Contrasting adaptation responses by squatters and low-income tenants in Khulna,Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines patterns of adaptive behaviour in low-income settlements⁽¹⁾ in Khulna, Bangladesh’s third largest city. It contrasts the adaptive behaviours of “squatter” households who “own” their land with those of tenants who rent dwellings from private landlords, and finds significant differences between the adaptive behaviours of owners and renters. This is important, as most knowledge about low-income settlements in Bangladesh originates from “owned” settlements – often called “public settlements”, as the land is officially public land. But the future growth of low-income settlements in the country is likely to be increasingly on private land, with rented dwellings. Policy lessons generated from settlements with “squatters” may be inappropriate for the next generation of “slums” that will house millions of rural migrants and people displaced by climate change. The conclusions argue that agencies seeking to assist low-income households in Bangladesh will need to craft different strategies for settlements according to different types of land tenure.

I. Introduction

Resolving the challenges that face growing numbers of poor urban people in low-income countries is a critical development task, especially in an era of climate change. More than one-third of the 2.5 billion urban dwellers in these countries already live in low-income settlements and the numbers increase by at least six million each year.⁽²⁾ Climate change is influencing this trend in many ways, not least by propelling rural–urban migration of poor people.⁽³⁾ In Bangladesh alone, 8–10 million people are expected to be displaced by 2050. This involves predominantly poor rural people moving to low-income urban settlements, where nearly 35 per cent of Bangladesh’s urban population currently live.⁽⁴⁾ The number of poor urban people is expected to outnumber the rural poor by around 2040.⁽⁵⁾ The share of people living as tenants in low-income private settlements has already risen from 48.8 per cent in 1996 to 70.3 per cent in 2005, indicating a major shift in tenure options for these people.⁽⁶⁾

The challenges facing the urban poor and their ability to adapt vary between households and settlements. This resonates with the notion that “… ‘context is king’ for adaptation to climate in cities”⁽⁷⁾ and that security of land tenure is a particularly important contextual factor. Past research has confirmed that:

• only when poor urban people’s tenure is relatively secure will they invest in shelter and basic service provision;⁽⁸⁾

• security of tenure raises the prospects for both direct and indirect adaptation initiatives;⁽⁹⁾ and

• insecure tenure often results in higher rates of mobility, undermining community-based adaptation efforts.⁽¹⁰⁾

However, it remains a disturbing trend that poor people’s access to land and dwellings in urban areas is neglected by politicians, policy makers and policies.⁽¹¹⁾ In Bangladesh, the 1994 National Housing Policy barely mentioned the urban poor.⁽¹²⁾ The policy was re-drafted in 2004, offering some acknowledgement of poor people’s rights, but it still awaits approval.⁽¹³⁾ Against this backdrop, urban poverty continues to rise, resulting in a range of informal and sometimes illegal tenure arrangements. A recent study has identified 14 land tenure arrangements within three broad categories – squatters, private settlements and other (street dwellers, tied tenants, communal owners).⁽¹⁴⁾ Squatting involves households occupying a parcel of land that formally belongs to someone else (public or private) while paying no financial compensation. In Bangladesh, squatting on private land is uncommon, so that the terms “public settlements” and “squatter settlements” are often used interchangeably. Squatter settlements are usually owner-occupied but have some tenants, whereas private settlements are fully tenant based except for a few, if any, resident owners.

A tenant household in a private settlement has a very different life experience from that of a homeowner in a squatter settlement. The squatter household can usually make some claim of ownership over (or rights to) the land, as they own their dwelling and do not have to pay rent.⁽¹⁵⁾ In contrast, the dictum that “home is the most important asset” does not hold true for tenant households. The tenant household in a private settlement has no claim of ownership over the land or dwelling and tenants have to pay rent, often more than 20 per cent of their monthly household income.⁽¹⁶⁾ Tenants in private settlements cannot also effectively engage with external actors and rarely get involved in social mobilization. Hence, tenants in private settlements develop quite different adaptation practices to those of squatters on public land.

This leads to our central concern – that adaptation practices feasible in one form of tenure arrangement may not be applicable in another. In Bangladesh, little analytical work is available on how people’s adaptation practices relate to their tenure arrangements; most literature focuses on large squatter settlements built on public land.⁽¹⁷⁾ This paper seeks to address this knowledge gap by examining the contrasting patterns of adaptive behaviour in low-income settlements in Khulna. In particular, it contrasts the adaptive behaviours of “squatter” households and those renting from private landlords.

II. Analytical Framework

Our core hypothesis is that people living in squatter settlements, especially those long established on public land, are better placed to develop effective adaptive practices than people living in rental accommodation in private settlements. Despite the fear of eviction, squatter owner–dwellers enjoy informal and partial land ownership rights that enable them to develop a range of practices to reduce vulnerability. Institutions such as NGOs and donors usually prioritize public settlements, particularly large settlements, for basic services provision. Their selection of a settlement can be influenced by whether the municipal government recognizes its existence, which in Bangladesh is indicated by the issuing of a holding tax number to individual dwellings.⁽¹⁸⁾ In contrast, private settlements are usually small or medium sized and rarely attract external institutional support. People usually reside there for shorter periods and have little incentive to adapt dwellings and are discouraged from developing home-based enterprises. Newcomers are also unlikely to be included in electoral/voter lists for the corresponding municipal constituency.

To examine this hypothesis, we apply a framework incorporating key elements that facilitate and/or hinder access to, and influence over, resources, decision-making and actions on climate change adaptation by poor urban people (Figure 1). Emphasis is placed on how the adaptation practices of poor urban households and communities have been shaped. This reflects our positioning of poor urban people as innovative individuals, whose abilities, preferences, aspirations and struggles are reflected in the practices that they develop.

Figure 1.

Analytical framework

We frame adaptation within the broader processes of development opportunities (e.g. increased demand for labour because of globalization), development challenges (e.g. global financial crisis) and climate variability and change. This helps us conceptualize climate change as just one additional factor that is, and will become increasingly, important in addressing poverty within an already complex and dynamic livelihood context for poor urban people. Likewise, we believe that poverty and vulnerability do not coincide in the same way in all cases, and among poor urban people there are varying levels of vulnerability.⁽¹⁹⁾

We use, therefore, a slightly modified typology of vulnerability than is commonly followed. The literature often differentiates vulnerability into physical (external) and social (internal) categories.⁽²⁰⁾ But we found it useful to sub-divide social vulnerability into politico-legal and socioeconomic vulnerability, given the importance of these dimensions in the lives of low-income people in Khulna. This approach fits well with the widely held understanding that “…vulnerability represents the system or the community’s physical, economic, social or political susceptibility to damage.”⁽²¹⁾

Of course, each of the three vulnerability domains is a collective expression of factors experienced by people in different contexts with differing consequences. In order to highlight the comparability between public and private settlements, we analyze these factors by relevance to vulnerability from something and vulnerability to something.⁽²²⁾ In the former, we highlight exposure to (whatever) risk. In the latter, we talk about susceptibility to particular outcomes, e.g. malnutrition, homelessness.⁽²³⁾

To be consistent with our analysis of vulnerabilities, we also structure adaptation practices under three broad domains: built environment, mobilization and political action, and socioeconomy. Our assumption is that people develop practices based on their perceptions of vulnerability and their individual and collective resources. External institutions – encompassing public bodies, civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), aid agencies and private actors – can support as well as hinder these processes, both directly and indirectly.

III. Khulna: Brief Background

Khulna stands on the banks of the Rupsha and Bhairab rivers and is the third largest city in Bangladesh. It had about one million inhabitants in 2010.⁽²⁴⁾ During the late 1950s–1960s, Khulna became an important centre for industrial development, but the economy stalled after independence in 1971. The city–region has seen economic revival since the early 1990s, partly due to a growth in shrimp farming and processing activities, and is likely to experience a massive boost when the Padma multi-purpose bridge is constructed.

A Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) study estimated that in 2005 around 188,000 people (19.5 per cent of the city’s population) lived in 520 low-income communities in Khulna (Figure 2).⁽²⁵⁾ The 2005 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), however, found that the incidence of poverty in Khulna was 40.4 per cent, much higher than in Dhaka (20.2 per cent) and Chittagong (27.8 per cent).⁽²⁶⁾ Note that there is a massive unexplained gap between the CUS estimate of the number of dwellers in low-income settlements and the HIES poverty incidence figure in Khulna.

Figure 2.

Khulna’s administrative divisions and distribution of low-income settlements, and the case study sites

Notwithstanding this ambiguity, it is evident that a large minority of the city’s population is poor and that the number of people living in low-income settlements in the city has been increasing (with displaced people from recent cyclones) and will continue to increase. The city is in the southwest of Bangladesh, where climate change consequences are expected to be particularly severe. The city–region is flat, poorly drained, experiences cyclones and is, on average, only 2.5 metres above mean sea level. There are a range of vulnerabilities for the city, including: a rise in extreme rainfall incidents; sea level rises (20–40 centimetres by 2050, exacerbated by subsidence); rises in intensity and frequency of both coastal and inland flooding, and also waterlogging; and high salinity levels and scarcity of safe water.⁽²⁷⁾

The impacts of heightened climate variability (and perhaps climate change) are already evident. In the past 10 years, nearly all of the city’s residents have been affected by one or more major problems – for example, river flooding, cyclones, waterlogging or salinity.⁽²⁸⁾ In future, the challenges facing poor and vulnerable people in Khulna will be compounded in at least three ways by climate change, namely sudden onset events (e.g. floods and cyclones), slow onset processes (e.g. coastal erosion and saline intrusion) and cascade effects (e.g. compounding of existing problems by straining overstretched public services).⁽²⁹⁾

IV. Methodology and Case Study Sites

A detailed comparison of two settlements was undertaken, and findings were triangulated by short visits to other settlements, discussions with key informants and analysis of the academic and “grey” literatures. The settlements were selected after a reconnaissance survey of five potential case study areas (shortlisted in consultation with Khulna-based NGOs/CSOs) and an assessment of their suitability as case study sites, using six pre-defined criteria.⁽³⁰⁾ In each settlement, we applied the same methodology for data collection:

• introduced ourselves to community leaders and explained our research;

• introduced the research team to each household head and conducted a questionnaire survey of all households;

• analyzed the initial survey results and selected 25 households for life history interviews;

• conducted participatory exercises of settlement problems with groups from each area; and

• held discussions with key informants about our findings, to check accuracy and validity.

In addition, we held a concluding dialogue with members of the local academic community, policy makers, civil society organizations and members of the selected settlements for a broader testing of findings (more than 50 representatives from 20 organizations).⁽³¹⁾

We chose Magbara and Supraghat as the two case study settlements (Figure 2), as they represented the two most common low-income settlement types in Khulna – namely a private and a public settlement, respectively.⁽³²⁾ Magbara has evolved over the past decade on a number of closely located, privately owned land holdings (sub-units). The landowners have developed a common type of rented dwelling for tenants and we studied six sub-units with six separate owners. Three of them are absentee owners, two live just outside of their settlement compounds and one is a resident owner. The tenants are relatively mobile, with the average stay being two years and the longest nine years. Our sample comprised 70 households, with 311 residents, all Muslims. The population density is relatively low, ranging from 1,600 to 3,800 persons per hectare, with an average of 2,500.

In contrast, Supraghat has evolved over the past 40 years on land owned partly by the government and partly by a Christian religious organization. Most residents enjoy unauthorized land ownership, either by being the original settlers or by (informally) purchasing the land from the original settlers or their successors. It is the biggest (by population size) settlement in Khulna, with 3,700 households, 15,875 residents and a population density of 6,400 people per hectare.⁽³³⁾ As we could only study part of the settlement in detail, we selected an area where environmental problems were particularly evident. This comprised 145 households (24 Christian and 121 Muslim), of which only 11 (7.5 per cent) were tenant households. There is one absentee landlord with five rental units and three resident owners each with two units.

V. Living in Magbara and Supraghat: Challenges and Vulnerabilities

a. Challenges

Table 1 presents a list of problems identified through participatory exercises. It provides an initial structure for examining the much larger body of material from our survey and life history datasets, and reveals some of the main differences and similarities between life in a public or a private settlement. Three particular differences stand out. First, the people of Supraghat report the threat of eviction as their biggest problem, whereas no-one in Magbara mentioned eviction as a threat, despite their tenure being dependent on paying rent and other factors. While residents in Supraghat felt they had some permanent claim or right to their land and dwelling, residents in Magbara accepted the logic of the rental market – if you cannot pay your rent, you will have to move out.

Table 1

Problems facing people in Magbara and Supraghat

Magbara				Supraghat
Rank	Problem	%	Rank	Problem	%
1	Sanitation and local environment	19	1	Threat of eviction	32
2	Employment and earnings	16	2	Sanitation and local environment	18
3	Access to OMS (open market sales) rice*	13	3	Drugs and criminality	13
4	Mosquitoes, insects, snakes	11	4	Employment and earnings	8
5	Heat and cold stress	10	5	Access to health services	8
6	Footpath quality	8	6	Fire hazard	5
7	Access to drinking water	7	7	Access to schools	4
8	Lack of ventilation	7	8	Early marriage	3
9	Waterlogging	5	9	Other	9
10	Other	4
TOTAL		100	TOTAL		100

NOTE: *This concern was about access to rice and the fact that OMS does not provide subsidized access to other foods and kerosene.

SOURCE: Summary table from participatory problem identification and ranking exercises in Magbara involving 20 participants (20 February 2011) and in Supraghat involving nine participants (18 February 2011).

Second, residents in Supraghat complained that drug trading, drug abuse and associated problems (noise, needles on the ground) were a major concern. Magbara residents had no problems with anti-social behaviour, as landowners informally controlled public access.⁽³⁴⁾ While “drugs” are a genuine problem for people in Supraghat, the contrast with Magbara reveals how the public settlement is fully embedded in the economic and social life of Khulna, with both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, being integrated into the city means that its residents have a greater variety of economic opportunities than people in Magbara. On the downside, the very nature of Supraghat’s integration makes the presence of drug traders/users and local mastaans (muscle men or thugs) inescapable. Supraghat’s integration is an outcome of its co-evolution with surrounding vibrant river port-based commercial activities, which also include drug trafficking and timber smuggling from the sundarbans (mangroves). A system of “porous bureaucracy”⁽³⁵⁾ works as a backdrop for local economic elites to control these illegal activities with the help of local mastaans, and the entanglement of Supraghat dwellers in this process. In contrast, Magbara’s lack of integration is down to its locational disadvantages (in the middle of a residential area, isolated from bustling informal economic activities), the rental-based tenure system, and socioeconomic restrictions and the political neglect that this entails.

The third major difference is how Supraghat residents were concerned about access to health and education services (and under “other” they also commented on problems of accessing old age and widow’s pensions and the lack of a municipal dustbin service). This emerged very strongly in individual interviews. Magbara residents talked about lack of access to health services and schools but they did not perceive access to such services as a right. While Supraghat residents complained of the government letting them down, people in Magbara were disappointed but did not recognize that there was a duty bearer responsible for basic service delivery.

In terms of similarities, there are two main observations. For both settlements, sanitation and local environmental problems were grave issues – in virtually all low-income settlements in Bangladesh sanitation services and pollution are severe and endemic problems. Second, concerns about employment and earnings (lack of employment, seasonal unemployment and low wages) were identified as a major problem. This reflects the over-saturated labour market for unskilled and low-skilled jobs in Khulna, but as discussed below, the constraints on people in private settlements are much greater than in public settlements.

b. Vulnerability

Table 2 provides an overview of vulnerability by type, exposure and outcome and in relation to the three domains noted above. Our examination reveals that people are more concerned about politico-legal issues, such as eviction (in public settlements), or socioeconomic issues, such as unemployment (in private settlements), than anything else. In general, low-income settlements are marked by high levels of physical vulnerability, mainly as a consequence of their high politico-legal and socioeconomic vulnerabilities.

Table 2

Key vulnerabilities of Khulna’s poor to impacts of climate change

Domain	Type	Exposure	Outcome
Physical	*Proximity to coasts and water bodies	*Groundwater salinity and poor water quality	*Hypertension and related illness, waterborne diseases
	*Low elevations and poor drainage	* Flooding and waterlogging	*Damaged hut, mud and filth, ill health
	*Poor sanitation and dirty environment	*Raw sewage spillage, insects and pests	*Poor hygiene and parasitic diseases
	* Poor quality dwellings	*Heat and cold stress, rain penetration indoors, cyclone damage	*Discomfort, sleeplessness, asset depletion, ill health
	*Narrow lanes and highly concentrated land use	*Close contact with disease vectors, fewer rescue options	*Rapid spread of vector-borne disease, poor ventilation and light, social conflicts, fire incidents
Politico-legal	*Tenure insecurity	*Evictions and market-driven displacement	*Poor built-in resilience, psychological distress
	*Lack of a socio-political platform	* Political exclusion	*Poor augmentation of citizenship
	*Aid and NGO dependency	*Financial opt-outs and political settlements by duty bearers	*Moral hazard and erosion of trust in representative democracy
Socio-economic	*Constrained livelihood diversification	*Dependence on casual labouring and petty businesses	*Seasonal dip in earnings, financial hardship
	*Environmental migration	* Confusion, rootlessness	*Skills and social connections lost, impeded human development
	*Weather sensitivity of the casual labour market	*Oversupply of casual labour during periods of natural disaster	*Low and irregular income, loss of skills, underemployment, rise in social problems
	* Food price rises	* Food insecurity	*Stunting and wasting, liquidation of savings

i. Physical vulnerability

High levels of physical vulnerability are evident in all of Khulna’s low-income settlements, but these vary in nature and extent, both within and across settlements. All the available evidence on climate change suggests that these problems will increase in coming years. We identify the following five forms of physical vulnerability as particularly significant in Magbara and Supraghat.

Close proximity to coasts and water bodies. Khulna is close to the coast, leading to a high risk of groundwater salinity. This is worst in low-income settlements, including Magbara and Supraghat, where people commonly depend on groundwater from shallow tube wells (or have to queue and/or pay for access to deep tube wells). Using water from shallow tube wells raises the passive intake of sodium, which has a range of health effects including increased rates of hypertension.⁽³⁶⁾ In addition, both settlements are adjacent to ponds that were created by digging up soil for the plinths on which the dwellings stand. These water bodies have become highly polluted with drain water, solid waste and excreta. Hot and humid conditions make this water a breeding place for mosquitoes (e.g. Anopheles philippinensis, which carries malaria parasites⁽³⁷⁾) and other disease vectors (e.g. Phlebotomus argentipes, which carries the leishmaniasis virus⁽³⁸⁾), exposing residents to a high risk of infection.

Low elevations compared to their surrounding areas and poor drainage. Both settlements have low elevation and a high risk of inundation and waterlogging. Badly designed and poorly maintained drainage systems and the depositing of solid waste directly into drains by residents compound these problems, resulting in frequent and prolonged waterlogging. This water is always polluted, facilitating the spread of waterborne diseases. Low elevation is a particular problem in parts of Supraghat.

Poor sanitation and a dirty environment. As is the norm in low-income settlements in Khulna, both Magbara and Supraghat have an inadequate number of poorly constructed community latrines. In Supraghat, six toilets and two bathrooms are shared by around 147 households – one latrine for every 100 people. As a result, waiting times are long and many households have constructed illegal “hanging latrines” over the pond. Excessive use of community latrines results in overflow from septic tanks going into the pond, further polluting the water. The situation in Magbara is even worse, as the latrines are of very poor quality construction and the regular sewage overflow makes exposure to raw sewage a constant problem.

Poor quality dwellings. Low-income dwellings are built mostly as temporary structures, using thatched bamboo partitions and golpata (palm leaf) or corrugated iron roofing. The use of bricks is limited to plinths and walls, and then only by some non-poor households. As a result, dwellings in Magbara and Supraghat have low resistance to cyclones, poor insulation against heat or cold and some are not rainproof. Because of subsidence and soil erosion, many dwellings have developed cracks. Poor quality housing is a problem in its own right and it also increases the risk of ill health.

Narrow lanes and highly concentrated land use. While both settlements are characterized by high population densities, this is particularly acute in Supraghat. Such high densities are achieved by reducing open space and squeezing households into small dwellings, with adverse consequences such as conflicts with neighbours and poor provision of ventilation and light. This also results in very narrow lanes unsuitable for emergency evacuation and rescue operations. In Supraghat this is a concern because of a history of fires.

ii. Politico-legal vulnerability

Our data point to three main political and legal constraints. First, the lack of low-income settlement policy leads to different outcomes for residents in the two settlements. Magbara residents report that in the absence of a minimum standard for low-income rental units, the landowners’ service provision is ad hoc: inadequate climate proofing; unsafe, inadequate and badly designed infrastructure; avoidance of essential maintenance to tackle recurrent weather events; and construction of new rental units without a corresponding increase in service provision. In contrast, Supraghat residents report a double effect. On the one hand, with the constant fear of eviction, investment in their built environment is circumscribed. They are unable to elevate their land to the surrounding level, and many have constructed dwellings on risky locations, using inferior materials. On the other hand, vested outside interest groups⁽³⁹⁾ practise informal development controls (e.g. by banning the construction of permanent structures above the ground floor), so that residents cannot consolidate further their claims on the land. This undermines the ability of residents to enhance their built-in resilience.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Second, the lack of a socio-political platform leads to different outcomes in the two settlements, with residents in Magbara experiencing political exclusion, whereas in Supraghat they practise patronage democracy.⁽⁴¹⁾ Political exclusion in Magbara results partly from short-term tenancies, leading to newcomers’ exclusion from the voter lists and subsequently from electoral democracy and access to powerful political actors.⁽⁴²⁾ However, in Supraghat residents can access political actors at almost all levels, but as illegal occupants their links with rent-seeking local elites are built on dependency rather than citizenship rights. The residents feel that people look at them as if they did not belong there. In particular, they feel their links with powerful people become ineffective in relation to their number one problem – eviction. They are forced to stage demonstrations in symbolic places, such as in front of the press club and outside the residences and offices of politicians and elected officials.

The third politico-legal factor relates to NGO/donor-led external support in basic service provisioning. Our interviews reveal two reasons for the lack of external support in Magbara. One, the selection criteria of all major NGO/donor projects show a big settlement bias – small settlements like Magbara are hardly picked up. Second, landowners lack information on both the availability of, and whether they would qualify for, such support. In contrast, most residents in Supraghat report that their lives are much better than before thanks to growing levels of NGO/donor support. However, our key informant and household interviews reveal two nagging concerns. First, communities are being organized as a delivery chain for donor-funded projects rather than as a socio-democratic unit. Such a mechanistic approach harbours dependency rather than a nurturing of community organizations⁽⁴³⁾ and hinders community-based adaptation.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Second, the practice of non-financial engagement in donor projects by the municipal government has given elected officials an opportunity to practise financial opt-outs. This allows local politicians to enjoy image creation without having to make a financial contribution, and donors acquire political support for their projects involving political settlements rather than political buy-in.

iii. Socioeconomic vulnerability

Unlike physical and politico-legal vulnerabilities, socioeconomic vulnerabilities are more idiosyncratic.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Our analysis also suggests that in Khulna’s low-income settlements, variations in tenure arrangements can lead to differing levels of socioeconomic vulnerability by giving rise to different, or altering the manifestation of similar, root causes. We focus on four forms of socioeconomic vulnerability as particularly significant in Magbara and Supraghat.

Constrained livelihood diversification. Livelihood diversification, especially through home-based businesses, is often regarded as having high adaptation potential.⁽⁴⁶⁾ However, opportunity is virtually absent in Magbara and constrained in Supraghat. Residents in Magbara report landowners’ restrictions and limited access to external support in the form of training and/or asset transfer; the Supraghat residents do not have these problems. The settlement is also perfectly located for residents to diversify into profitable businesses such as shrimp processing and related activities. Yet only a few existing income-generating activities can be judged successful. Most existing activities involve small businesses such as selling pickles, running tea stalls, furniture making and selling tree bark. In Bangladesh, such businesses face high competition, low turnover and are exposed to “buy now, pay later” practices. The majority of Supraghat residents report that they simply do not have the money to start more profitable shrimp-processing activities, and NGOs do not support the uptake of such businesses either.

Environmental migration. As a coastal city, Khulna has long been receiving environmental migrants, but numbers have soared since cyclones Aila and Sidr.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Our data suggest that a greater number of migrants have settled in settlements like Magbara rather than Supraghat, but their life experience is much worse in the former than in the latter. Fifteen out of 70 households in Magbara are Aila victims, compared to just one in 145 in Supraghat. There is rarely an empty room for rent in Supraghat, and groups with vested internal and outside interests vigorously resist squatting attempts on existing open spaces (e.g. the vacant pond bank). Newcomers have to squeeze into a relative’s home before eventually moving out to rented accommodation. In contrast, all cyclone victims in Magbara reported that the landlords helped them –initially by allowing them to stay free of rent with existing tenants (relatives or people from the same villages), by offering food grains, clothes and utensils as relief, and by building new rental units rapidly. While there is an element of market gain on the part of the landlords, the cyclone victims greatly appreciate their support.

Beyond this “soft landing”, however, environmental migrants in Magbara remain socially and economically disadvantaged. They report skills and wage underemployment. While men can find casual daily labouring work, women find it harder to be economically active. In their villages they grew vegetables and reared livestock, but in urban areas there is no use for such skills. It takes time for them to accept socially undermining urban job roles such as that of a housemaid. But they have little choice, and working as a housemaid remains the income source for 90 per cent of working women in Magbara. By comparison, a cyclone victim family who managed to establish a social life in Supraghat benefited massively from full integration into Khulna’s informal economy. While the family is highly entrepreneurial and has benefited from vital initial family support, we cannot ignore the role of economic opportunities around Supraghat that supported the household labour mobilization.⁽⁴⁸⁾

Yet the cyclone victim family in Supraghat as well the cyclone victims in Magbara reveal deeper levels of distress. They have left behind family members and children have dropped out of school, with the girls entering into early marriages and the boys going out to work. Above all, they are “confused” about where their future is – in the cities or in their ancestral lands.

Weather sensitivity of the casual labour market. Magbara and Supraghat show contrasting aspects of the casual labour market’s vulnerability to weather events. More than half of Magbara’s males are construction labourers and rickshaw pullers. They report an oversupply of unskilled labour following major cyclones and flooding events. In contrast, more than 75 per cent of Supraghat residents work in shrimp processing (men in trading and women in cutting/cleaning). Cyclone Aila destroyed many shrimp ghers (earthen ponds), reducing shrimp production and processing activities.⁽⁴⁹⁾ This has led to a temporary fall in work availability for fish traders as well as cutters/cleaners, leading to a rise in social problems. Two of our household respondents involved in shrimp trading reported a noticeable rise in drug addiction and women engaging in sex work since Aila.

Two other groups reporting high weather sensitivity with regard to their work are ghoramis (house builders who use traditional building materials such as bamboo and golpata) and vendors of fish and seasonal fruit and vegetables. We found ghoramis concentrated only in Supraghat but vendors were present in both settlements. Our interviews revealed that the market for traditional building materials had recently collapsed.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Consequently, many ghoramis have given up their profession to become construction labourers. However, they found the diversification less rewarding (as they are new to the activity) and more competitive (as the demand for unskilled jobs increased). Similarly, vendors of fish and seasonal fruit and vegetables report rapid rotting of products during increasingly common heat waves.

Food price rises. Residents of both settlements report that the price of essential food items is rising. They claim their daily expenditure on food has tripled.⁽⁵¹⁾ The effect is increasing food insecurity and thus increased vulnerability of poor urban households. People find it difficult to make savings, and their nutritional levels are falling as they ration their meat and fish consumption. We witnessed young children having an inadequate quantity of “only rice” as a main meal, potentially leading to reduced human development.

VI. Understanding Adaptation Practices

In total we identified 11 sub-categories and 27 individual practices under three domains (Table 3). As a comparison, we assessed the availability of these practices using a four-point indicative scale. A stark contrast emerged between the abilities of Magbara and Supraghat residents to develop these practices, with the latter significantly outperforming the former.

Table 3

Adaptation practices by type and availability in Magbara and Supraghat

Domain	Sub-category	Type	Availability**
			Magbara	Supraghat
Built environment	*Incremental expansion and upgrading	*Dwellers practise self-help construction and incorporate more durable materials	x	•••
		*Building new huts to house environmental migrants	•••	x
	*Climate proofing	*Provision of cross-ventilation and insulation against heat and cold	••	••
		* Stop water penetration indoors	••	••
	*Creative use of green structures	*Practise urban micro-agriculture for cooler indoors, shaded outdoors and growing vegetables	•	••
	*Developing shared space/ facilities	*Provision of multi-functional outdoor space *Use streets as rent-free business yards * Provision of community kitchens	•• x •••	•• ••• •
Mobilization and political action	*Forming groups and co-operatives	* Form episodic groups * Access claims groups/ local elites * Practise agitation politics * Negotiate block voting	x •• x x	••• ••• ••• •••
	*Coalition with NGOs/ donors	*Provision of basic services at household and community levels *Get training and get organized to know and tackle local hazards * Feature in civil society groups	x x x	••• • •
	*Raising local disaster awareness	*Organize periodic community-led hazard awareness drives	x	•••
Socio-economic	*Livelihoods diversification	*Self-employment and labour mobilization of household members *Multiple jobs, showing sensitivity to seasonality	• •	••• •••
	*Acquisition of productive assets	*Financing via informal mortgage and partnerships * Sub-letting spare rooms * Investing in back-up equipment *Rearing livestock and owning equipment	x x x •	•• •• •• •••
	*Safety and security	* Migration to urban areas * Informal social control	••• •••	• •••
	*Support networks	* Reciprocity with neighbours *Attachment to friends, families and places of origin * Maintain power structure	••• ••• •	••• ••• •••

NOTE: **Indicatively expressed using a four-point scale: ••• (high) •• (medium) • (low) and x (none).

a. Built environment changes and adaptation

We identified four sub-categories and eight practices under this theme, and found many differences and some similarities between Magbara and Supraghat. In terms of differences, there are three main observations. First, there are no dweller-led changes to the built environment in Magbara. The residents do not own their living space – they are not allowed to or interested in making changes to their rental units, except for installing portable equipment such as fans. For similar reasons, the use of common spaces as business yards is also absent in Magbara. In contrast, both of these practices are quite common in Supraghat. Second, in Magbara we witnessed a remarkable example of market response, with landlords rapidly constructing new dwellings for the victims of cyclone Aila. Supraghat, in contrast, remained mostly shut off to victims of recent cyclones. And third, community kitchens are quite common in Magbara, but rare in Supraghat. This implies that the centralization of certain common facilities may only be possible in private settlements where one person controls a block of units. Each homeowner in Supraghat claims ownership of a small patch of the land that they are occupying collectively. Paradoxically, while they organize around shared problems that their illegal occupation entails (e.g. eviction threats), they behave selfishly when it comes to securing individual benefits. One of four landlords in Supraghat made sure that a donor-funded water point was installed within his premises to ensure that his tenants had easy access to it.

In terms of similarities, dwellings in both settlements show medium level practice with regard to providing cross-ventilation, using cloth canopies to insulate against heat and cold, taking basic precautions against rainwater penetrating indoors such as putting earthen cooking stoves on slightly higher ground, and providing multifunctional space.

b. Mobilization and political action

There is a much wider gap between Magbara’s and Supraghat’s residents’ involvement in community mobilization and political action. We identified eight practices belonging to three sub-categories, and found that Supraghat residents are quite active in all of them compared to Magbara residents’ involvement in just one – access to claim groups.

Forming groups and cooperatives. A key strength of Supraghat residents is that they can mobilize the entire community in agitation politics to tackle eviction threats. They can put pressure on higher political levels, e.g. the local minister, MP, mayor and ward councillor, and so far this has proved successful. The residents also form various other claims groups (e.g. Disability Welfare Association and Handling Labour Association) and episodic groups (e.g. informal social control groups⁽⁵²⁾ such as the Christian Char Committee and the Muslim Youth Development Committee) to tackle politically and socially sensitive issues, including the threat of mastaans and drug users. Residents in Magbara do not report any community-based collective action apart from the construction labourers, who belong to the nearby Construction Labour Association.

Collaboration with NGOs and donors. Virtually all Supraghat residents have access to NGOs,⁽⁵³⁾ and the benefits to residents are obvious: within the study area there are two masonry-built toilet blocks and three water points (including one deep tube well); most of the access roads are paved and there are numerous masonry-built internal drains; there are several recipients of socioeconomic support funds (e.g. two block grant and five educational support recipients) and growing savings by the community groups formed by the NGOs. We failed to identify any such collaboration involving Magbara residents.

Raising local disaster awareness. We identified at least two ways in which Supraghat residents have been trying to raise local disaster awareness, namely participating in NGO-led training and community disaster management committees, and setting up community watch groups to raise disaster awareness from within the settlement (e.g. arranging a weekly broadcast of fire safety procedures using hand-held microphones). In contrast, Magbara residents take responsive action at best and usually after repeated failed requests to landlords.

c. Social and economic adaptation

We identified 11 practices corresponding to four sub-categories: livelihood diversification; acquisition of productive assets; safety and security; and support networks. Our interviews and observations provided evidence that, while the residents in Magbara underperform in terms of the first two sub-categories, they are on equal terms with the residents in Supraghat in all but two aspects of the third and fourth sub-categories.

In terms of livelihood diversification, more effective practices take hold mostly in Supraghat. For example, we found one household established an innovative business of supplying generator-based electricity to shrimp-processing houses that required an uninterrupted electricity supply. Another household head showed a remarkable transition, from starting life as a rickshaw puller to establishing a shrimp-processing and supply business following diagnosis of and recovery from tuberculosis. In contrast, Magbara residents have at best been able to only slightly diversify their jobs (e.g. from rickshaw puller to construction labourer); we found no evidence of home-based businesses.

Landlords’ restrictions on using indoor spaces and adjacent yards for making and selling retail products (e.g. selling tree bark, sorting and selling waste) and other barriers (e.g. lack of capital, motivation or external support) also prevent Magbara residents from acquiring productive assets. We found only one example of a household having a major productive asset – a portable concrete vibrator. But in Supraghat, we found many examples of households with productive assets, for example sub-letting spare rooms, investing in back-ups (e.g. a back-up generator by the electricity supply business owner mentioned above) and securing informal mortgages.

In terms of safety and security, dwellers in Magbara reported both better and equal outcomes compared to Supraghat dwellers. The better outcome reflects the direct and indirect benefits of Magbara landowners’ quick response to accommodating new migrants as a group. For environmental migrants, this has reduced the insecurity attached to their journey to urban life. This was not the case in Supraghat. The equal outcome reflects the value of different, but similarly effective, forms of informal social control practised in both settlements. In Magbara, the residents remain under the aegis of the landowners, whereas Supraghat residents rely on their collective actions to tackle anti-social behaviour.

Finally, the residents of both settlements practise highly effective forms of reciprocity and attachment with neighbours, friends and family members. Even newcomers to Magbara have strong rural–urban links, partly because they came from nearby villages.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Residents in Supraghat also maintain strong rural–urban networks, but in contrast, they also maintain a local power structure that includes actors at multiple levels, from street level political leaders to locally powerful economic elites and to political elites at the city and national levels.

VII. Conclusions

The study demonstrates a close association between land tenure arrangements and people’s experience of vulnerability and their ability to develop adaptation practices. The Supraghat case study confirms that tenure insecurity is the biggest source of vulnerability for residents of public settlements in Khulna (and in Bangladesh). It shows that the processes through which residents establish informal claims on their land and dwellings help them to become fully integrated within the informal economic, social and political life of the city. This creates space and opportunity for a range of adaptation practices. But, with concern over tenure security sapping their enthusiasm, energy and aspirations, residents of public settlements are unable to realize their full potential.

In contrast, the Magbara case study confirms that private tenants lack permanency in, and ownership of, their living space – their tenure. This discourages them from investing in shelter, basic services and neighbourhood development. The landlords also mediate tenants’ access to public and external institutions. This has both positive and negative consequences. While it prevents anti-social activities within the settlement, it also filters out potential adaptation benefits to tenants of having access to external support. Thus the virtuous circle of people’s investment in better housing and basic services over time, improving their health and quality of life, and making more time and energy available for productive activities by household members⁽⁵⁵⁾ is not available to those living in private settlements.

Technically, the findings in this study have been derived from a comparison of two settlements, with a focus on tenancy and informal ownership. The data, however, clearly show that there are other important manifestations of tenure issues, including:

• long-term urban dwellers (with an accompanying sense of greater entitlement) compared to recent migrants (still coping with all that this implies);

• more permanent versus more transient residents, with the impact this has on political access; and

• living in large public settlements versus small private ones, resulting in differential access to external institutions.

The actual impact of these differences can vary for both renters and owners. But the general lack of control over tenure issues affects the adaptation strategies of both, suggesting that effective policies must address the diversity of tenure issues. In future, climate change is likely to reinforce low-income settlements’ case for policy attention, especially on private land, as in most cities that is where expansion of low-income settlements will take place. As illustrated in this paper, despite facing many challenges, Khulna’s poor are rarely able to return to their ancestral lands because of the destruction of rural livelihoods caused, for example, by frequent and intense cyclones and storm surges and growing levels of saline intrusion.

Our study indicates a need for policy change at both the national and city levels. At the national level, there is a need to evaluate how tenure security can be included systematically in official policies and plans. Background work has already been done in the form of mapping and census of slums in urban Bangladesh.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Can this inform a much-needed low-income settlement policy in the country, either made afresh or by amending and finalizing the 2004 draft National Housing Policy? The formation of the National Urban Forum in 2011 is a positive development in this regard. But will this forum represent owners of private settlements? Its first annual meeting certainly did not include them.⁽⁵⁷⁾

At the city level, an important policy outcome is the need to observe how informal land markets operate for the poor, and how the market conditions can be improved. A debate as to whether the market should be regulated or supported becomes important. In an ideal world, as Saunders argues, “&you need to have both a free market in widely held private property and a strong and assertive government willing to spend heavily on this transition.”⁽⁵⁸⁾ However, in Bangladesh the low-income urban land market is entirely informal – it will take considerable time and effort to regularize it, even if it were possible. Until then, spending by government and/or donors will be subject to elite capture.⁽⁵⁹⁾

A more feasible approach would be to provide the market actors with information on climate change adaptation, combined with conditional grants for financially constrained developers/owners of low-income settlements. With access to information, the dwelling owners will find simple ways to help themselves and their tenants improve their adaptation potential. When the availability of, and access to, information has been sufficiently improved, the tenants will also be able to decide which settlements to move to. The entire process requires active participation of civil society organizations and, ideally, associations of slum dwellers.

As a final comment, we acknowledge two potential limitations of the study. First, the Supraghat settlement illustrates the profile of a public settlement where owner-occupancy dominates and where the level of squatter tenancy is insignificant. While this is common in Khulna, it is less typical in bigger cities such as Dhaka or Chittagong, where squatter tenancy is more common. Second, in Magbara, landowners are also the dwelling owners. But in many private settlements, especially those owned by political/economic elites who avoid day-to-day interaction with low-income people, the practice of land rental is more common. Land rental allows dwellings to be constructed and rented out by a third-party developer, while some basic services, e.g. water and electricity, are included in the land rental arrangement. While we remain confident that our findings can still be generalized across towns and cities of Bangladesh, further research is required to confirm this.