The Causes And Impacts Of Urban Sprawl And Informal Settlements In Eritrea

There are a number of reasons why informal settlements exist and why people decide to establish and develop them.The main concept is that informal settlements have become a perpetual challenge and adversely imposing negative impacts to the environment.Living in informal settlements lead to the exposure and vulnerability to environmental hazards to people and the land which they occupy.Nowadays"urban sprawl"is the main problem of governments and local municipalities of different towns and cities all over the world.Since the causes that lead to urban sprawl in most cities are similar and have common characteristics,it will help the policymakers to make and schedule a global plan to stop sprawling and minimize the aspects that result due to urban sprawl.Urban sprawl has social,economic,political,and environmental impacts that the majority affect the community negatively.Informal settlements have resulted from rapid urbanization and relocation to the socioeconomic paradigm of development.Instant and unbalanced physical development of cities has been followed by undesirable economic,social,and vocational consequences.The major effects and consequences of uncontrolled urban physical development include sprawling and informal settlements.Inadequate basic facilities（education,health,electricity,and water）,pollution,overcrowding,and unorganized waste management are the most noticeable characteristics of informal settlements.These characteristics make the environment vulnerable to health problems of the urban informal settlement area dwellers.Along with all the problems facing the informal settlements,the impression of informal settlements’houses being self-built or mutual-built by families and using low-quality materials harms the environment.A lot of families around the globe especially in third world countries live in illegal and substandard houses（slums）and under fragile economic,social,and environmental conditions.As per the report given by the UN in 2018,informal settlements were declared as the main challenge of the third millennium.Currently,about one-quarter of the total world’s urban population lives in IS,most in developing countries but increasingly also in the most prosperous countries.Three billion people are estimated to live in uncontrolled informal settlements and hence the governments are supposed to provide them with adequate and affordable housing by the year 2030.^[1]This research studies the general concept of urban IS and different theories related to the subject matter of research.Then,the main sources for the emergence and consequences of IS,and the negative impacts that happened on the environment are clarified in detail.Finally,general recommendations on how to tackle and then minimize the presence of informal settlements are stated.The final goal of the study is to clarify the main causes for the presence of urban IS residents and their consequences.This research particularly introduces the situation about informal settlements at the Selam neighborhood of Barentu town based on a comprehensive review of the answers to the questions provided in terms of a questionnaire to the informal settlement dwellers.As the tremendous growing trend of urbanization is recognizing by many researchers and has become a challenge for many countries throughout the world,it is also a major challenge in developing countries such as Eritrea and as its difficulty,almost all of the cities/towns of the country have such a problem.Even though the concept of urbanization in Eritrea started in the twentieth century,it did not continue to grow at its initial pace due to the successive colonization.But when finally,Eritrea won independence every city and town started to grow and flourish dramatically.Barentu town is one of those fast-growing towns which depicted rapid urbanization with the many inevitable issues including,the rise of urban IS and sprawling.The occurrence of rapid migration（both internal and external migrations）and urban expansion also have played a role in forming huge informal settlements in Barentu town.And later in 1998,when the border conflict with Ethiopia started,a lot of people migrated to Barentu town from the villages around the border and hence the informal settlements also increased significantly.Not only this but also since Barentu has a suitable geographical location and connects many towns and cities a lot of people flow to it from different towns and other rural areas.