Greg O'Hare

A review of slum housing policies in Mumbai

Mumbai (Bombay) is Indias main industrial and commercial centre. According to the United Nations it is the seventh largest city in the world with the fifth fastest rate of population growth. Over half the population, however, live in conditions of abject poverty, crammed into overcrowded slums and hutments located in unhealthy marginal environments. There are many complex reasons for Mumbais housing crisis, including strong population in-migration and growth. Former urban development policies favoured capital-intensive industries and the rapid growth of a low-wage informal sector. Subsidised transport systems allowed poor people to live and work in the city. Mumbais poor housing is also a reflection of a poor and inappropriate urban planning system, a lack of public investment and restrictions in the land and rental housing market. The failure of the city authorities to cope with the urban poor is highlighted by a review of the main housing policies implemented in the city. These range from slum clearance and the construction of high-rise apartment blocks to a range of self-help strategies and current privatised market-led schemes. Trapped between dwindling public investment and new powerful market-led forces, it is contended that the future of housing the poor in Mumbai looks bleak.

Tourism in The Gambia: problems and proposals

Abstract This paper analyses the development constraints which confine The Gambia to being one of the poorest countries in the world. The programmes designed to reduce these constraints are outlined. In particular, tourism is identified as an appropriate development strategy. Using primary data, tourism in The Gambia, its development and administration are described in some detail. Althoiugh a prima facie case can be made extolling the virtues of tourism in that country, the industry is beset by a range of problems. The juxtaposition of the countrys growing reliance on tourism against increasing stagnation in the sector is a focus of particular concern. Constraints in the tourism sector are identified in the spheres of policy formulation and implementation, capital investment, human resource endowment, existing and potential tourist markets, seasonality issues and product resource base. For each constraint identified, a management strategy is proposed. In essence, the article is an advocation of sustainable tourism development for The Gambia based on long-term holistic planning, including appropriate resource development, community involvement, education and training.

A Review of Ozone Pollution in the United Kingdom and Ireland with an Analysis Using Lamb Weather Types

The control exercised by synoptic airflows on hourly ground level concentrations of ozone at 11 widely distributed monitoring sites in the UK during the period 1986/7-1990 is investigated. Regional airflows are categorized using the seven primary Weather Types of the Lamb (1972) Catalogue. Because of the complexity of troposheric ozone production, transport and decay, relationships vary between sites and the Lamb Weather Types (LWTs). Results confirm the dominant role of stable anticyclonic and easterly airflows at all sites in producing peak ozone episodes via photochemical action. More unstable systems such as the vigorous Westerlies and cyclonic depressions are important in elevating mean ozone concentrations at remote sites through turbulent down-mixing. The study also contrasts the different ozone destruction mechanisms at urban and rural sites. The distribution of hourly ozone values associated with anticyclonic and cyclonic airflows at selected sites shows distinctive ozone signatures. Prospects for modelling the relationship between hourly ground-level ozone concentrations and daily weather are suggested.

The favelas of Rio de Janeiro: A temporal and spatial analysis

A spatial and temporal analysis, at a city wide scale, is given of the main type of informal housing (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro. Rapid change in the number and distribution of favelas and their inhabitants (favelados) over time is seen as the outcome of two opposing sets of factors. Demand-led housing factors, including population growth and variations in levels of poverty in the city, have constantly outstripped the supply side of the housing equation where inadequate housing policies and investment, together with restricted building land have been characteristic. Added to these factors are a set of more specific developments which shape the favela geography, including the timing and location of urban redevelopment, favela eradication and recognition, transport development and access by the favelados to employment sources. Evidence shows that the contemporary distribution of favelas in the city does not conform to spatial models of this urban form, and that any interpretation of the Rio favelas, including their growth, development and diversity, needs to be space and time specific.

The destination life cycle: International tourism in Peru

Abstract The destination life cycle, a concept first publicised in 1939 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine by E. W. Gilbert is reviewed. The destination life cycle model of Butler (1980) is used to examine the main trends in the total numbers of international tourists visiting Peru between the late 19th century and 1995. Possible extensions to Perus tourist life cycle are considered in the light of the countrys tourism resources, government promotion of the industry, tourism infrastructure and security issues. The relevance of case study material to the applicability of the model is briefly considered.

Samba: A Metaphor for Rio's Favelas?

Abstract This paper traces the development and diversification of the squatter housing form — favela — and the music form — samba — in Rio de Janeiro from the late 19th century to the present. It is posited that in reflecting (working class) endogenous attitudes and (middle class) exogenous social mores, these two forms have shared a parallel if not precisely time-phased evolution. Evidence is presented to show that poverty, black identity and spatial exclusion from wider society were essential contributors to the origins of the favelas in the late 19th century and the samba in the early 20th century. During the 1940s and 50s when public attitudes to the favelas and their inhabitants were strongly negative, with many favelas being eradicated under public housing policy, protest themes and songs against poverty and marginalisation in samba were suppressed by the Rio authorities. In more recent times, with official attitudes towards the favelas improving and the favelas diversifying in socio-economic and cultural terms, the samba has begun to incorporate other music forms and to widen its cultural basis. Just as attempts are now being made by the city hall to integrate the favelas with the formal city, the samba, assisted by Carnival, has become accepted as a form of mass culture, enjoyed not only by the city of Rio but also by Brazil and the world at large. The close, if not parallel, development of the Rio favelas and samba, encourages a consideration that samba can be seen as a metaphor for the favelas themselves.