http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/sep/14/cambodia-phnom-penh-residents-victory
I read this article last Wednesday, and I remembered it because it was significant to what we have been talking about in Globalization in the 21st Century. This news story is an example of the clash between the formal and the informal city. Although the article never directly mentioned that the properties in question were a "slum" or informal city, I can only assume that residents in this particular place are economically disenfranchised, leaving them vulnerable to a property developer's plans to build up the area around their homes. I did a little bit more research, and the conflict is apparently due to the war in 1975 when the communist party of Cambodia took over and destroyed all property deeds, entailing that all properties belonged to the state. The state now has an act in which you can apply to own property if you can prove you have lived there for over 5 years, but because there is no record of who owns what, these applications can be denied, which is probably more likely to happen when the real estate is in high demand to property developers. This article brings to light views about the rights to the city, and shows how mass displacement can potentially occur in the wake of modernization.
- Ysabel Yates
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The article showed a harsh reality. I believe that the system in Cambodia sets up the people so that no one will be able to own land because of the lack of documentation and record of who owns the land. The government trying to evict poor people to bring in the posh and luxury style living to create the new "city of the east," as the article calls it, is similar to what happens everyday in New York City. It seems like every season there is a new area in which that area was once where middle to lower class families lived. That area undergoes transformation and is converted to the 'It' neighborhood and a lot of renovation and modernization hikes up the prices in rent and other costs. This drives out the residents that were previously there because of their inability to pay the new rental price. Even though it is not a flat out eviction, it is a type of eviction because this forces people out of their homes because they can not afford the area anymore. Something has to be done to help this.
ReplyDelete