Slum Cities in Cities –
Recognizing the invisible Dwellers
Nabah Ali Saad
4057570
Architecture of Informality
Professor Kucina
Dessau Institute of Architecture
Winter Semester 2013-2014
How can we Formalize Informal
Settlements?
It
is estimated that a third of the world’s population will by living in slums in
the next two decades. When one keeps these expected projections in mind, the
implications are extremely alarming; presently, one in six people live in slums
but that number is likely to double in the next twenty years. That means by
2034, the number of slum inhabitants will be approximately two billion people. (UN-Habitat ,
2007)
As a citizen of a
developing country, or the more politically incorrect “third world”, the above
stated prediction does not surprise me so very much. The idea of informal
settlements is a phenomenon which is not something out of the norm. In fact it
is something of an accepted part of our society. Slums or settlements such as
these are expected in a country like Pakistan, where the socio-economic divide
is so large, that with over 5 million rural immigrants each year, (Haq, 2013) , the population of
Pakistani cities is exploding.
Squatter
settlements now crop up in the middle of cities and are no longer relegated to
the outskirts. One shanty structure leads to then and before you know it, a
mushroom growth takes place and a community has developed before you know it.
Due to the fact that these communal developments have been taking place
illegally, there is no help from the government body which helps to develop any
form of an infrastructure. Therefore there is no electricity grid, no gas pipelines
and no sewage system to speak of. As a result, the kunda[1]
system is adapted, gas cylinders (which can be dangerous) are used for cooking
and open drains run rampant throughout the settlements, which then lead to poor
hygiene and health conditions. These informal settlements are, inherently, a
very large part of our urban fabric and do coexist within the periphery of the
more formalized settlements. But they are always on the fringe of society at
large. They are perpetually in a state of on the outside looking in.
.
By and large, the
existence of slums is pretty much ignored by the remaining inhabitants of the
cities, as they do not wish to acknowledge the fact that places such as these
are part of their urban fabric. So how can we bring recognition and a sense of
inclusion to these people, and in a sense of the word, “formalize” the
informal?
According
to Rahul Mehrotra[2],
grassroots initiatives are a necessary force needed to push forward the debate of
the current practices of urban design. He says,
“Grassroots initiatives are a stark
reminder for urban design as a practice, about its primary agenda of activism –
of being the practice that creates the critical feedback loops between the site
specificity of architectural interventions and the abstraction of planning
policy” (Marcos, 2013, p. 50) .
In his interview, Mehrotra feels that the question
of urban design has been “…narrowed in
its perception to big architecture” (Marcos, 2013, p. 50) , meaning that
the practices of urbanism are getting lost in translation, when the focus of
the debate actually shifts to the style or “ism” of architecture that is
dictating the overall built environment. The emphasis now is primarily towards
the “Starchitect”[3]
and which big building is being designed by him…or her (sorry Zaha!). But how do
these buildings affect the current status quo, especially when millions of
dollars are being spent on buildings in countries which have some of the largest
informal settlements in the world? And more importantly, are the “Starchitects”
aware of the social implications of these projects? Apparently, not so much…
I
had attended a talk at TU Delft in 2012, where Rem Koolhaas was being presented
with an honorary degree in recognition for his works in architecture today.
When the time came for him to make a presentation, we all were suitably
impressed. After all it was Rem Koolhaas. But then he started speaking about
the CCTV Tower in Beijing. Impressive in form and structure, it was only when photographs
of the surrounding area came into perspective that one felt the need to pause
and reassess the scenario. Said to be located in the middle of the Beijing
Central Business District, the implications of the design are clearly
reflective of China’s position as an emerging economic leader, as well as the
progressive direction they are taking. Why then, from what I understood, was
Rem taking pictures of the building from a worm’s eye perspective through two
squatter settlements and saying that the building was inherently part of its
surroundings and reflective of the needs of the people? It is in this case that
I feel Mehrotra is justified in his statement that big architecture is the call
of the day, and because of this, the people-centric focus of urban design
practices are being placed on the back-shelf.
Yet
at the same time, Mehrotra thinks that all is not lost. In the same interview,
he has also applauded the initiatives taking place in Mumbai. He speaks here of
the community toilet project, Triratna Prerna Mandal (TPM), which began in the
Khotwadi informal settlement in Mumbai’s Santa Cruz district (Marcos, 2013, p. 38) . In this particular
slum, community toilets were developed as part of a World Bank funded Slum Sanitation
Program, and was led by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. TPM was
said to be categorized as a “community-body organization” and their role was to
maintain the toilets constructed by the residents in its local shanty town. But
it became so much more.
Having set up an office on the premises of the
toilets, the group started to cover a variety of activities, whereby they
established a computer training school on the first floor of the toilet, where
English language was also taught. They also set up a kitchen where women came
to cook for school children as part of a government-related employment program.
Thereafter, they “adopted a local abandoned building in the area, and
established a gym, with yoga and dance classes, as well as expanded its women’s
self help and skill groups. It has also installed solar panels on the roof of
its community toilet building, thus generating its own electricity, and has
also set aside space for rain-water harvesting. The group is also focused on
issues of recycling and waste sorting, as well as developing community gardens (Marcos,
2013, p. 38) .
Given
all of this, it makes sense when Mehrotra says,
“…if we recognize the validity of new
hybrid formulations in the built environment and of otherwise previously unimagined
adjacencies in terms of land use and space occupation, these could have a
significant impact on the way we formulate building bylaws, as well as our
attitude to land use planning generally” (Marcos, 2013, p. 50) .
In
2005 the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights decided to carry out a research on
a number of Asian cites, so as to identify the process of socio-economic,
physical and institutional change that had taken place since the ACHR was
founded in 1987. The case study cities were Beijing (China), Pune (India),
Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Karachi (Pakistan), Muntinlupa (Philippines), Hanoi
(Vietnam) and Surabaya (Indonesia) (Satterthwaite, 2005) . In his forward in
the report, Arif Hasan[4] has said
that the most important finding of the report states that,
“urban development in Asia is largely
driven by the concentration of local, national and increasingly, international
profit-seeking enterprises in and around particular urban centres” and that, “cities may concentrate wealth both in terms of new investment and of
high-income residents but there is no automatic process by which this
contributes to the costs of needed infrastructure and services” (Satterthwaite, 2005, p. 4) .
He
has gone further to identify the primary negative aspects of the changes in the
report as:
1. Definitions of what is urban are
determined by political considerations.
2. Globalisation has led to direct
foreign investment in Asian cities, along with the development of a more
aggressive business sector at the national level.
3. Due to relocation, transport costs and
travel time to and from work have increased considerably.
4. Due to an absence of alternatives for
housing, old informal settlements have densified.
5. An increase in the number of
automobiles in Asian cities has created severe traffic problems.
6. As a result of structural adjustment
conditionalities and the culture of globalisation, there are proposals for the privatisation
of public sector utilities and land assets.
7. The culture of globalisation and
structural adjustments has also meant the removal or curtailing of government
subsidies for the social sectors.
8. As a result of these changes, there
has been an enormous increase in real estate development.
9. There are multiple agencies that are
involved in the development, management and maintenance of Asian cities. (Satterthwaite,
2005, p. 5)
Yet
the situation is not completely one of doom and gloom. The report also mentions
a number of positive changes that have taken place and a number of trends that
have emerged that have taken place, or are talking place, now:
1. Over the last two decades, urban poor organisations
have emerged in most Asian cities.
2. Civil society organisations have
successfully come together in a number of cites.
3. There are now a number of government-NGO-community
projects and programmes.
4. In all the case study cities, there
has been a process of decentralisation. (Satterthwaite, 2005, p. 6)
Let
us now put all the above mentioned aspects into perspective. It is clearly
understood that the large-sections of low-income population cannot afford the
cost of legal housing, and thus have to think outside the box, as it were, and
come up with their own solutions that do not fit the defined parameters of the
formal sector. This inadvertently leads to the development of informal
settlements. In cities such as Pune, Muntinlupa and Chiang Mai, approximately two-fifths
of the population live in unauthorized settlements.
In Karachi, which is the largest of the case
study cities (presently at over 13 million inhabitants), has more than half of
its population living in squatter settlements, or illegally developed informal
settlements. It was discovered that this is primarily due to the fact that the
formal sector was not able to meet the annual growth in housing needs
(estimated at 80,000 units), the result was, therefore an increase in katchi abadis[5],
and illegal subdivisions or densification in inner city areas (through the
illegal construction of multi-storey dwellings. Yet due to the fact that this
is such a long-established practice, dating back to the days of partition from
India in 1947, that there are a lot of good quality houses which are developed
in these informal settlements, and so, the local governmental bodies have
earmarked some 70 percent of these settlements for regularization (Satterthwaite,
2005, p. 14) .
This means that there will be a provision of a 99-year lease and the
development of infrastructure by the local government against a payment to the
state.
Orangi
Town is one such place in Karachi. The largest of the informal settlements in
Karachi, Orangi, situated in the periphery of Karachi,
is a cluster of 113 low income settlements[6] with a population of 1.5
million Orangi is home to one of the most successful community-based
upgradation programs in Asia. Orangi Pilot Project
(OPP) as an NGO began work in Orangi town in 1980. (Orangi
Pilot Project Research and Training Institute (OPP-RTI)) On the success of its
five basic programs of low cost sanitation, housing, health, education and
credit for micro enterprise, in
1988 OPP was upgraded into three autonomous institutions.
- OPP-Research
and Training Institute (OPP-RTI) manages the low cost sanitation, housing/secure
housing support program, education program, the now evolving water supply
and the women's savings programs as well as the related research and
training programs. Earthquake and the flood rehabilitation works are also
undertaken.
- OPP-Orangi
Charitable Trust (OPP-OCT) manages
the micro enterprise credit program.
- OPP-Karachi
Health and Social Development Association (OPP-KHASDA) manages the health
program.
Each
institution has its separate board of directors and mobilizes its own funds.
Development is self financed by the people. OPP institutions provide social and
technical guidance and credit for micro enterprise. For
replication OPP institutions strengthen the partner Non Government
Organizations (NGOs)/ Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Government
agencies (instead of setting up their own offices). (Orangi Pilot Project Research and Training Institute
(OPP-RTI))
The
reasons the works of the OPP institutions are seen as successful endeavours are:
- The institutions research to understand what people are doing and how, and then work towards supporting them to do so.
- Technical research into sanitation and housing issues and further developing them into low cost solutions, and extending them through CBOs (community based organisations) and informal sector entrepreneurs.
- Understanding the needs of the informal sector in health and education and supporting them through credit, technical assistance, managerial advise and linking them with government programs and funds for social uplift and poverty alleviation.
- Developing alternatives to top-heavy government projects for Orangi and promoting them with government agencies and international donors.
- Developing skills with
the communities to build infrastructure at the neighbourhood level and monitor
government projects in Orangi.
Having
understood these precedents, it can be said that there are definite modes and
methods that can be applied towards “formalizing” the informal, but perhaps
here a better understanding of the phrase should be ascertained. From the
above, we have deduced that the question is not so much about being recognized
as legitimate settlement (although that is always a plus point), but it is more
about allowing yourself to stop feeling like the bastard by-product of a world
which is out of the control of the average urban settler. I feel that a
community leader from Orangi has explained this situation in the best way possible.
He says that there are two types of slums or informal settlements:
- One consisting of people who understand their problems, are able to define them and react to them accordingly.
- The other consisting of
people who are waiting for somebody such as the government/state to help them.
It
can therefore be said that at the center of these precedents are changes in the
ways that the more formal sector of the urban planning world can meet the
informal sector, and that there are many existing models upon which one can
build an initiative, so as to instigate a drive within the community and get
them to act. The need for a change in the mindset should categorically be seen
as urgent, as much of the world we live in is continuing to urbanize rapidly and
most urban governments are failing to fulfill the needs of large sectors of
their population. It has to be understood, then, that it is imperative for a
new generation of architects and urban planners to develop a new, more flexible
system within which to develop our urban environment, one which recognizes the
legitimacy of the informal settlements as well as the almost fluid and elastic
nature of these urban spaces. It must be accepted that no solutions for
scenarios such as these are immediate, and must therefore one needs to set up
long term planning goals, which must in turn be flexible and rely on a
community based support system. This approach will thus allow more creative
license towards defining and developing possible solutions for the very real
problems within the settlements, as opposed to the pre-conceived scenarios
which are visualized in the formal sector of the planning authorities.
To
conclude, it appears the question is no longer about how to “formalize” the
informal, but rather more along the lines of what lessons can be learned from
within these informal settlements and applied to the formal sector so as to
develop a more highly functioning
society? It would appear that we have much to learn…
Bibliography
UN-Habitat . (2007). Slum Dwellers to double by 2030: Millenium goals could fall short. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT.
Marcos, R. L. (2013). Handmade Urbanism - From community Initiatives to Participatory Models. Berlin: Jovis Verlag GmbH.
Satterthwaite, D. (2005). Understanding Asian Cities - A synthesis of the findings from eight case study cities.Bangkok: Asian Coalition for Housing Rights.
Hasan, A. a. (2003). Urban Slums Reports: The case of Karachi, Pakistan.
(n.d.). Retrieved from Orangi Pilot Project Research
and Training Institute (OPP-RTI): http://www.oppinstitutions.org/
Haq, R. (2013, April 16). http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?176152-Urbanization-in-Pakistan-Highest-in-South-Asia-BY-Riaz-Haq.
Retrieved January 6, 2014, from www.siasat.pk:
1761http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?176152-Urbanization-in-Pakistan-Highest-in-South-Asia-BY-Riaz-Haq52
[1] A process by which electricity is stolen
from the main lines
[2] Rahul Mehrotra is the Chair of the
Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University
[3] Defined in the Oxford Dictionary as a famous or high-profile architect
[4] Arif Hasan n urban planner and
activist based in Karachi, Pakistan
[5] Informal settlements
[6]The settlements began as katchi abadis (informal settlements),
but by between 1986 and 1992 most were notified, i.e. officially accepted by
the government.
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