A look at Urban Slums and how they are affecting our world and why they matter to you.

2. Urban Slums…
A Challenge
for the
21st Century

3. Imagine…

4. … you lived on rubble …

5. … in a makeshift shack …

6. … in a cardboard box …

7. … by the railroad tracks …

8. … employed on a garbage dump ...

9. … with
eyes
fixed
on a
future
of …

10. … hard work and survival

11. One out of six
people live in such
conditions.
One out of six. One out of six.
One out of six. One out of six.

12. The Dimensions of
the Challenge

13. Urban Growth
Every week urban areas gain another 1.3 million people.
That’s 67 million people per year.
36 million of them end up in slums =
100,000 new slum dwellers per day

14. By 2025, over 60% of the world’s
population are expected to live in
urban areas.
That means the size of urban dwellers will be
double the size of rural populations.
That means the size of urban dwellers will be
double the size of rural populations.

15. In 2000, there were 388 cities in the
world with 1 million or more
residents.

16. By 2015, there will be a projected 554
such cities. Of these, 426 will be in
developing countries.

17. Urbanization by Region

18. Africa will have to
accommodate an
additional 200
million people in its
cities within the
next 15 years

19. In Asia an additional 590 million people will
live in urban areas within the next 15 years

20. 93% of the world’s additional urban
population will live in cities of the less
developed world.

21. The challenge of
coping with
massive urban
population
growth, thus, is
greatest for the
countries least
able to meet it.

22. Growth – it follows –
won’t happen here…

23. … but

24. HERE.

25. Unsurprisingly, population
growth rates in slums are higher
than in virtually any other
environment in the world

26. The Indian urban scenario has been
aptly summarized as the 2-3-4-5
syndrome.
In the last decade, as
India’s
o annual average
population growth rate
was 2%
o urban India grew at 3%
o mega cities at 4%
o and slum populations
rose by 5%

28. In 2003, the number
of slum dwellers
was estimated at 1
billion.
Projections show
that 2 billion
people will be living
in slums by 2030.
That would be almost
1 out of every 4 persons

29. “Slums are
places where
hunger prevails,
and where young
people are
drawn into anti-
social behavior,
including crime
and terrorism, for
lack of better
alternatives.”
Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka,
United Nations Human Settlements Program
(UN HABITAT)

30. “Urban poverty
will be the most
significant and
politically explosive
problem of this
century”
World Bank
The way we
respond to it will
largely determine
the future of our
world!

31. Urban Slums
The fastest-growing
mission field

32. Despite this new reality,
most Christian NGOs and
mission organizations still
concentrate their efforts in
rural areas and mid-sized
towns.
In 2004, World Vision, for
example, still focused only
17% of its work on urban
agglomerations.

33. As cities grow,
hence, the
percentage of
urban Christians is
declining.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1900 1925 1950 1975 2006
In 1900, Christians
numbered 69% of
urban dwellers.
By 2008, that figure
dropped to 36%.

34. “Although the center of
evangelical Christianity has
shifted to the Two-Thirds world,
the great surge of missions
outreach in the 20th century
largely passed by the
burgeoning urban population
of the non-Western world.”
Operation World

35. The Church
often remains
irrelevant and
inward-focused
in the exploding
cities of the
Two-Thirds
World.

36. “Yet, slums present a huge opportunity for
holistic human development and the growth
of the Church, but the little that is being done
is insufficient at best…. If the Church wants to
be where the unreached are, we need to be
focusing our attention on urban centers,
particularly in the developing world. Since
squatters and slum-dwellers constitute an
immense people group, we must make the
urban poor the primary thrust of missions.”
Viv Grigg, Director, Urban Leadership Foundation

37. Domestic violence,
poverty, systemic
injustice and spiritual
emptiness cripple the
God-given potential
of hundreds of millions
of families living in
slums around the
world.
Their plight
cries out.

38. How do we
respond?
What does Jesus’ teaching mean
for us today in this global context?