Urban Elements
Cyclic Urbanism: Spatial Communities, Heterogeneity of Spaces and Cultures in the Kumbh City
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nooreen Fatima
Kumbh mela is a temporary mega city built every six and twelve years where seven million people live for fifty-five days. While the city of Allahabad tries to hold on to its crumbling facades, dense roads, and luring gallis, city planners and policy makers envision it only as a ‘pilgrimage town’ and are involved in creating a dominant world-class image of the city due to the shadow cast by this mega event. The study primarily looks at how the everyday mother city of Allahabad interacts with the dynamic city created as a resultant of cyclic events of Mela (Magh Mela, Ardh Kumbh Mela, Kumbh Mela and Maha Kumbh Mela) where certain attributes of dynamicity flow from the ‘temporary’ city to the ‘static’ city. It presents the case of a historic neighbourhood of Kydganj in Allahabad and its loss of socio-spatial patterns due to the change in its building and spatial typologies that once sustained many occupational communities and their diverse cultures. The study argues that the current adopted approach of the city makers is mono-centric and projects-policies enforced are widely affecting the plural nature of the city and its spaces. it discusses the idea of heterogeneity in form, function, space, and circular systems in an urban fabric and challenges the mono-functional city and its linear systems built through the ‘World Class’ aspirations. The study explores the socio-cultural set-backs of such rudimentary approach of the city planners towards a dynamic urban fabric through a spatial lens.
Health and Urban Poverty: What Do We Know from a Global Systematic Literature Review?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mireya Vilar Compte
There are three ways in which the urban environment can affect the health of populations: the built environment, the social environment, and the availability and access to health services. When these elements interact with the socioeconomic characteristics of individuals, the health of urban populations varies. One of the main obstacles for the formulation of policies focused on the socioeconomically vulnerable groups of urban areas, is the lack of research on the subject. This study identifies how urban poverty affects the health of individuals and what are the determinants that explain access and quality of health services within this context. It was carried out through a global systematic literature review, which included published literature between 2000-2016 in three search engines: Web of Science, PubMed and EBSCO. It identified 881 research articles, out of which forty-four were systematized and included in the analysis. Five major categories emerged: (i) inequalities in the prevalence of certain health outcomes among the urban poor, (ii) barriers to effective access to health services, (iii) poor quality of services in vulnerable urban populations; (iv) determinants that affect the use of health services and the search for medical attention; and (v) the implications of the disease in marginalized urban populations. People in conditions of urban poverty face poorer health outcomes and greater barriers to accessing quality medical services; perpetuating the cycle of inequalities. This should be further documented, in order to generate evidence for policymaking and poverty measurement specific to urban spaces.
Urban Poverty: A Systematic Review
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Graciela Teruel, Miguel Reyes, Aniel Alberto Altamirano Ogarrio
In this study, we conduct a systematic review of urban poverty and interactions with income. We follow a methodology proposed by Khan, Kunz, Kleignen, & Antes, 2003. We use Web of Science, EBSCO, SCOPUS and JSTOR. We first look at the labor market factors that contribute to and are related to poverty. We also focus on the mechanisms to effectively erradicate monetary poverty. We find these mechanisms are represented in social policy, and are related to labor policy: minimum wage, productivity, and return on education. Results in this review have the objective to uncover the common characteristics found in the literature that explain the most important elements about urban poverty with the hope of contributing to conceptualizing urban poverty in a different way that his been traditionally observed, often following only a rural approach.
