Violence
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Ibadan
Abstract
Introduction
Graving urbanization is a distinctive trait of the 21st century (Thales, 2012). According to UN forecasts, half of the earth’s current population of seven billion lives in towns and cities, by 2050 it would have reached nine billion of which, 70% of that number will be city dwellers. The rate at which contemporary cities are growing due to the rapid urbanization of the world’s population, has brought about widespread conditions of insecurity to human settlements among which are natural and man-made disasters, crime and violence. As insecurity has skyrocketed over the years it has become abundantly clear that there is no magic formula or policy to address it (Chioda, 2017). These threats occur in all regions and countries of the world, as Latin America and the Caribbean being the most violent region with a high rate of attendance too coming from developing countries of the Sub-Sahara Africa(Chioda, 2017).
Boer(2012) expounded plainly that the world became a predominantly urban society in2007. Across the world, an estimated three quarters of economic production takes place in cities. Urbanization brings with it possibilities of improved access to job, goods and services for poor people in developing countries and beyond as globalization trends connect cities world-wide. However, urbanization has brought new challenges in terms of conflict, violence, poverty and inequalities. The World Bank Development Report of 2011 highlighted the significance of violence as a development problem. It noted how violence is changing, becoming less structured around nations of civil war and conflicts, and more focused around criminal violence, terrorism and civil unrest. The report also underscored the close relationship between violence and poverty, stating that no low-income fragile or conflict-affected state has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal.
Robert (2012) opined that violence is becoming more wide-spread and chronic in many of the world’s interest – growing cities – particularly in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Sahara Africa, but also increasing in South and Central Asia as well. While affecting all socio-economic groups in numerous direct and indirect ways, the burden of such violence is especially heavy on the urban poor. Together, these facts raise concerns amongst security and aid experts about their implications for national and regional stability, and for human development more generally. According to the United Nations and World Bank reports of 2007, violence crime cost Guatemala an estimated $2.4 billion or 7.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); in Mexican government estimated the cost of violence in 2007 at $9.6 billion, primarily from lost investment, local business and jobs. The UN and World Bank reports in 2007, also estimated that Jamaica and Haiti could have increased their GDP by 5.4% merely by bringing down their crime levels to that of Costa Rica.
Miller and Stephen (2009) stated that in today’s world, it will be accepted that violence exacts a higher cost on global development. In about sixty (60) countries over the last ten years, violence has significantly and directly reduced economic growth. It has hampered poverty reduction efforts and limited progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. About half of these countries experience violence conflict or are in post-conflict transition. The other half experience high levels of violence crime, street violence, domestic violence, and other kinds of common violence. Common violence often increases significantly in post-conflict countries after large-scale politically motivated violence ends. Such cases include Somalia, Liberia, Guatemala, and El. Salvador. Conversely, countries with high levels of common violence have shown tendencies toward sporadic large-scale instability, for example Kenyan (in the form of ethnic violence) and Brazil (in the form of urban riots).
In much of the development literature of the 1960s and 1970s, violence was viewed as an individual issue of criminal pathology linked to rapid urbanization and to the marginality of migrant population. Moser (2006) further argues that evidence from Latin America challenges the population stereotype that poverty is the main cause of violence and shows that inequalityand exclusion (unequal physical infrastructure) coupled with poverty precipitate violence. At the same time, in the context of several inequalities, living conditions of the urban heighten the potential for conflict, crime and violence. Globalization and the spread of neoliberalism world increased social polarization and led to a worldwide criminal economy in drugs, firearms, prostitution and extortion which are of crime and violence experiences. However, this article focusses on the meaning and causes of violence, and appropriate planning programs and policies capable of preventing violence.
Description
Keywords
Violence
Citation
Bako, A. I., F. A. Balogun and A. O. Abdulyekeen, (2017). Violence. In L. Egunjobi (Ed.), Contemporary Concepts in Physical Planning. 3, 1187-1208. Ibadan: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Ibadan.