The consensus from the published works on slums is that there must be something done to fix their current state and their future. When thinking about individuals in a slum, the attitude of survival is perhaps the factor that traps so many people in the life of poverty. When survival is the goal that must be met first, other goals of luxuries, recreation, comforts, and hobbies are put on the back burner. The economic benefits of money being spent on these other goals is something that can work to bring a community out of poverty, but clearly the requirements of earning enough to survive must be met first.

In John Beardsley’s article, “A Billion Slum Dwellers and Counting,” his concluding statement is that “…there may be no more pressing challenge to planetary health and security that the fate of slum dwellers. Helping to improve the quality of life in slums is not rocket science, yet every indication is that we are falling father and farther behind. The failures are probably more political than logistical or conceptual, and that might be the sorriest part of the whole story.” When thinking about overcoming the requirement of survival, it makes sense that necessities of life must be available and reliable. A link to the political failures mentioned in the article are the necessities such as clean water and sewage that now require either government involvement or massive private financial investment, both of which can be very politically bound.This contributes to the challenge facing planetary health as Beardsley notes, in that disease and pollution are the outcomes of the lack of necessities.

Because these necessities are not being met, the survival mentality continues, and is seen as a burden for the countries in which the slums are located. The challenge to global security, as Beardsley notes, can be a link to what Mike Davis calls “a realm of kickbacks, bribes, tribal loyalties, and ethnic exclusion” in his book Planet of Slums. Contributing to the survival mindset is that of pervasive threats, not just of disease or sickness, but of violence and aggression within the slums. Davis states that “Urban space is never free. A place on the pavement, the rental of a rickshaw, a day’s labor on a construction site, or a domestic’s reference to a new employer: all of these require patronage or membership in some closed network, often an ethnic militia or street gang.” The addition of a struggle to survive inside a violent network such as this is compounded with the struggle to survive with regards to life’s necessities, and further perpetuates the problem. Solutions involving breaking the survival mindset can certainly help in freeing the inhabitants of the slums to becoming more integrated with the formal society of their country.

http://offgridsurvival.com/survivalmindset/

Although geared more for wilderness survival, this link explains what your mind goes through in a survival mindset. The amount of stress and energy required to sustain this mindset for long periods of time can be what traps a person in their current state.