[p2p-research] FW: Re-thinking Slums as p2p systems: Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India to be Razed

Wed Oct 22 23:58:56 CEST 2008

interesting I think,

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nikos Salingaros <yxk833 at my.utsa.edu>
Date: Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 9:27 AM
Subject: Fwd: FW: Re-thinking Slums: Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India to be
Razed
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>, Matias Sendoa Echanove <
matias at urbanology.org>

Bonjour Michel,

I hope that you are well. I'm trying to do a grand synthesis here.
Fighting to save the Dharavi slum, and at the same time bringing in
your work on p2p and also Matias Echanove's work locally in the
settlements, to the general spotlight. I convinced Michael Mehaffy to
send this notice out to all the New Urbanists. I have also asked
Matias Echanove to write one paragraph to add to this, and I would
also invite you to add your own paragraph on how spontaneous
settlements verify p2p principles. Just 2 minutes of your time!

We will then translate this page with your added comments into italian
and publish it on a website. All good for the publicity and general
awareness.

Best wishes,
Nikos

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Mehaffy <michael.mehaffy at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:05 PM
Subject: Fwd: FW: Re-thinking Slums: Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India to be
Razed
To: Nikos Salingaros <yxk833 at my.utsa.edu>

My post!  (To TradArch and to Pro-Urb, the biggest NU list.)  Thanks
for reminding me, sorry for the delay.  m

________________________________
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:31:54 +0000
From: mehaffylists at HOTMAIL.CO.UK
Subject: Re-thinking Slums: Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India to be Razed
To: TRADARCH at LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU

A lot of people (Stewart Brand, Christopher Alexander, the Prince of
Wales, Andres Duany and others) have begun to question the simplistic
thinking that suggests slums=all bad, "projects"=all good.  As we look
more carefully at the actual structure of slums, we see some very
useful things going on - some remarkable "self-organizing" urbanism.
The trick would seem to be combining the useful qualities (mixed use,
adaptability, resource conservation, complexity, etc etc) with
sanitation, security, transportation, and greater economic
opportunity.  (Though as Stewart Brand notes, and Jane Jacobs noted
before him, such communities are often transitional steps to greater
economic opportunities, whereas the top-down models often become
traps, or in the UK parlance, "sink estates".)

Yet policy planners have not gotten the message at all, and seem
intent on repeating all the same old horrendous mistakes of the "high
modernist" era (to use anthropologist James C. Scott's term).  The
latest news is that the government is planning to tear down the
Dharavi slum, and replace it with a Corbusian scheme - instead of
taking a more sophisticated, incremental  and regenerative approach.
(Such an approach has been proposed by Nikos Salingaros, along with
Duany, Brain, myself and Ernesto Philibert from Mexico - see
http://zeta.math.utsa.edu/~yxk833/socialhousing.pdf .  An example in
practice has been ROse Town in Jamaica, the remarkable pictures of
which Steve Mouzon posted some time ago.)

I append the full article about this news from Planetizen below - here
is the link:

http://www.planetizen.com/node/35269

A comment from Nikos Salingaros:

"In my opinion, we have here a paradigmatic example of peer-to-peer
network, spontaneously generated because the government has totally
neglected these residents. The result is a thriving commercial and
social system that, despite its many serious problems, contributes to
the Indian economy. The imminent destruction of this peer-to-peer
system is the belated recognition that living urban fabric has arisen
despite the government's neglect, thus challenging the government's
monopoly on building cities. There is a profit motive: money to be
made by destroying these people's self-built houses and social
networks. Probably some well-meaning NGO is paying for new housing
blocks that these residents will be moved into later. Their
peer-to-peer networks are however dependent upon the spontaneous
geometry of the existing urban fabric, and can hardly be reconstituted
within the framework of a new industrial geometry. There is also the
ideological side: worshipping the images of the Le Corbusier
architectural cult, which demands the sacrifice of self-build complex
urban fabric and allows only Stalinist housing blocks."

Dharavi: India's Model Slum

29 September 2008 - 5:00am
Author:

Prakash M. Apte

Mumbai, India's Dharavi is one of the world's biggest slums -- and its
most notorious. Look beyond the stereotype, however, and you'll find a
successful settlement with a vibrant community and economy. But
developers want to raze it all and start again. Urban development
consultant Prakash M. Apte says Dharavi is a model that should be
replicated, not redeveloped.
The Indian megacity of Mumbai has an estimated population of about 14
million. Of those, only about 35% live in 'regular' permanent housing.
The other 65% live in informal settlements, which for more than a
third of those people means squatting on sidewalks and under bridges.
The rest -- nearly 6 million people -- occupy settlements on private
and public open lands, some of which are more than 50 years old.
Dharavi is one of the most famous, but unlike all others and despite
its common depiction as a "slum", it is actually a successful
work-cum-residential settlement. Developers have been trying to
redevelop the area for years, but Dharavi is a model settlement that
needs to be replicated, not replaced.
Located in the heart of Mumbai, Dharavi has a population of more than
600,000 people residing in 100,000 makeshift homes, and one of the
world's highest population densities at more than 12,000 persons per
acre. It is just across from the Bandra- Kurla Complex -- a fast
developing commercial center that has overtaken Nariman Point, the
current downtown of Mumbai – and is also located close to Mumbai's
domestic and international airports. Despite its plastic and tin
structures and lack of infrastructure, Dharavi is a unique, vibrant,
and thriving 'cottage' industry complex, the only one of its kind in
the world.
This is in fact the kind of self-sufficient, self-sustaining 'village'
community that Mahatma Gandhi -- the Father of the Nation -- dreamt of
and wrote about in his books on India's path to development.
Dharavi pulsates with intense economic activity. Its population has
achieved a unique informal "self-help" urban development over the
years without any external aid. It is a humming economic engine. The
residents, though bereft of housing amenities, have been able to lift
themselves out of poverty by establishing thousands of successful
businesses. A study by Center for Environmental Planning & Technology
indicates that Dharavi currently has close to 5,000 industrial units,
producing textiles, pottery and leather, and performing services like
recycling, printing, and steel fabrication.

Dharavi is full of makeshift shacks like these, housing more than
600,000 people. Photo by Flickr user Mumbai Magic.
A unique characteristic of Dharavi is its very close work-place
relationship. Productive activity takes place in nearly every home. As
a result, Dharavi's economic activity is decentralized, human scale,
home-based, low-tech and labor-intensive. This has created an organic
and incrementally developing urban form that is pedestrianized,
community-centric, and network-based, with mixed use, high density
low-rise streetscapes. This is a model many planners have been trying
to recreate in cities across the world. A simplistic re-zoning and
segregating of these activities -- common in the United States --
would certainly hurt this very unique urban form.
The 'unplanned' and spontaneous development of Dharavi has led to the
emergence of an economic model characterized by a decentralized
production process relying mainly on temporary work and
self-employment. The multiplicity of independent producers makes the
production process extremely flexible and adaptable. Its viability is
proven by the national and international market its products command.
Unfortunately , Dharavi is depicted as a 'slum' that lacks residential
infrastructure (roads, housing with individual toilets, public
conveniences, etc.). In fact it is not a residential slum, but a
unique self-contained township (in the sense of close work-place
relationship so eulogized since the days of Patrick Geddes, but which
has never been achieved in any of the new towns). Because of all these
community-based successes, Dharavi needs to be replicated (albeit with
adequate physical infrastructure). Instead, the state government wants
to force the relocation of Dharavi's population into tiny cubby hole
apartments in high rise towers so that the vacated land can be
commercially exploited by developers through the Dharavi Redevelopment
Plan. At a conservative estimate, a development of this magnitude
could fetch $460 million for a developer, a profit of at least 900%.

Workers in Dharavi's thriving informal economy. Photo by Flickr user
parasher.
Any plan for Dharavi must explicitly take into consideration the
work-place relationship developed over the years so that it does not
destroy the existing intricate urban structure that has sustained the
local economy. This plan must acknowledge existing economic activities
and their spatial organization, and not destroy it in the process of
redevelopment. Sectoral divisions of Dharavi proposed in the Dharavi
Redevelopment Plan that would segregate land uses are evidence of the
insensitiveness of the top-down approach to planning. The involvement
of the concerned population in the planning process is a planning
imperative if the redevelopment is to be successful from a human and
urban perspective. But for the most part, the population of Dharavi
has not had much say in the creation of the plan for their community.
Case studies all over the world have documented the inappropriateness
of high-rise resettlement projects in poor areas. The social and
economic networks which the poor rely on for subsistence can hardly be
sustained in high-rise structures. These high rise projects are not
appropriate for home-based economic activities, which play a major
role in Dharavi.
The least that can be done in this redevelopment plan is to refurbish
the work places of the existing industries within the residential
areas and remodel this project by providing low-rise high-density row
housing for existing families engaged in home based occupations. This
way, each house will have a ground floor and an additional story , as
well as a terrace and a courtyard which can be used for these
home-based business activities.
Unfortunately, the formulation of Dharavi Redevelopment Plan as a
profit-maximizing real-estate tool leaves no room for exploring such
sustainable and economically viable low-rise, high-density approaches.
It exposes the DRP as a weak cover-up for a land grab of the worst
kind.
________________________________
Prakash M. Apte is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects and
the Institute of Town Planners, a former Senior Adviser to the Royal
Government of Bhuta, a former project chief for the Housing & Urban
Development Corporation of India (HUDCO), and a former Governor of the
Delhi School of Planning & Architecture. He also serves on the Panel
of Consultants for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and U.N.
Centre for Human Settlements, Nairobi.

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