World Politics and Security in a Nutshell

Are Slums in America Damaging the American Dream?

America has the highest GDP in the world at $18 trillion. An average American
earns around $50,000 a month. However, there are over 5 million people across
the nation, who like in slums. Slums are homes which have a decreased quality
of life where general necessities like nutrition and shelter are scarce. Normally,
people live in slums who cant afford the superior quality homes and living which
are the standard in a country.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) of United Nations are
focusing on the eradication of slums across the globe. Their main objective is to
generate a resolution which can benefit the general population living in slums,
through economic and social opportunities. This topic is a huge topic which
needs to be dealt with immediately since poverty is the first aim in the United
Nation: Sustainable Development Goals, developed in September 2015.
Lets flashback to when the start of slums started. It was all during Industrial
Revolution during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. During this
time, urbanization rate was higher as more job opportunities opened up which
persuaded people to migrate from rural to urban. However, many people lived
under extremely low salaries and wages despite heavy hours of worktime. This
caused people not to have enough money to afford their families and they had to
live in extremely insecure and unhealthy conditions. This was the start of slums
and this practice havent stopped yet. These types of people who are unable to
support themselves financially to live in the modern urban area is called relative
poverty. This means that the family can afford standard necessities like food,
shelter and others but they are unable to meet the superior expectations set by
the community like higher education and vacations.
Usually, slums have very unhygienic conditions and surrounding. This is because
the number of children in families are quite high, which can often help the
parents help out in their agricultural jobs. Meanwhile, these families live in just
one room which makes the conditions unhygienic. Speaking of slums in United
States of America in general, it has always been there since the segregation
days. The blacks were not allowed to live in certain areas due to law restrictions,
which is why they were forced to live in slums. Speaking of a more modern
context, the population of slums are caused because of the social divide between
rich and poor people.
One of the way the UNDP council has planned a resolution is to improve the
quality of slum life rather than just eradicating slums. This is because the
population of slums in certain countries are too high, and often contain the
majority of the population of the country. Another way could be if government

allows a certain portion of their funding for the benefit of slums. The final
resolution planned was to give free skill training to people living in slums, so they
can be able to apply for better economically developed/giving jobs.
To sum things up, there are a lot of people living in slums right now, across the
world. The number of people living in slums in America is higher than the
population of more than 65 countries. Do you think America can help eradicate
or improve slum quality across the world? From what it looks like from the
resolutions, America can be one of the best economical provider to other less
economically developed countries with slums since we earn a lot from export,
import and other trade affairs.