6.4 The Management Of Urban Settlements

Question 1

Facts about Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro

Answer 1

• houses close to 70,000 people

Question 2

What are the solutions to the challenges in Rocinha?

Answer 2

Government solutions:
Social challenges:
- improve sewerage systems and provide childcare centres and schools
- straightening up the narrow, winding streets of the favelas to allow passage of traffic (ease congestion)
- assigning street numbers to housing units to provide local residents with a postal address for first time (enables them to obtain loans etc)
- gov self-help schemes: local authority provided building materials, such as wood and concrete blocks, while local residents provided the Labour supply
- the local authority provided basic services with the money saves so that almost all houses in Rocinha are made from concrete/brick and have facilities

Economic:
- better developed infrastructure compared to most with hundreds of businesses, e.g banks and locally-based tv channel, TV ROC
- lots of community neighborhoods associations and NGOs staffed by Brazilian teachers

• Rio de Janeiro aims to invest a total of $1 billion in into Favelo-Bairro improvement programme which builds roads, drainage systems etc
• also provided income-generation by offering adult education and job training

Question 3

Challenges in Rocinha

Answer 3

Social:
- infant mortality rates high - 50 per 1000 compared to national rate of 15
- 2011, life expectancy up to 13 years less than city’s wealthier areas
- high rates of malnutrition and diseases
- organized crime/gang violence

Economic:
- Unemployment rates are high (up to 50% in 2016) and many people work in the informal, poorly paid sector.
- many children work to support families - 1995 survey almost 5 million in Brazil aged 10-14 were working
- 18% of children in Rocinha do not attend school

Question 4

What were the transportation challenges in Singapore?

Answer 4

• post-war years after 1945 problems: serious unemployment, acute housing shortage
• in 1969, population passed 2 million and govs most urgent task was to house people and set out large-scale industrialization programme to create jobs
• transportation was not high and massive developments put great strain on the system
• rapid growth led to increased car ownership: 1955 53,000 cars on the road, grown to 156,000 by 1966 and 530,000 by 2014
• car ownership rate 12 cars per 100 people

Traffic issues:
- poor traffic management/serious city centre congestion
- inadequate public transport
- poor infrastructure development/maintenance
- rising number of vehicles
- poor driver discipline = lots of accidents

Question 5

What were the solutions to the traffic problems in Singapore?

Answer 5

1971 rapid transit system:
- planned to encircle central portion of island and new airport built at Changi
- resulted in substantial expansion in the road infrastructure from 1960, from about 800 km of roads to 3,360 km in 2015
- also expressway network gradually developed forming key links between satellite town/city centre
- increasing cost of motoring: import duty of 45%, annual road tax ; **however car growth rapidly continued and gov increased road taxes, company-registered has to pay 2x private cars (still exists)
- staggered working hours (for civil servants): peak rush hour extending from 2 to 3 hours,
EV: effect small as only affected 10% of workforce,
- private sector encouraged to do the same but not all firms could adopt flexible work hours
- encouraging staggered work hours actually discouraged car pooling, as opportunities reduced
- Car pooling encourage; issues:
- distribution of costs
- punctuality of participants
- insurance coverage

• Congestion charges: 1998 electronic road pricing (ERP) scheme to deter traffic congestion during peak hours at various roads in CBD
• Parking controls: in the CBD much higher to disincentivize trips by car $1 for an hour
• imposing charge on each car ark space owned by private car park operators $20 per month within core area
• traffic engineering measures: yellow box junctions reducing risk of gridlock, reserved bus lanes (improved bus travel time by 40%), computer controlled traffic signs, conversion of roundabouts to signalised intersections
• public transport improvements:
• **5.3 million trips made Daily
• at least half of population use it daily**
• 42% of school students use it to get to school
• gov aims to have number of commuters using public transport above 75% by 2030
• bus operations originally lots of issues, but improvements made:
• AC, semi-express services and one-person operated services, higher capacity double deckers

Question 6

What is the Mass Rapid Transit Corporation in Singapore?

Answer 6

• formed in 198 (MRT), and LRT in 1999
• train arrives every 3-8 mins
• 104 stations serving most businesses/areas in Singapore
• also Singapore underground road system being developed
• total length of around 150km
• driverless LRT trains (lower costs), bypass any traffic congestion/lights and do not add to road traffic