Educational Media Reviews Online

A 22-part series by The Television Trust for the Environment, the same producers as LIFE: the Story so Far ( www.lifeonline.org. Also reviewed in EMRO, and Video Librarian, Nov. 2001, V. 16, No. 6.) ). The series looks at the effects of urbanization cities and their inhabitants. The UN Centre for Human Settlements expert say that cities are an economic inevitablity. The migration in search of a better life is constant.

Program 1 - Cities looks at Sao Paulo, a city the filmmakers deem to be a success. It has parts that are thriving, prosperous, with world-class culture and a Glamour Zone of residents who are the new capitalists. The juxtaposition is the city slum called The War Zone, where the residents live with violence, crime, unsanitary water, and a lack of opportunity for education. There are health care issues, unsuitable housing and living conditions that contrast sharply from the notion of glamour.

The popular new mayor of Sao Paulo, Marta Suplicy recognizes the problems and is trying to resolve the myriad of issues, but it seems that the rich have written off the poor and ignore their plight. The residents feel despair and abandoned. The mayor hopes she can make a difference, and we see her on several visits to these neighbourhoods, opening a women’s shelter, and talking about transportation and housing problems.

Program 6 - Pavements of Gold features Lima Peru. Less hopeful than Sao Paulo, survival is the key. Shortages of housing, food, work and most of all opportunities for improvements predominate. Still, Peruvians believe that the city will provide a better life than a rural one. They describe their achievements as TV, electricity, water and schools, even if the children cannot find openings in the schools. In Lima, squatters rights are recognized. The government will provide water, sewer and schools eventually when the residents declare themselves. Still, the sense of community is not there. Life is a struggle and children learn survival tactics. There is help from the government and NGO’s (non-government Organizations), who have begun some projects such as recycling. Housing is certainly not a basic right in Peru. The program maintains that life in the city of Lima is not worse than that in the rural areas. Despite the difficult living conditions, most agree that it is better than life in the rural area, where droughts, lack of work, and no medical attention are realities of life.

Program. 8 - My Mother Built this House In South Africa, where 4 million people are considered homeless, the flow of the poor migrants to the city has resulted in communities of shacks on the outskirts of Capetown. While there is a South African Homeless Peoples’ Federation that helps to build shelter for the poor, and over 10,000 houses have been built by the poor since 1995, over a million homes have been built by the government. There are more demands than there are houses being built, and the poor keep migrating from other parts of South Africa. Some estimate the backlog will take 20 years to be caught up. Cape Town has seen many new homes built, but some think these are barely adequate. Sleeping 4 to a bed in the new government house, and mattresses fill the floor, the overcrowding has its consequences: tuberculosis and HIV infection are present and on the rise. The poor who were shack-dwellers appreciate the improvements, though. They have a roof that doesn’t leak and all have electricity and water.

An alternative is the housing project of the Homeless Peoples’ Federation, where people who are shack dwellers are able to save money to add to the government grants and build larger houses with more amenities. The main participants in the savings scheme are women. The housing shortages are being addressed by the people who will live in them and in the process they learn about planning, bookkeeping, savings and house-building. The new residents are very happy with the change and none seem to be at all critical of their new residence.

The series concedes that continuing urbanization is inevitable, and highlights a number of cities where improvements are being attempted to problems of overpopulation. Tries to appear positive in that changes are underway and attempts at rectifying unhealthy environments are ongoing. Still, the problems seem insurmountable as the tide of new city-dwellers has not and seems will not abate.

The on-screen experts contradict each other in solutions and perspective. The experts from Harvard and the UN Human Settlements oppose each other in their theories on development and free market. Clearly, politics has a large role to play in living conditions. The poor are asking for very little in meeting their basic needs, but too few are receiving these.

Each program in the series appears to have its own flow and style – there isn’t a formula which each program follows. This is both good and bad as the content appears to jump back and forth in the several programs this reviewer saw. Purchase of the entire series may not be warranted, but mainly the programs for the cities and countries that pertain to the purchasing institution. Eventually, the visuals of shanties and slums becomes disturbing enough that one cannot fathom sitting down to watch the entire series in a single semester.

Clearly, resolving urban overpopulation, lack of shelter, transportation and education are not issues that can be resolved overnight, but rather will take a larger organization to assist with change at the level of the urban dweller. The programs do present some of these solutions, at a local, national and international level.