Urban Leadership Foundation
A hub for leadership training in cities and among the world's 1.4 billion slum-dwellers
DEVELOPMENT AND THE URBAN
POOR
-BY VIV GRIGG, 1986
Presuppositions
Presupposition 1:
God’s involvement in history begins in a garden and ends in a city. He never
goes back. We may perhaps call him an urbanizing God. The men of faith were
honored for they looked forward to a city, not backwards to whence they came.
If history has direction and God is the initiator of that direction it seems
good to me to be involved with God in that directionalism.
Presupposition 2:
Our task is to establish the Kingdom of God. For history is history of a
horrific struggle between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of darkness as it
manifests itself in the principalities and powers working through the structures
and institutional and philosophies of society. A struggle portrayed in the
scriptures in the contrast between the development of the city of man, Babylon,
which is built upon all of man’s rebellion and greed and oppression and the city
of God, the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, which is the church.
In the city of man, the corrupt rebellious centers of concentrated human evil we
are to establish the city of God within the city of man. Thy Kingdom come thy
will be done om earth , may be modified for urbanites to "Thy city come into
this city of mine; thy will in human history be done in this centre of sin
as it is done in the city of heaven."
Presupposition 3:
Jesus is our model
Presupposition 4:
He was wise. As a top development executive and managerial and field worker
trainer he demonstrated and taught that the Kingdom breaks into communities with
the proclaimed word and power encounters that result in conversion. He did not
model the Kingdom breaking in through impersonal economic projects. But the
established Kingdom community within a community provides a vehicle for Kingdom
economics and politics. These in turn reflect into the actions of non—believers.
i.e. the redemption mandate takes primacy over the cultural mandate but in no
way negates it.
Presupposition5 :
Development is thus primarily the diaconal responsibility of establishing the
Kingdom.
Presupposition 6:
Development in the more generally accepted humanistic or secular sense is a
valid reflection of the nature and image of God. It is part of common grace.
I. The Extent of Urbanization
Overheads.
Urban populations in the third world:275 million in 19 million in just 50
years.
1. Primary cause of urban poor is increased birth rates and lowering death rate in both rural and urban areas. The balance of births to deaths has changed.
2. Unlike in Europe people are primarily pushed from the rural areas rather than pulled by increased Job opportunities in the cities.
2. Pushed by
a. Growing pressure on the land
i. Loss of land to money-lenders (India)
ii. Loss of land to multinationals (e.g. Mindanao)
iii. Small holdings of land due to divided inheritance.
e.g. Lack of land for 10
sons in a 1 hectare lot (e.g. Bangladesh)
b. Warfare
c. Destruction of forests and subsequent desert (e.g. India. Sahara)
d. Unemployment and underemployment (diagram 10 Dhaka report)
e. Crippling debts
f. Static social structure leaves no room for personal development
g. Lack of educational facilities
h. lack of housing, water, electricity and sewerage
3. Pulled by:
a. the possibility of more jobs with higher wages, better material welfare and
standard of living.
b. new roads — to kill a community put a road in for its development
c. education and health resources are in the city
d. radio/TV
e. more chances of social advancement
f. Good housing, electricity, water and sewerage
g. impact of calamities less severe in city.
Some groups are more likely to migrate than others. This varies from city to
city, culture to culture. Thus the ratio of men to women in Calcutta is
different for Muslims and Hindus.
III. Types of poor
a. Slums
b. Squatters
c. refugees, relocation areas
d. street people
e. widows, orphans, lame, blind etc in existing households among the upper lower
class. (In Calcutta I classified 51 type of poor).
IV. Spatial Analysis
Found along railways, rivers, in concentric circles around city. Inner city slums
increasingly crowded.
V. Basic Needs
a. Demonic: Prophetic ministry to the educated—military elite Personal and
Ideological. Proclamation and subsequent power encounters with personal spirits
in the slums.
b. Land Rights: Mexico — 1 year Bangkok— 7 years if there is no fire.
c. Work: Coops Small business Development Vocational Education Migration to the
Middle East.
d. Rights as City Dwellers sewerage education (Bangkok problems) garbage
e. Housing four approaches
i . Bulldozing
ii High rises
iii .Relocation
i v. Site and Services
f. Drugs/Alcohol/Prostitution/Gangs/Violence due to social breakdown after first
few months.
g. Family breakdown
h. Oppressiorn Madame Imelda and the Marines. Mafia in Calcutta
i Medicine—need a nutritionist—nurse for each team.
j. Basic problem: skills in management self image
VI. Solutions
a. Incarnation
- 5 things necessary for health.
- Not necessary for projects, but for the Kingdom.
b. Development from the centre
c. Kingdom is the most amazing system for breaking poverty
Spiritual —Social (community, reestablishing of
broken relationships and mores)=>economic=>justice issues.
d. From within the communities: -economics (as above)
-politics: acceptability to leaders
-demonic confrontations (Assissi)
-base communities.
e. From without: Land rights Housing.
Industry
Establishing new communities.
APPENDIX: REFERENCES
Castillo
Beyond Manila.
Clinnard, Marshall
Slums and Community Development.
DuBose, Francis H.
1984 “Urban Poverty as a World Challenge.” In An Urban World. Broadman.
Grigg ,Viv
1984 Companion to the Poor. Sydney: Albatross Press.
Hadaway, C Kirk, and Larry L. Rose
1984 “Urban Explosion: Causes and Consequences.” In An Urban World.
Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman.
Jocano, F. Landa
1975 Slums as a Way of Life. Quezon City, Philippines: New Day
Publishers.
Lapierre, Dominique
1986 The City of Joy. Lc3ndon:Arrow Press.
Lewis, Oscar
1959 Five Families, Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. Basic
books Inc New York
1961 The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family.
Lloyd, Peter
Slums of Hope, Penguin.
© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation, for The Encarnacao Training Commission. Last modified: July 2010Previous Page |