1.4 billion will be living in slums by 2020: UN report

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C06%5C17%5Cstory_17-6-2006_pg4_15
GENEVA: By 2020, if nothing is done, 1.4 billion people - the equivalent of the population of China - will be living in slums and shantytowns, a specialist United Nations agency reported Friday.

The UN human settlements programme (UN-Habitat) says in a report that governments should not try to stem the flow of people to the cities but manage it instead.

At the moment around one billion people live in slums, or almost one urban resident in three, the agency says in its 2006/7 report on the world’s cities. Their population is growing by 2.2 percent a year, with a rate of 4.5 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report, published every two years.

But the pace of growth is increasing, and by 2020 slum populations will swell by 27 million a year, compared with 18 million between 1990 and 2001.

prospects of life on this planet seem rather bleak.:(

The republican de-population plan is gaining momentum & this year looks like a real record breaker!!:nuke:

the wealthy should be very afraid.

:rofl:

:sarcasm:

... most of those slums will also be in danger of being underwater, as well.

sewing the usual crap clothes

Forgotten urban poor a living time bomb: UN

By Jeremy Lovell
Thu Jun 15, 7:39 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's growing number of poor slum dwellers is a ticking time bomb that governments dare not ignore, the United Nations said on Friday.

The world will pass a critical point in 2007 when the majority of its 6 billion people will be urbanized, the world body said.

One-third of them will be slum dwellers, many trapped in poverty but overlooked by governments and with no prospects of improvement.

"When a critical mass of people are in one place, if you don't empower them they will empower themselves through revolution," Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-HABITAT said in London, presenting the agency's State of the World's Cities 2006/7 report.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060615/wl_nm/environment_slums_dc

in natural disasters...which in one way or another effect nearly ALL states in U.S.

Most people will NOT be able to afford to rebuild on their own, and nationwide disaster, therefore looms.

Massive poverty and displacement here in U.S. not that far in the future...not 'tin foil' at all..if the current "plan" of NON-Admin-action remains.

I live near the LA river and people are camping out there
under the bridges in record numbers as well as in the
adjacent Griffith Park.
BHN

That's why our foreign aid budget is less than 10% of our military budget.