Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

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Summary of case studies
purposes. In general, increasing competition for land,
increasing land values, and urban planning pressures linked
to beautification and gentrification were all involved.
The residents of ‘Group 78’, who faced eviction in
2006, were just one of many examples (see Box 5.6). In their
case, many residents already had documents issued by the
local authorities recognizing their legal occupation of the
land. Despite this, they were to be relocated to the outskirts
of the city because the land was needed to ‘contribute to city
beautification and development’. In order to fight for their
security of tenure, such urban residents need support.
However, such support has not come from any level
of the Cambodian government – national or local. Nor has
this support come from international funding agencies.
Support was provided by United Nations agencies and from
individual embassies in Phnom Penh, such as that exemplified
by the US ambassador’s statement. The bulk of support
for the potential evictees did, however, come from local
NGOs and, to some extent, international NGOs, such as
Human Rights Watch and the Asian Human Rights
Commission. Human Rights Watch, for example, sent an
open letter to development agencies pointing out that they
needed to do a better job of providing benchmarks for international
assistance. These benchmarks would include the
observance by all levels of the Cambodian government of
human rights, transparency and good governance. They also
pointed out that the agencies forming the consultative
group for Cambodia should also support civil society
directly.
In addition to the recommendations made by Human
Rights Watch, there are a number of other steps that could
be taken by communities under threat of evictions to
enhance their security of tenure:
• Awareness-raising. There is a need to enhance the
access of all urban residents to information on procedures
for registration of tenure rights, for appeals and
for redress. Information is also needed about available
land, urban planning proposals and private development
proposals.
• Planning alternatives. Once information is available to
them, communities can begin to formulate alternative
plans to those presented by local authorities or private
developers. Such alternative plans are an essential
negotiating tool.
• Coordination. The Housing Rights Task Force requires
greater support in coordinating the efforts of local and
international NGOs.
• International support. There is potential for increased
leverage based on international support, particularly
where the media can publicize activities widely.
In all of this, it must be emphasized that information and the
process of information-gathering itself can be a powerful tool
for organizing communities.
Security of housing tenure in the People’s
Republic of China
Within five years after the founding of the People’s Republic
of China in 1949, a rural land reform and the nationalization
of the urban building stock had virtually solved the historic
problem of endemic insecurity of tenure to land and
housing. With the deepening of economic reforms, begun in
1978, problems of insecure tenure have gradually reemerged
in both urban and rural areas.
In the cities, newly installed governments commandeered
the building stock and apportioned it, in a largely
egalitarian manner, to meet the most pressing needs of the
local economy and population. Crowding, including
bathrooms and kitchens shared by multiple (and sometimes
dozens of) families were endemic in large cities such as
Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin. On the positive side,
however, rents were affordable and evictions were rare. Low
rents did, however, make it almost impossible to maintain
the quality of the housing or to invest in upgrading of infrastructure
or new housing. By the early 1980s, a consensus
emerged within government on the need to make housing
self-financing (i.e. to remove it from the urban employment
welfare package).
Yet, this did not change the fact that housing remained
a resource drain for most cities. Neither state, nor collective
enterprises, nor government agencies could pay wages that
allowed rents to cover the full costs of improved housing.
Gradual salary and rent increases during the 1990s helped to
lay the ground for the 1998 instruction to halt the distribution
of housing as a welfare good. Instead, occupiers of publicly
owned housing were required to buy the apartments they
occupied or to pay the market rent. With much of the existing
state-owned housing stock being offered at bargain prices,
housing sales soared by the year 2000. In parallel, purchases
of commercial real estate, including luxury housing, grew
rapidly, in step with China’s burgeoning economy.
In the meantime, reforms in the agricultural sector
dating from the late 1970s helped to kick-start what was to
become a massive exodus of workers from rural areas. Many
of these moved into the fast-growing coastal cities filling the
ranks of construction workers, maids, street sweepers,
factory hands in export industries, and most of the other
hard, dirty and low-paid jobs that permanent city residents
frowned upon. Numbering just a few million in the early
1980s, migrant workers in the cities today may total as many
as 200 million. Many of these have been forced off their
land, often illegally and violently, to make way for growing
cities and new economic activities (see Box 5.11).
Once in the cities, migrant workers’ security of
tenure became and remains the weakest of any group of
Chinese citizen (see also Box 5.17). While they may
comprise as much as one quarter of the long-term population
in China’s major cities, only about 2 per cent of them own
their housing. Many such migrants are housed by their
employers, enjoying shelter only for the duration of their
work. Others rent rooms in illegally constructed or dilapidated
buildings that are likely to eventually be demolished by
authorities. Even for migrants with steady jobs, average
incomes of US$2 to $4 per day do not permit access to