Slums of Southeast Asia: The Case of Manila, Philippines

Manila is a former colonial capital where people live together by working in informal trading businesses within a quite unfavourable ambience. Manila, which is the focus of the country's political, economic, and cultural life, has recently grown spatially and demographically, especially with new migrations from different parts of the country. The lands in Manila, which were once vacant, are today largely filled with different urban areas. At the beginning they were slums which were used for housing and informal commerce. These areas, classified as unfavourable and unhealthy for human settlement, emerged with the support of certain political and economic forces using administrative gaps. The government of the Philippines is also incapable of dealing with uncontrollable urban problems. This paper focuses on slums in Manila, which are in one of the main metropolises of Southeast Asia. Its purpose is therefore to reveal the occurrence of slum districts and the dynamics that were effective in their recent demolition. During the study, an ethnographic method which was predominantly based on observation was used. Primary data collection tools used for the purposes of this study were participant observation, ethnographic interviews and documents. In the light of the data obtained from this research study, the fact that there is a significant relationship between migration from the countryside to Manila and internal migration flows resulting from urban transformation projects and the rapid demographic and spatial growth of Manila was revealed. It also revealed that the demand of the society for luxurious residential areas, shopping malls, entertainment venues, hotels, and business centres has increased since the 2000s and this situation caused the removal of slums in Manila as part of "urban transformation projects”.