
"Slums" refer to urban settlements that are highly congested urban areas marked by deteriorated, unsanitary buildings, poverty, and social disorganization. "Squatter settlements" refer to communities where residents settle on land (especially public or unoccupied land), without permission from the land owner - without rights or title.
Full Answer
What is the meaning of squatter settlement?
The term squatter settlement is often used as a general term to encompass low-quality housing, occupied by the poor, usually on the periphery of cities in the Global South. … Formally, a squatter settlement is identified by land tenure, with residents occupying land illegally, that is, squatting. What is the difference between slum and shanty?
What is the difference between slum and squatter?
As nouns the difference between slum and squatter. is that slum is a dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty while squatter is one who squats, sits down idly. As a verb slum. is to visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own.
What is a slum in a city?
used in lEDC What is a slum/shanty town/squatter settlement? a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing, squalor, and lacking in tenure security. What do slums vary from?
Why are there no slums in South Africa?
In South Africa, “slum” is not used due to its political implications. The country’s past was marked by Slum Clearance Acts, which were used by the government to evict people who lived in poor conditions. For this reason, the preferred terms are “ informal settlements ” or “squatter camps”.

What is the difference between slums and squatter settlement?
While the two terms tend to be used interchangeably, simply put, the definition of slums focus on their environmental and quality of life (QoL) aspects , while that of squatter settlements focus on the legality of the land ownership and other infrastructure provisions.
What is meant by squatter settlement?
Definitions. The term squatter settlement is often used as a general term to encompass low-quality housing, occupied by the poor, usually on the periphery of cities in the Global South. Such use makes it synonymous with other terms such as 'shanty town' and 'informal settlement'.
What is a slum settlement?
The word “slum” is often used to describe informal settlements within cities that have inadequate housing and squalid, miserable living conditions. They are often overcrowded, with many people crammed into very small living spaces.
What are squatter settlements called?
A shanty town, squatter area or hooverville (in the US) is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood.
What do squatter settlements look like?
The squatter settlement is unplanned and has the following characteristics: overcrowded and noisy. houses are made from cardboard, wood, corrugated iron, plastic sheeting and metal from oil drums. lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and open sewers.
What are the characteristics of a squatter settlement?
Characteristics of squatter settlementshouses built from dried mud as the walls and corrugated iron for the roof.no toilets.no electricity between phone lines.no running water, sewage or electricity in homes.no paved roads or sewers.little space between houses.no infrastructure.extremely high density's.More items...•
What is slums and squatter?
It means slums are areas where people with land ownership live in poor environmental and socioeconomic conditions and are different from squatter settlements, which are the settlements where people build houses without any legal title to land (UN-Habitat 2003).
Why is it called a slum?
Etymology and nomenclature. It is thought that slum is a British slang word from the East End of London meaning "room", which evolved to "back slum" around 1845 meaning 'back alley, street of poor people.
What slum means?
: a densely populated usually urban area marked especially by poverty.
Which is the largest slum in the world?
The World's Largest Slums:Khayelitsha in Cape Town (South Africa): 400,000.Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya): 700,000.Dharavi in Mumbai (India): 1,000,000.Neza (Mexico): 1,200,000.Orangi Town in Karachi (Pakistan): 2,400,000.
What is a real life example of a squatter settlement?
In Bhopal, India , and Mexico City, for example, squatter settlements were built next to deadly industrial sites. In such cities as Rio de Janiero, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia; Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Caracas, Venezuela, they are perched on landslide-prone hills.
What are slums called in Africa?
In South Africa, “slum” is not used due to its political implications. The country's past was marked by Slum Clearance Acts, which were used by the government to evict people who lived in poor conditions. For this reason, the preferred terms are “informal settlements” or “squatter camps”.
What do you mean by squatter?
Definition of squatter (Entry 2 of 2) : one that squats: such as. a : one that settles on property without right or title or payment of rent. b : one that settles on public land under government regulation with the purpose of acquiring title.
Why are squatter settlements?
Squatter housing arises out of a variety of circumstances, including an inadequate supply of old depleted formal housing near the central business district. Squatter housing is attractive to migrants and others in low-income and insecure employment.
Where are squatter settlements?
Squatter settlements are built on the periphery of numerous cities in some of the world's poorest nations, near trash damping sites, lagoons, rivers, and railway road tracks. They can also be constructed on marginal unoccupied pieces of land like marshy or swampy land and steep hillsides.
What are squatter settlements called in India?
slumHowever, many of the residents of Mumbai live in illegal squatter settlements (known as bustees in India). Despite the poor conditions in the slum Prince Charles thinks that the people of Dharavi "may be poorer in material wealth but are richer socially". India and Mumbai's biggest slum is known as Dharavi.
As nouns the difference between slum and squatter
is that slum is a dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty while squatter is one who squats, sits down idly.
English
A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.
