Third World Cities: Poverty, Employment, Gender Roles and the Environment during a Time of Restructuring
Abstract
Third World Cities: Poverty, Employment, Gender Roles and the Environment during a Time of Restructuring SAGE Publications, Inc.05/1994DOI: 10.1080/00420989420080601 AlanGilbert University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC14 OAP, UK In the previous papers of this trilogy, I examined the recent literature on housing, infrastructure and services in Third World cities and current writing on changing national settlement systems (Gilbert, 1992, 1993). The aim in this last paper is to consider the literature on four key elements of urban life: poverty, work, gender roles and the environment. How have those dimensions been affected by several fundamental shifts in the nature of world organisation and development ? Since 1980, a range of different global processes have impacted on Third World cities which are crudely lumped together here under the term 'restructuring'. The latter, for present purposes, includes the moves activated from the developed countries towards flexible accumulation and trade liberalisation. Restructuring also includes changes intended to improve economic performance in Third World countries: deregulation of labour markets and economic enterprise, privatisation, modernisation of the state and economic stabilisation. Clearly, many of these changes are integral components of IMF-type structural adjustment packages and are closely linked to another element in