The Urban Flood Tide

Around the world, families that have lived off the land for generations are increasingly forsaking rural areas and moving to cities in search of jobs. In countries plagued by civil wars, they flood the urban areas in the hope there is safety in numbers. A high birthrate often swells urban populations even further.

According to a recently released U.N. report, this surge in numbers is putting enormous pressure on housing and is endangering the millions who crowd together in unsanitary conditions.

By the year 2025, an estimated 85% of Americans will live in cities. Few will be as poorly housed as many in the cities of developing nations. However, homelessness and resultant health horrors will increase both in the United States and elsewhere unless governments and private businesses act now, the United Nations warns. The world body is calling for an international effort to provide shelter--and jobs, the best cure for the poverty that perpetuates homelessness.

In struggling to obtain financing, some developing countries are looking to the American experience. A low-income tax credit--though currently under attack by lawmakers in Washington--has attracted substantial corporate investment in low-income projects, generating billions of dollars for affordable housing in the United States.

Community groups, often shepherded by nonprofit housing developers, depend on funds raised by this federal incentive, or on charitable donations, to build low-rent housing. Some private developers also are playing major roles.

Worldwide, an estimated 500 million people are either homeless or ill-housed in cities. In Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, for example, 79% of the population is either homeless or living in substandard housing. At least half of the population of two other capitals, Jakarta in Indonesia and Bogota in Colombia, are ill-housed or homeless. These and other poor nations face enormous challenges in finding the money for additional housing in this era of shrinking foreign aid.

Americans who ask why they should care about housing and environmental woes in distant lands need only remember that porous international borders could allow countless refugees to enter the United States and settle in cities like Los Angeles, taxing local resources and possibly generating health problems.

The scope of the problem is huge, and growing. If the migration to urban areas continues unchecked, according to the U.N. report, the world’s urban population will more than double from 2.4 billion this year to 5 billion in the year 2025. This explosion can be accommodated only if governments start to plan now.