Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangkok. There are many big cities
in Asia which have tall buildings, a beautiful night view with
thousands of bright lights, good food, and good places to shop.
These cities look so beautiful, modern and exciting that many
people visit there a lot. However, on the other side of this
modern face, many problems have been brought to the surface. One
of the greatest problems that almost every big city has is the
great increase in the number of people.
Roughly speaking, the increase of people leads to the creation
of the slums. When cities are developing, people who live at a
low standard in the countryside believe that they will be able to
have a better standard of living if they go to the cities. It is
said a number of people in slums actually believe this. Contrary
to their expectations, the reality is bad.
People who do not have any skills to work in the city can not
get any job, even the lowest one. Since sudden development cannot
provide enough shelters, people have to sleep on the streets. The
way they live with no money, no shelter and no job is that they
start picking up garbage, begging, and selling things on the
streets - and some even start stealing. As they cannot get good
nutrition, many people suffer from malnutrition, and children
sometimes die of it. In addition to malnutrition, bad sanitary
conditions, and especially bad water, are routes for them to
catch infectious diseases, which is making the situation more
serious. If having a certain standard of living is one of the
basic human rights, where are the human rights of these people?
The problems of the slums are very serious in Asian
countries.
Especially in cities, the more the number of people live, the
more the number of cars move. As roads in many Asian countries
were made on the assumption that most people would walk or take
buses, they cannot avoid traffic jams. In Seoul, for example, it
can take an hour to go only 10 km. Traffic jams are certainly
making the efficiency of cities drop. Cars are also the cause of
air pollution. According to the police in Bangkok, about 20% of
policemen in the city of Bangkok actually have some kind of lung
or heart disease. Air pollution by cars is also big problem which
is caused by the sudden development.
Asia has been considered as a great economic market and it
seems that its development will not slow down at all. Cities look
very modern and exciting on the surface; however, on the other
side of this coin, there are many serious problems, such as those
of the slums or the environment. Even now, the situation is
getting worse and worse every day.
by Yoko Sato
