Movin' on up : mainstreaming under-serviced urban communities in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This thesis offers an early look at a radical shift in Sri Lankan urban housing policy regarding slums in the capital city of Colombo. During the 1980s, the Sri Lankan government achieved widespread urban improvements by mobilizing community-led on-site slum upgrading. However, since the late 1990s, the government has attempted to persuade urban slum dwellers to relocate to nearby high-rise apartments and, thus, reclaim public land inhabited by low-income settlements in central Colombo city. This policy shift is surprising because: (1) Sri Lanka's previous 10-year slum upgrading program was described as "best practice" by donor agencies, and (2) most other countries have rejected the notion of high-rise for low-income city dwellers. Concurrent shifts in donor agency ideology and preconditions as well as overcrowded physical conditions in previously upgraded under-served settlements drove the government to seek new approaches to improve the lives of the urban poor. Moreover, beginning in the 1990s, there was a renewed perception that cities like Colombo needed to capitalize on its comparative advantages vis-à-vis the rest of the region in order to spur economic growth in the nation. The Sustainable Townships Programme (STP) and its pilot project, the Sahaspura apartment complex, with its parallel attempts to free up land for development and resettle slum dwellers in modern high-rise apartments, were part of the drive to remain competitive in the global and regional economy. Prevailing thought maintains that relocation and high-rise housing will adversely affect the social networks and informal livelihood patterns of slum dwellers.

(cont.) However, survey data of residents in Sahaspura indicate that, on the contrary, the majority of residents believe that their social lives have improved while their economic livelihoods have remained the same. In the face of land constraints, it appears that if slum dwellers' livelihoods do not depend on residence and if they are resettled within the central city with access to transport and facilities, high-rise public housing may be a suitable intervention to improve living standards. In the final analysis, the Sahaspura high-rise experience indicates that, under certain conditions, policy-makers might need to rethink the preferences of the urban poor in cities like Colombo.