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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."
You miss the point. The point is not that slums are good for the people who live in them. Slums are good for people who don't live in them.
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
So a brief summary of the article would appear to be: affluent Westerners living in air conditioned, well educated, health insured cosmopolitan urban areas think that slums with no sewage facilities, running water, health care or protection against corruption or physical violence are a great way of housing migrant, poor populations. Said poor will have more opportunities in life if they live in urban slums than rural poverty. Rich authors of articles do not offer to move out of their million dollar homes to move into the slums, despite singing their praises.
If the predominant lesson learned from Slums is not how to prevent them then I think we are missing something . . .
No shit. Who the hell thinks slums are a positive thing? I've spent a fair bit of time in and around the slums of South Africa, and trust me, it is roughly akin to hell on Earth --- they are not an "example", there is absolutely nothing positive about them, they cannot "teach us" anything, and the only lessons we must take away are how to prevent them.
What is perhaps a more useful question to ask is, what are the motives behind those who would attempt to brainwash us into thinking they're a positive thing? I am highly suspicious; for some reason I can't put my finger on, I smell evil here, not ignorance.
If slums were better, people would live in them voluntarily and self-organise their communities like slums naturally when given the choice. Those that live in them are dying to get out.
But they exemplify a social self-organization that does have positive consequences from a sustainability perspective.
Except ... they don't. They *precisely* don't. Slums are a major example of a social structure that is *unsustainable*. That is precisely part of their problem. Come experience some real slums for yourself and see if you still agree with yourself.
I get what the author is trying to say, I'm not an idiot -- basically that high-density settlements have a low *per-capita* 'ecological footprint'. YAY. What big news. But now what? I must "learn" from that? That's pointless, stupid and misguided. Slums are also filthy, disease-ridden, crime-ridden hotbeds of human suffering, they still cause *major* damage to the environment (ever see a river running through a slum? ever see the air pollution from 5 million poor people crammed into a few hectares burning whatever rubbish they can to keep warm or cook their food? ever see first-hand how every living green thing is decimated, how rubbish piles up everywhere because of lack of services, how people live in fear constantly? I am "learning" that this is "good"?)
I'm quite capable of learning how to lower my ecological 'footprint' without looking at a slum. I know what sustainable living is. I know what the problems are. I agree we should lower pollution. None of this requires me to admire a slum.