Dharavi, the fixable slum: Part 1, the deal
There’s nothing wrong with Dharavi,
… that demolishing it entirely won’t cure.
That, at least, appears to be the prevailing view of Mumbai’s municipal government, as reported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development via Agence France-Presse. Mumbai is now auctioning off Dharavi:
AFP, 30 May 2007 - One of Asia’s most notorious slums went up for sale on Wednesday in a 2.3-billion-dollar project to raze thousands of ramshackle homes and create one of the world’s hottest building sites.
Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, is a place unimaginable unless you have visited it (or its peers like Kibera, Africa’s largest slum). As a National Geographic story put it:
All cities in
Noise, however, is not a problem in Dharavi, the teeming slum of one million souls, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre (0.4 hectares). By nightfall, deep inside the maze of lanes too narrow even for the putt-putt of auto rickshaws, the slum is as still as a verdant glade. Once you get accustomed to sharing 300 square feet (28 square meters) of floor with 15 humans and an uncounted number of mice, a strange sense of relaxation sets in—ah, at last a moment to think straight.
Next time you have one handy, lay a beach towel on your floor. That’s how much daily square footage a typical Dharavi resident has.
Six people’s living accommodations, folded up
Ask any longtime resident—some families have been here for three or more generations—how Dharavi came to be, and they’ll say, “We built it.” This is not far off.
To the extent it was built at all.
Slums are an economically rational wealth extraction machine, and Dharavi subsists with the absolutely minimum capital infrastructure necessary to sustain so many people in nocturnal subsistence.
All it takes is a bit of corrugated metal
All that you see above will be swept away, as the plan involves moving thousands of families into newly constructed high-rise flats:
Some 57,000 families — about 300,000 people — will be moved into free but tiny one-bedroom homes in the area and swathes of land will be cleared for business and high-rise flats bounding some of the city’s wealthiest parts.
Some see the move as progress, increasing density and raising living conditions:
“Throughout the world slum dwellers are regarded as pests,” said architect Mukesh Mehta, who has championed the project for a decade.
“With this, the government of Maharashtra [the state that includes Mumbai] regards them as important human resources and assets. You can expect a very beautiful suburb that hopefully other people from around the world will want to emulate.”
Meanwhile, some inside the slum and out think it’s a plot or conspiracy, that it will fail utterly, or that it will destroy a way of life and leave the residents worse off. I believe they’re wrong on all three counts, but let’s first give them their due:
The project has been fiercely condemned by the slum-dwellers, who have created a vibrant self-sufficient economy of potteries, tanneries and other industry among the warren of narrow lanes.
Some businesses survive
People want to work; they want to better themselves.
Mehta says, “I had an epiphany. I asked myself if these people were any different from my father when he first came from
The small businesses in Dharavi are testament not to Dharavi’s health but to the spirit of its people.
We wish to be clean and bright, even if our world is not
At one side of the slum, women stuff mattresses and vans ferry goods to market while potters work on open roofs creating clay figures for sale.
Environmental groups say such industries at Dharavi provide an object lesson in recycling.
Another part of Dharavi, with less recycling.
Those who say such must never have been to Dharavi, where the only sewage is exposed, and the only clean water is that carried in buckets.
New schools, colleges, health clinics, a sports complex and a golf driving range are all slated to be part of the redevelopment due for completion within seven years, according to Mehta.
The under-educated may believe in faith, to their harm:
A stir broke out last summer when gurus declared that the waters of Mahim Creek, the slum’s reeking unofficial public toilet, had miraculously turned “sweet” (leading to much gastrointestinal trauma).
In
City planners say the tanneries and workshops pollute Mumbai’s already filthy waterways and the project includes environmentally-friendly workshops.
India’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority, which is advertising the redevelopment, intends to keep as many businesses as it can:
Taking into consideration the various industrial units in Dharavi, it is being proposed that, non-polluting industrial / businesses will be retained in Dharavi itself. All the established businesses and manufacturing units will be encouraged and will be provided with modern technical and economical strategies for sustainable development.
Not all businessmen like it:
Still, small businessmen are furious at the “imposed” scheme and say some will be squeezed from areas covering several thousand square feet of floor space into flats of just 225 square feet (21 square metres).
Any change has some losers, even if the vast majority are winners.
Groups representing slum dwellers claim that about 300,000 people will be left with nowhere to go — driving them into new slums.
I have my doubts about your intentions
Some like the vision but are skeptical of its implementation:
They also point to the woeful record of the authorities in previous schemes to re-house slum dwellers in the city.
Dharavi has also symbolised the political failure to adequately house a population swollen by migrants trying to make a living in
Yet change is coming — for the time being, let us credit the proposal and assume it comes to fruition as envisioned. If so, Dharavi matters, not just for itself but also for what it shows us about the consequences of global urbanization:
More than half of Mumbai’s nearly 18 million population, by official count, live in slums, according to Mehta.
Why this plan? Why now? Why does this work?
If I were real, I’d be interested
[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]
Write a comment