Subject: [Homestead] Slum-cities, how to promote violence, pandemics, energy crash
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:55:03 -0700
Just move the population to already high-density, basically unhabitable
cities. You KNOW how the Republicrat diddlers will cope with this
problem---more flag-waving, gay marriage amendments, leaving 44,000,000
citizens without healthcare, now THAT ought to spread pandemics quite
nicely. That's OK I suppose, most economic problems would be solved by
a precipitous U.S. population reduction to 100,000,000 or less, maybe
30,000,000, still a knowledge reservoir without the impact on
environment. A reversible vasectomy for all male children might hold
the population where it should be.
By Emma Graham-Harrison BARCELONA, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Extremism is
likely to flourish in the world's rapidly spreading slums if governments
do not tackle the poverty that fuels it, a senior United Nations
official said at the start of a forum on urban life on Monday.
UN-Habitat Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka issued the warning before a
report due to be launched by her agency on Tuesday, "The State of the
World's Cities". The number of slum dwellers will double to nearly two
billion by 2030. Cities overall will grow at a similarly explosive rate,
Tibaijuka said, reaching nearly five billion people by 2030 from 2.9
billion in 2001. The growth of cities will be partly due to immigration,
which could exacerbate urban tensions if no efforts were made to smooth
integration, she said. "The risks are that we see more (cultural)
differences; we are bound to see more extremism because of desperation,"
she told Reuters at the start of the World Urban Forum. "The poor are
not terrorists, but the hopelessness in which people find themselves can
create conducive conditions for criminals to manipulate the situation,"
she added. Tibaijuka hopes the report will encourage governments to
invest in slums and work on solutions to the simmering problems. "These
crises are processes, not events," she said. Tibaijuka also said world
trade rules needed to take more account of the needs of the poor, and
called for tight regulation of privatised companies providing basic
services like water or refuse collection. ECONOMICS FOR THE WEAK As well
as highlighting a widening rich-poor gap, the "State of the World's
Cities" report attacked the argument that unfettered trade is a sure
route to wider developing-world prosperity and warned of a "race to the
bottom" as companies seeking cheaper labour shift capital and jobs
across borders. Tibaijuka said economists needed to ensure they based
their economic policy on basic moral values. "You cannot develop peace
and prosperity on the rules of the strong ... the weak are embroiled in
surviving, there is no capacity for real, serious engagement," Tibaijuka
said. The report also warned that private companies providing basic
services could be torn between shareholders' demands for profits and the
needs of impoverished slum dwellers. Tibaijuka called for firm controls.
"We need the private sector ... (but) privatisation without regulatory
capacity is corruption. If you privatise where there is no regulation,
either you don't know what you are doing or there are ulterior motives,"
she said. Praful Patel, head of the World Bank delegation to the World
Urban Forum, defended the free trade policies that the global lender
often advocates. "Our studies indicate a different kind of finding.
There are specific cases of trade liberalisation that hurt ... countries
that did not follow through," he told Reuters. "However where taken to
the full length it always works." Many of the world's least developed
regions, where much of the urban growth will take place, focus more on
boosting economies to help citizens climb out of poverty than halting
pollution. Environmental concern is considered a luxury the poor cannot
afford, Tibaijuka said. "Poverty is the biggest polluter. If you go into
slums these are places where solid waste, waste water, you name it,
diseases running rampant. In pursuit of protecting the environment we
must first protect the people," she said. On a positive note, the World
Urban Forum gave an award to Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri for
rebuilding the ruins of Lebanon after a devastating civil war.
[Homestead] Slum-cities, how to promote violence, pandemics, energy crash,
Tvoivozhd, 09/14/2004