Slumonomics

The report goes on to say that "the number of urban dwellers inadequately served would be much higher - perhaps as much as four times."  Of course the report does not go on to define "inadequately served."  The reason that I point out the ambiguity in some of these definitions is to reiterate the fact that this report is attempting to aggregate a phenomenon where it is impossible to do so.

Let me offer a casual definition of slum.  A slum is a place where people who have, or whose parents or grandparents had, arrived and gathered in order to find there place in a rapidly changing economy.  In most cases these people have arrived from rural areas where life is very bad.  In fact, life must be worse in those rural areas than in the poor urban areas, because this is why people seemingly flock to these informal settlements.  The important thing here is that when we define slum we are not defining a geographical location, or a particular set of amenities like "improved access to water", what we are defining is a group of people and their actions.