Thais in Los Angeles
Thais in Los Angeles

Author: Chanchanit Martorell

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2011-03-21

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 1439640599

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Los Angeles is home to the largest Thai population outside of Thailand. With a relatively recent history of immigration to the United States dating to 1965, reports estimate that 80,000 Thais make their home in Southern California. In spite of its brief history in the United States, the Thai community in Los Angeles has already left its mark on the city. While the proliferation of Thai-owned businesses and shops has converted East Hollywood and some San Fernando Valley neighborhoods to destinations for cultural tourism, the Thai community in Los Angeles County reverberates still from global attention over the 1995 El Monte human trafficking case. The great popularity of Thai cuisine, textiles, and cultural festivals continues to preserve, enrich, and showcase one of Asias most distinctive cultures.

The Challenge of Slums
The Challenge of Slums

Author: United Nations Human Settlements Programme

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1136554750

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The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. Using a newly formulated operational definition of slums, it presents estimates of the number of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors at all level, from local to global, that underlie the formation of slums as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes on to evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades. From this assessment, the immensity of the challenges that slums pose is clear. Almost 1 billion people live in slums, the majority in the developing world where over 40 per cent of the urban population are slum dwellers. The number is growing and will continue to increase unless there is serious and concerted action by municipal authorities, governments, civil society and the international community. This report points the way forward and identifies the most promising approaches to achieving the United Nations Millennium Declaration targets for improving the lives of slum dwellers by scaling up participatory slum upgrading and poverty reduction programmes. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. Written in clear language and supported by informative graphics, case studies and extensive statistical data, it will be an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, planners, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world.

Financing Urban Shelter
Financing Urban Shelter

Author: United Nations Human Settlements Programme

Publisher: UN-HABITAT

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1844072118

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Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies and the Millennium Development Goals target on slums - "a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020". The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent shelter finance policy development is discussed at the international and national levels, and directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems ere examined.

Financing Urban Shelter
Financing Urban Shelter

Author: Un-Habitat

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1136565752

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'Achieving the goals set by world leaders in the United Nations Millennium Declaration will be difficult without a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers, and the lives of slum dwellers cannot be improved without the sound and sustainable economic development that is conducive to the establishment of a strong shelter sector. As Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 emphasizes, one of the key challenges in meeting the Millennium Declaration Goal on slums is mobilization of the financial resources necessary for both slum upgrading and slum prevention by supplying new housing affordable to lower income groups on a large scale. . . . It is my hope that, by highlighting the impacts of current shelter financing systems on low-income households and by identifying the types of financing mechanisms that appear to have worked for them, this report will contribute to the efforts of the wide range of actors involved in improving the lives of slum dwellers, including governments at the central and local levels, as well as non-governmental and international organizations.' From the Foreword by KOFI ANNAN, Secretary-General, United Nations Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies. The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent shelter finance policy development is discussed at the international and national levels, and the directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems are examined. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. It is an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world. The preceding issues of the Global Report on Human Settlements have addressed such topics as An Urbanizing World, Cities in a Globalizing World and The Challenge of Slums. Published with UN-HABITAT

Empowering Squatter Citizen
Empowering Squatter Citizen

Author: David Satterthwaite

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1136567364

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Annotation This volume is the most recent addition to the examination of urban poverty by the Human Settlements Program at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). It makes the case for redirecting support to local organizations and processes. The core of the book is case studies of innovative government organizations (in Thailand, Mexico, Philippines and Nicaragua) and community-driven processes (in India, South Africa, Pakistan and Brazil) that show new ways to address urban poverty. Each case study is prepared by specialists from these countries. They show that poverty reduction in urban areas is as much about building competent, accountable local organizations as about attempting to improve incomes. It involves strengthening and supporting the organizations formed by the poor or homeless to be able to develop their own solutions and able to negotiate better deals with the organizations delivering infrastructure, services, credit and land for housing. The understanding of urbanpoverty that the book presents goes beyond conventional, official definitions based only on income or consumption levels to include considerations of housing conditions, tenure, infrastructure and service provision, the rule of law, and civil and political rights, including 'voice' and the right to influence policy and practice on the ground. It offers powerful conclusions for national and local governments, NGOs and international agencies on how to tackle the complex and growing problem of urban poverty.