Tanzania, like many other developing countries cities draw migrants with the promise of higher living standards. City residents have greater access to health care, more employment and opportunity and access to more social and cultural events. Previous units pointed out that cities have been at the center of civilizations and continue to be the engines of social and economic growth. For all the relative advantages of city life, however, widespread poverty casts a shadow over the urban future. A vast number of people in urban areas are threatened by homelessness, health hazards and violence among other things. These may affect a portion of the urban population directly, but their indirect effects are felt by the whole society.

 

The world’s population is already more than half urban, with more than one billion people living in slums today.The well-being of children is the first casualty of urban poverty. High density and inadequate infrastructure exposes children to health and safety risks. High levels of mobility create unstable situations for children, families and communities. And the urban poor – particularly children and youth – are routinely excluded from having a voice in city governance and decision making.It is common knowledge that a high concentration of people at one particular area would generate waste especially the plastic waste in our case. Major cities such as Accra, Tema, Kumasi and Takoradi among others can best be termed as dirt cities due to what has been acknowledged as the 'mounting waste situation" and the fact that municipal authorities are finding it difficult to contained it.

 

Weinberg (1965) also notes that "disproportionate age concentration, an uneven male-female ratio and the diminution of traditional kingship controls of contemporary urban life. The male delinquency which occurs as a consequence of these factors in both the central and the adjacent villages is also affected by the urban gangs that roam into the villages periodically to steal and to recruit members".The sum effect of this is that law enforcement is ultimate over stretched since the police and other security agencies had to try hard to fight crime depending on limited resources. Our prisons also get choked with able bodied young men who could otherwise be engaged in profitable ventures back at the places of origin

 

TanCare is now scaling up urban programming nationalwide, with the aim of contributing to sustainable ‘cities for youth’. Priority areas include repruductive health, resilience, prosperity, safety and city-wide community engagement.