The United Nations estimates that at least one billion people—20% of the world's population—live in crowded, unsanitary slums of the central cities and in the vast shanty towns and squatter settlements that ring the outskirts of...

Shanty towns (also called squatter camps, barrios, or favelas) are illegal or unauthorized settlements of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap plywood, corrugated metal, and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are...

Byline: Joan Broz "It was only a shanty in old Shanty Town; the roof is so slanty it touches the ground; But my tumbled down shack, by an old railroad track; like a millionaire's mansion, is calling me back." These words...

The World University Service Canada (WUSC) water and sanitation project helped Tacna, a community in Peru, gain access to basic services such as electricity and water. WUSC teaches skills in plumbing, hygiene and community management to enable communities to build their own systems. ...

Turkey's prime minister on Saturday proposed imposing limits on the number of people moving to Istanbul as well as restricting car ownership in the country's most populous and congested city.Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former mayor of the city that counts more than 12 million residents,...

Banco del Libro, a nonprofit Venezuelan network that has been distributing books to children for nearly half a century, is the 2007 winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature.The award, which includes a cash prize of $710,000, was established by the Swedish government...