Authors : B. Mncwango and D. Allopi
Abstract: Urbanization is popularly known as the migration of people from rural to urban areas. This process is sparked by a number of push and pull factors. The biggest pull in urban areas for those living in rural areas is the promise of employment and potential prosperity. Urbanization has also brought with it the unintended manifestations of poverty and environmental degradation. This has led to a phenomenon called ‘urbanpoverty’. Urban poverty is the sustained lack of income or material possessions for those who reside in urban centres. Urban poverty is also largely characterized by homelessness and shanty dwellings. Such deprivation has led researchers to consider more innovative ways to make common building materials such as concrete easily accessible even for low-income households. One such concrete innovation is Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) concrete. Although, EPS concrete is highly beneficial in its various forms and uses in construction, this study forms on-going research into improvements of its technical characteristics. This study highlights two immediate areas to be considered as the research progresses. The first area relates to the use of various density types of EPS beads in EPS concrete instead of one type as more commonly used. The second area is the aspect of considering EPS beads asa partial replacement for the coarse aggregate.
B. Mncwango and D. Allopi, 2020. Urban Poverty-A ‘Complex’ Resulting from the Inability of Governments to Keep up with Urbanization. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 15: 3599-3604.