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| 1 | The urban climacteric | 1 |
| 2 | The prevalence of slums | 20 |
| 3 | The treason of the state | 50 |
| 4 | Illusions of self-help | 70 |
| 5 | Haussmann in the tropics | 95 |
| 6 | Slum ecology | 121 |
| 7 | SAPing the third world | 151 |
| 8 | A surplus humanity? | 174 |
| Epilogue : down Vietnam street | 199 |
Anonymous
Posted September 12, 2006
One comes away from reading 'Planet of Slums' with a far-reaching, well-documented sense of poverty's vast urban scale and its topology. As to the causes and possible solutions, we are left wanting. Globalization, the IMF, World Bank and NGOs are singled out for guilt by association as though slum growth and exploitation of the urban underclass are unintended consequences of ill-conceived development and aid policies. However, a clear analysis of this pattern and direct linkages between slum growth and development policies get lost in the book's focus on demographic statistics, urbanization trends and descriptions of dire circumstances from one ghetto to the next. Finally, in searching for solutions, there are none on these pages except by inference, or perhaps by extension, through revolution. We are left thinking that since global lending, aid organizations, government urban planning and property owner powers are the indicated cause, then thwarting them or doing the opposite must be part of the solution. I was left wondering, where is the model to point the way out of the urban slum?
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