How Slums Can Save the Planet

Standing Bear writes "One billion people live in squatter cities and, according to the UN, this number will double in the next 25 years. Stewart Brand writes in Prospect Magazine about what squatter cities can teach us about future urban living. 'The magic of squatter cities is that they are improved steadily and gradually by their residents,' writes Brand. 'Squatter cities are also unexpectedly green. They have maximum density — 1M people per square mile in some areas of Mumbai — and have minimum energy and material use. People get around by foot, bicycle, rickshaw, or the universal shared taxi.' Brand adds that in most slums recycling is literally a way of life e.g. the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has 400 recycling units and 30,000 rag-pickers. 'Of course, fast-growing cities are far from an unmitigated good. They concentrate crime, pollution, disease, and injustice as much as business, innovation, education, and entertainment,' says Brand. Still, as architect Peter Calthorpe wrote in 1985: 'The city is the most environmentally benign form of human settlement. Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water, and produces less pollution than his counterpart in settlements of lower densities.'" Reader Kanel adds this note of perspective: "Kevin Kelly is another guy who wrote about slums in a very positive light, though he was more interested in self-organisation and why cities are cool, I think. Kelly also reports on the strange trend for slum tourism. What we're seeing here is that the 'slums' have become a vehicle for people to bring out their own ideas about cities, humans, and the universe at large. I have a feeling that we're not really going to learn a lot about slums if we study them through these guys."

Comments

Re:Am I alone or

[MrNaz]

Cities are benign? Only if you don't count the per-head energy and resources required to maintain the city and it's residents' way of life. If you count that, then every morsel of food must be marked up to account for the energy of bringing it from rural areas to distribution points, to warehouses, to supermarket shelves, to your pantry and then to your mouth. That's just an example. City living is nothing more than a concentration of workers to benefit industrial interests.

Son you don't know what you sayin'

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in one of the biggest cities of the world, and that would be São Paulo, Brazil. The population is around 12 million people. The city core (which actually compromises a huge stake of the total city area) is pretty much highly developed (except for the huge daily congestion). Now, if you go to the outskirts, you will reach the slums. Have you ever been to one, I ask you? Do you really think it's green? You don't really know what you're saying then. First, most of the slums here are located in the southern portion of the city - which compromise hills, and, guess what, forests. However, the green hills no longer exist. They have been swept by slums. This also happens in Rio, just google for pictures and you'll know what I mean.
Slums don't have piped water. That means the population will dispose at nearby rivers or land, causing irreversible environmental damages. Slum "houses" are poorly constructed wood made structures. Now guess what happens when it rains? The water force takes everything downhill, houses and garbage. The avalanche destroys everything on its ways. People get killed. The garbage ends up on rivers anyway, or clogging the city sewage, causing massive floods. How green is that?
There are a bunch of counter arguments on the "slum is green" stupid theory. I could spend hours talking about them, but I think it is also worth mentioning the social side.
Hell, would you leave your comfortable house now to dwell in a place which is even worse than tree houses? Dirty? Dangerous? Rain prone?
Why don't you ask India whether they like their slums, sir?

I am sorry, but in theory it might even sound a little bit cute. In practice, you ain't got no damn idea of what you sayin'.

Re:Am I alone or

[c_forq]

I grew up in a rural area and it wasn't much different. We still drove about 20 minutes to the supermarket to stock our pantry. Add to that things like snow plowing cost a hell of a lot more per person to clear the road our house was on, the issue of garbage removal (we had a burning permit since none of the disposal services went out to our house), and about a million other things I can think of that I have no doubt what so ever that my current apartment life is much more efficient even with my increase in electricity use.