UN-Habitat 2010 Award for Vienna

The prestigious award of the 2010 Scroll of Honour of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme presented by UN-Habitat goes to Vienna, Austria. This year’s award under the theme “Better City, Better Life” was presented to Michael Häupl, the mayor of Vienna for a multimillion dollar project that has reduced sub-standard housing to less than 9 percent. It was conducted through building a quarter of million apartments in 5000 buildings. 

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How many slum-dwellers live in the world?

Slums are experiencing unpleasant levels in some parts of the wold like India, south east Asia, and Africa. These informal settlements have been growing all over the twentieth century.According to UN Habitat, Most slum-dwellers of the world live in Asia. This equals 581 million people. 80 percent of these people live in east and south Asia.Just in India, 170 million people live in slums. 

The Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary suggests the following definition for slum: 

A densely populated usually urban area marked by crowding, dirty run-down housing, poverty and social disorganization.

UN Habitat has defined the slum areas as the settlements that have the following the characteristics: 

• Inadequate access to safe water
• Inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure
• Poor structural quality of housing
• Overcrowding
• Insecure residential status

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