Assignment 2

Radhika Nagargoje PA104014

In cities of all nations across the globe urban land may be termed as the most
limited and valuable commodity. The urgency, and market pressure faced by
cities undergoing rapid development is far greater than most. City of Rio de
Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil has had a long history of Favelas or slums being
integral part of the urban fabric. Also the City of Mumbai has 60% of its
population residing in slums is a very well-known fact. Though these slums are
dense settlements occupying meagre percentage of land in the entire city,
several conflicts of different interest groups, i.e. the government authorities,
developers and the slum-residents revolve around the topic of Slum Lands. Slum
removal and rehabilitation are often considered the sign of growth, where in the
poorer population of the city is uplifted or removed from the scene to allow
development to proceed. In order to understand both sides of the city
development one must first try to investigate further the individual perspective
of both parties.
City as an idea has always attracted people in search of opportunity of work and
better living. Cities are magnets not only for the white collared middle income
groups but also to the rural population in search of menial jobs to sustain
themselves on the huge open economy of a developing city. They are an
opportunity for the rich and poor all alike. One must also understand that in
functioning of a complex city network of a physical and functional nature, the
service sector within population and its role in working of a city is extremely
important. The services of small store owners, informal markets, clerical,
maintenance, security, transportation etc. are basic are vital to a functional
economy of a city. These citizens cannot however afford the unrealistic realestate prices as they simultaneously struggle to for their daily survival within the
city. There is no other housing solution but to make settlements for themselves
on fallow, marshy and in most cases unusable land. The slum settlements as not
being a part of the city service network are deprived of basic living services like
water, electricity, etc. The governments role in housing as well as providing
basic services a city deserves are completely shrugged in the case of the most
needy section of the population and remains limited to the tax-payers alone.
They convert the unusable marshes and garbage heaps to usable lands over the
years which eventually are termed hostile/ illegally acquired government lands
are threatened to be demolished. This land is pressurised to be acquired and
constructed upon under the guise of development of the city either for providing
amenities, or urban utilities.
The residents of these slums/ Favelas are either propositioned to be relocated on
a distant site outside reach of their jobs, or are just dislocated with a hollow
promise of new homes. The residents of slums who have created their own
systems, living and service networks independently and converted fallow
marshes into usable lands seem excluded from the citys development networks
as though not part of the city. The role of slum-dwellers in the citys working
seems to be overlooked by the government when discussing their living
arrangements. The slum-residents building and service systems almost run
parallel to that of the rest of the city-development, where in working reality they

are a vital part of the city systems. Through corrupt systems and symbiotic
relation of the developing authorities of the government and private-developers
the non-powerful working class is exploited despite transparency of the working
order.
This phenomenon can be seen not only in the case of developing nations today
but examples can also be drawn from New Yorks development era under Robert
Moses and it negative repercussions in city fabric, social tension and further drift
between the classes. At such a state where the law and enforcement is turned to
be used against the public interest rather than to protect it, the ordinary urban
residents have been raising their voices to acknowledge their rights as citizens,
their role in appraising the land they live and their long term association with the
land. They have been demanding their rights not only to live in the cities but
their basic needs of sanitation, other services, necessary amenities to function
and other such aspirations. Under this movement a lot of non-profit organizations
have been helping the slum-dwellers in Mumbai to either provide them with basic
services or fighting along the cause of not dislocating the residents. These
resistances though involving numerous slum-dwellers are easily crushed under
the powerful hands of the beneficiaries. Lessons from the precedents can be
taken like powerful movement led Jane Jacobs in public interest which appealed
to the human side by registering social implications addressing the psyche
behind the blind autocratic development approach. This movement though
challenged an individual case addressed the concerns of similar such
development occurring at that time in NY. In the cases of Mumbai or Rio de
Janeiro individual pleading fall to deaf years and should be readdressed in the
form of policy-changing appeals. A locked and sealed policy encompassing the
rights of slum-dwellers will ensure that slum-dwellers like other citizens truly are
acknowledged as legal part of the urban fabric. Such methods of legalizing the
informal settlements is not unprecedented. Eg. Lima, Peru.
The governments role in a rapidly developing city is extremely crucial and the
city is still under the state of finding its fabric which may later be permanently
frozen. The pace at which the city is morphing puts abundant value in the
smallest of land-parcels according to their location. The slum dwelling in such a
condition is seen as a hindrance in the path of making these lands useful in the
markets point of view. This can make the authorities to have a tunnel vision,
where the ideal development in their imagibility represents more luxurious
apartments, large commercial, amenities and high end infrastructure. Through
these rose-coloured lenses a limited portion of the populous development is
seen as a growth marker. In the video as well as the paper, a blind dive towards
providing these progress-markers in the form of either sports facilities, gardens,
or bigger roads is seen than considering providing the basic living necessity of
housing for the poor. Through public involvement a lot of alternatives to address
this issue can be provided as attested by the example of Vila Autdromo in Rio
de Janeiros must appreciated alternative of development. Public participation of
the residents to claim their rights along with other ordinary citizens standing for
the cause has begun in lot of cases for the developers to rethink their solutions
and methods. As Simpreet Sing says in the documentary Mumbai Land Grab,
Slums are not the disease but a symptom of the disease. Slums indicate the
unaffordable low-cost housing conditions, limited open land-resources to build
upon within the city, large economic gap between the populous and a partial

government apathetic towards the basic cause of the weakest yet crucial section
of the population. Even as new plans are chalked to rehabilitate and provide for
the slum-dwellers on new lands, the private developers with huge political and
economic pull at this opportunity exploit the situation yet again violating the
poorer citizens right to live within the city. The appalling case of such an obvious
violation can be seen in the case of the infamous Hiranadani in Bombay and
the very ironic case of Nyaay Sagar built of land allocated for low-cost housing
by the government. This not only shows the obvious collaboration of powerful
developers and corrupt government authorities working together to silence the
need of the city but also the loop-holes through which legal rights of slumdwellers are not acknowledged in the policy making. Thus conveniently making it
possible to deem its citizens a nuisance with no place in the urban systems
whenever they set their eyes of newly-made-habitable land-morsel by the slumdwellers.
For a well-rounded development to take place in these developing cities their
needs to acknowledgement of slum-dwellers as a legally valid entity within the
city, and their important role in smooth functioning of the city networks itself and
thus their rightful place inside the city fabric. The social dogma faced by these
citizens where they are to be tucked away in some corner of the city to be hidden
away so as to fulfil the utopian image of progress needs to be reassessed. It is
akin to sweeping and pushing under the rug that what is not waste in the first
place. Policies and legal structures must be set in place to protect the interests of
this group (which is in fact a large section of the population) if the city has to
truly progress.

Radhika Nagargoje PA104014