Reddit reviews Planet of Slums

For an assessment of what did cause this situation and where it's heading, you can turn to the UN's Global Report on Human Settlements, 2003, available there as PDF or for ordering a hardcopy. You might also look for writing by Mike Davis who did a good analysis of the UN report for NLR (pay curtained now) that he later turned into a very good book, Planet of Slums. Inspired, in turn, by his book Mute magazine did a special issue on growing urbanization and poverty.

In large part humans are streaming from the countryside to the city, in numbers never before seen, because of economic policies imposed by the IMF/World Bank. Policies that have concentrated land that traditionally sustained countless villages and communities throughout the third world into the hands of a few owners.