Topic Statement

Introduction Urban slums have become increasingly populated yet have remained undeveloped and segregated from the inner city without the knowledge or access to necessary resources. Description Architecture as a profession, has the knowledge to provide the fundamental education regarding resources and as a service, has the responsibility to respond to such a prevalent global condition. Discussion There are programs and resources that are available but there has not been an importance or emphasis placed on the topic throughout the architecture profession. Learned Through the conduction of research and a better understanding of the informal city and its development, we can then cultivate a strategy of how to provide the fundamental education and provide access to natural resources for these urban slums to allow for these communities to become more developed and continue to be self-sustainable. Synopsis As cities develop and grow, there is an uneven distribution of development. The primary focus of development seems to be focused on the inner city. This type of development creates a situation where the individuals that live outside of the city tend to become segregated from the inner city community. The segregation occurs in many different ways but mainly because of the increase of the cost of living in the city. Most middleincome or low-income families cannot afford to live in the city therefore; they build their homes just outside of the city and create an informal city. These makeshift communities, also known as, slums begin to flourish culturally but do not flourish financially or infra-structurally. What we tend to consider necessities are not always available to these individuals. As time goes on and as the development continues, the segregation only continues to worsen. What is so ironic about this situation is that the majority of individuals that live outside the city commute daily to the inner city to work. These individuals that live in the slums are typically the ones that keep these cities up and running yet, they are not treated as such. The culture within the slum communities is very rich and diverse. These communities have learned to become very adaptive to their surroundings and have become very resourceful in gaining the necessities to live. It is very interesting and respectable to witness the growth and adaptation of these slums. They grow and respond to the needs of their users unlike the inner city developments. The identity and integrity of these slums is not something that should be taken away but more so, embraced and studied in order to better understand the process of how these individuals live. A lot of information can be derived from the development of these slums. Once we better understand the individuality of these slums, we then can determine how to adapt and design to accommodate these individuals needs. The designs need to be those that are necessary to provide infrastructure and a means of access to the necessary natural resources. That means of access then needs to be studied and determined what is most effective in responding to what exists. The means of access needs to become a transitional space rather than a separation. There already exists too much separation and as designers it becomes even more important to not strengthen that separation but weaken it to allow for the cultural environment of the slum community to influence the inner city. This will allow for the inner city to be injected with the culture that the city is missing. This connection becomes very important in bridging these communities together. The "heart of the community" lies within these slums and in order for the inner cities to be affected by this culture it becomes very important to bridge this gap. The task of the current generation of architects is to learn how to develop a way to bridge the gap between these two communities in order for them to develop together rather than one-sided development. It is necessary to determine how we need to implement infrastructure within the slums without removing their social and cultural values. In bridging the gap between these communities, it is a slippery slope. The difficulties are to allow for the injection of culture into the inner city but to not lessen the value of culture within the outer city slums. So the question becomes, "How do we bridge the economic gap between inner city and slum environments while

maintaining the cultural integrity of the slums? And how do we provide the education necessary and the access to currently deprived resources to the slums while maintaining the self-sustaining mentality of those located in the slums?"