World Disasters Report 2010 - International Federation of Red Cross ...

8
The urban risk divide:
A 21st century challenge
The signs of our vulnerability to urban risk are everywhere.
An earthquake can bring hospitals, schools and homes tumbling down with unspeakably
tragic consequences. A volcano can throw city airports into chaos. Flood waters
can turn well-kept streets into detritus-strewn canals. The drug trade can turn an inner
city into a war zone. An epidemic can spread rapidly through a crowded slum.
As the pendulum of human development swings increasingly away from the countryside
to the city, we see that rapid urbanization and population growth are combining
to create enormous new challenges for the humanitarian community and pushing us
out of our comfort zone to deal with a strange new urban world.
When it comes to the impact of natural disasters, well-run cities can be among the
safest places on earth. They can also be the best places to raise a family, for schooling,
healthcare and employment. You can expect to live longer in a city.
Cities can also be the most dangerous places on earth for those who live in an urban
environment where the authorities have little presence and where the will and the
resources are lacking to ensure basic social services, food security, policing, running
water, sewerage and respect for building codes.
This urban risk divide is a major challenge for humankind in the 21st century if we are
to ensure that the worldwide movement from the countryside to cities does not fuel a
growth in sickness and deaths from the re-creation of 19th century-like public health
hazards exacerbated by exposure to risks generated by climate change and the threat
of pandemics.
The stresses and strains of urban living can be compounded immeasurably for those
who end up living on the peripheries of cities in low- and middle-income countries,
barely surviving on one US dollar or less a day.
Despite the heartbeat of commerce and other signs of vibrant life which pulsate
through many informal urban settlements, slum life can be nasty, brutal and short for
many inhabitants as they lose out in a Darwinian struggle for survival against disease,
malnutrition, illiteracy, crime and natural disasters.
It is this urban ‘underclass’ that should concern the humanitarian community most.
Their numbers are almost 1 billion and they are growing at the rate of 10 million