what is a slum

A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. Slums are often defined by unsafe and/or unhealthy homes, overcrowding, and limited or no access to basic services such as water, toilets, electricity, and transportation. Families living in slums lack the crucial conditions they need to live decently and thrive as human beings. Children are often unable to do their homework due to leaks and the lack of available light and electricity, which leads to poor academic performance and high dropout rates. Slums are not a new phenomenon and have been part of the history of most cities, particularly in the early years of urbanization and industrialization as populations boomed. Today, more than one billion people in the world live in slums, and in the developing world, one out of every three people living in cities lives in a slum. Strategies to reduce and transform slums in different countries, with varying degrees of success, include a combination of slum removal, slum relocation, slum upgrading, urban planning with citywide infrastructure development, and public housing.