Is every European country worse than the bottom US state?

Lasse Enevoldsen

 · 

Follow

Earthling Nov 4

Is every European country worse than the bottom US state?

No. That’s ridiculous.

But that said, Europe is often advocated as much better, richer, with less poverty, a higher quality of life, better services, etc… than the US. Too often. While those things are true for some parts of Europe, it is not true for all of Europe.

There are places and countries in Europe, seldom mentioned in this debate, that are very poor, undeveloped, and neglected. And I would like to draw attention to these areas in this answer; hoping to raise the quality of the discussion.

Slums

The slums of Europe are seldom mentioned. They are like separate worlds, that most people don’t see. Or wants to see?

Europe have different levels of slum. There are poor urban neighbourhoods with run down buildings. And then there are shanty towns; self-built sprawls outside big cities, and outside the law as well.

As an example, more than 3 million households in the UK live in buildings unsuitable for habitation (as of 2023). And as if that was not bad enough, the UK has a higher rate of homelessness than the US.

Jaywick. A UK seaside town turned slum.

Visits to several slum areas in England.

2.5 million live in extreme poverty in Poland (as of 2023), which is 6.6%. A sharp rise from some years of improvement because of the current inflation.

While many poor neighbourhoods in Poland experience gentrification, there are still many people living in housing poverty.

Spain, which only entered the club of democratic countries in 1978, has many poor areas. And the largest slum of Europe.

Cañada Real shanty town outside Madrid, Spain. It is the largest slum of Europe.

Cañada Real - Wikipedia

Informal housing area in Madrid, Spain Cañada Real is a shanty town in the Madrid Region of Spain, a linear succession of informal housing following a 14.4-kilometre-long (8.9-mile) stretch of the drovers' road connecting La Rioja and Ciudad Real. The largest illegal settlement in a European city, it extends through the municipalities of Coslada , Rivas-Vaciamadrid and Madrid . Cañada Real is situated on the Cañada Real Galiana , one of the traditional cattle roads running from La Rioja to Ciudad Real and close to the M50 motorway, Madrid's third outer ring road. The irregular settlement features both high-end detached houses as well as pockets of extreme poverty. [ 1 ] The initial settlement, started in the 1950s and 1960s, was built on what currently forms part of the Coslada urban centre; many of the residents later bought the land from the state. [ 1 ] It is considered the largest illegal settlement in a European city. [ 2 ] The Cañada Real is divided into 6 subsectors: the Sector 1 (the first 0.52-kilometre; 570-yard long stretch in Coslada on the Camino de Santiago , ending at the limit with Madrid at the M-45 ), the Sector 2 (1.8 kilometres; 1.1 miles long; between the M-45 and the M-203), the Sector 3 (0.73 kilometres; 800 yards long; between the M-203 and the M-823), the Sector 4 (2 kilometres; 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 miles long; between the M-823 and the Camino de la Partija y Santísimo ), the Sector 5 (1.45 kilometres (1,590 yards) long; between the Camino de la Partija y Santísimo and the A-3 ) and the Sector 6 (6.7 kilometres; 4¼ miles long; the last stretch in Madrid, going from the A-3 to the municipal border with Getafe ). [ 3 ] The Sector 6 is considered a "supermarket" for drug users. [ 4 ] With around 8,048 inhabitants and 2,650 houses as of 2012, the Cañada Real was considered at the time to be the largest shanty town in Southern Europe . [ 5 ] The population is mixed. It mostly houses both Spanish Romani and irregular migrants (mainly from Morocco ). [ 6 ] As of 2017, it had a population of 7,283. [ 3 ] Valdemingómez, a quarter in the centre of Cañada Real, is controlled by drug gangs, and is scarred by violence. Drug users from around Madrid frequent this quarter to visit the drug markets. [ 7 ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cañada_Real

Neighbouring, and much smaller, Portugal has similar issues.

From 6 de Maio outside Lisbon, Portugal. One of several slums around Lisbon.

The Roma are an ethnic group that roams across Europe since forever, but most reside in SouthEastern Europe. Many Romas live in extreme poverty.

Fakulteta slum in Bulgaria.

Slums in Romania.

Rural areas

Lithuania has one of the highest poverty rates in the EU, at a consistent c. 20%. But inside the country, poverty rates are much higher in the countryside than in cities, as much as 34+ % (in 2018).

The countryside of Lithuania (and many European countries) are very poor and undeveloped.

Poor village in Slovakia.

Rural poverty in Macedonia, the Balkans.

Large parts of rural Eastern Europe is undeveloped.

Horse drawn carts are still in use in parts of the agricultural sector of Eastern Europe. Here from Transylvania.

Rural Poverty in the EU

Countries

France has the highest rate of homeless people in the EU (after the UK left).

With an estimated 350,000 homeless people in France (2024), the country experiences a sharply rising problem.

Out of Sight, Out of Rights: What Hungary and France Reveal About Europe’s Homelessness Crisis

Skip to content

https://www.ghrd.org/out-of-sight-out-of-rights-what-hungary-and-france-reveal-about-europes-homelessness-crisis/

Albania is the poorest country in Europe.

Albania has a high rate of child labour.

Boy scavenging for chromite in Albania.

Despite some progress, many Albanians leaves the country to live in France or the UK primarily.

Ukraine has a lot of slums, poverty, and now whole destroyed villages because of the war. With millions of refugees (7 million has fled the country, and 4 million internally displaced), more than 12 million people in Ukraine are in urgent need of humanitarian aid to just survive.

The town of Bakhmut, Ukraine.

Food relief in Ukraine.