 1969, pp. 393–414.
23.Frank, Andre Gunder, The Sociology of Underdevelopment or the Underdevelopment of Sociology, paper, 1974.
24.Maust, John, Cities of Change, Latin American Mission, 1984.
25.McGee, T.G., The Southeast Asian City, London: Bell and Son, 1967; and The Urbanization Process in the Third World, London: Bell and Son, 1971.
26.Johnstone, Michael A., “Squatter Settlements in Southeast Asia—An Overview,” Working Papers on Comparative Sociology #5, University of Auckland, Dept. of Sociology, 1975.
27.Berger, Peter, The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality and Liberty, New York: Perseus Books, 1988.
28.Geertz, Clifford, Peddlars and Princes: Social Change and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns, Chicago, 1963.
29.Santos, Milton, The Shared Space (tr from Portuguese by Chris Gerry), Methuen: London and New York, 1979.
30.Ibid.
31.Sivaramakrishnan, K.C., “The Slum Improvement Programme in Calcutta: The Role of the CMDA,” In the Indian City, Alfred de Souza, ed., Manohar Publications, 2 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi,110002, 1978.
32.McGee, op. cit.

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© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,  for The Encarnacao Training Commission.  Last modified: July 2010