Dharavi : From informal to formal urbanism and economy (J.Larere, 2014)

FROM INFORMAL TO FORMAL URBANISM AND ECONOMY Through the example of Dharavi, known as one of the oldest and biggest slums of Asia (India), how can an informal urbanism develop a parallel informal economy to challenge a government that rejects its rights in favor of capitalist redevelopment projects?

By Joséphine Larere (2014)

Under the direction of Brent Patterson, University teacher of architecture’s theory and criticism © Copyright all rights reserved

“2006 marked the year when more than half of the world’s

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population was living in cities.” Today third world countries are

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still experiencing the wave of industrialization and urbanization

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that occurred in Europe more than one century ago with the

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industrial revolution. But nowadays a demographic boom has

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intensified the industrialization process, making it even more

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difficult to treat. There are a 100 million people without shelter

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in the world, and 600 million living in unhygienic conditions.

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Often called Slumbai, the city of Mumbai in India, "has the

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largest number of slum-dwellers of any city in the world,

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counting over six million within the metropolitan area and

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many more outside." In particular, Dharavi slum is known as

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one of the oldest and biggest slums in Asia with more than 700

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000 inhabitants spreading on a land of 239 hectares inside

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Mumbai. Since the nineties Dharavi is subject of an important

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debate about redevelopment and appropriation by the state

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of Maharashtra and private sectors. Through the example of

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Dharavi, I would like to investigate how an informal urbanism

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can develop a parallel informal economy to challenge a

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government that rejects its rights in favor of capitalist

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redevelopment projects? To answer this question I will first

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need to analyze the spatial organization of this informal

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urbanism to notice its dependent relationship with the

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informal economy that got developed. From there, I will

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question the limits of informality in Dharavi that functions as

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an independent city within Mumbai. This demonstration will

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make possible the debate about the Dharavi Redevelopment

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Project that shows how the dominant ideology of the Indian

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government reacts to the future of the slum. What is the slum

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dwellers' "right to the city" when confronted by a capitalist

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ideology of redevelopment attracted by the city model of

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Dubai? It will lead to a discussion about the transition from

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informal to formal: according to the initial analysis of Dharavi,

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what strategies architects and urban planners should adopt to

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build for this population?

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Informal Economy / Urbanism

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a Slums are typically located on risky and unstable territories

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that, for security and health reasons, are not meant for

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human settlement. Dharavi has been developed on a large

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swamp where no stable housing pile foundations could have

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been built at the time it was settled. «Informal communities

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filled the interstitial spaces of a city»4 and therefore a slum

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is generally an enclosed space which boundaries are defined

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by infrastructure, road, railway, or other existing barriers. In

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the previous image we can notice the express highways that

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surround Dharavi. The situation and location of this slum according to the rest of Mumbai is related to Aldo Rossi’s notion of Locus, «a component of an individual artifact which, © Copyright all rights reserved

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1.Aerial view of Dharavi (Google Maps)

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like permanence, is determined not just by space but also by time, by topography and form, and, most importantly, by its having been the site of a succession of both ancient and more recent events.»5 An important urban feature of informal neighborhood is that they don’t often appear in any urban plan. It leads to many consequences on slum dweller’s quality of life since they don’t benefit from any legal infrastructure, waste evacuation, water or electricity. Therefore, they live in a polluted, degraded and deprived environment. On an average, in Dharavi, a toilet seat is shared by close to a thousand residents.6 «People living in slums are often the worst victims of industrial pollution in the cities.»7 In this unhealthy environment, slum dwellers build their own shelters composed of local materials, clothes, and city garbage. Inadequate and unstable, this housing doesn’t offer any security against extreme weather or natural disaster. « In the 19th century the first migrations to Mumbai were from Maharashtra and nearby areas like the Konkan and Gujarat. Communities first settled in south Mumbai but, as the city grew, authorities pushed them to what was then the city’s edge.»8 The informal planning of Dharavi was organized according to the different waves of migration from the 19th century to nowadays: immigrants escaping rural poverty, political oppression, natural disasters, and people leaving their villages of origin to find jobs in Mumbai. Today the spatial organization and sectorization of Dharavi is connected to its different ethnic, identities and religions. It is divided into 85 Nagars. This latter originally meant district «but in the Dharavi context, it is a description for a geographical area which residents feel they belong to.»9 Those neighborhoods became labyrinths. But when analyzing different areas of the slum, we can notice a hierarchy between them. The Nagars are subdivided into Chawls, co-operative housing societies and ambiguous clusters. The difference between those terms is based on the quality and size of houses, and spaces between them forming their public space: paths, streets. «Chawls were a form of housing built both by British government agencies and private employers to accommodate migrant workers as the city began to industrialize in the early 1900s. They were made up of singleroom units in 3 or 4 story structures, with wide common passages and shared toilets. Generally, Chawls had better infrastructure than slums and were occupied by better-off residents in the city.»10 The street of PV Chawl is one of the oldest and biggest streets of Dharavi: 500 meters long and a width that varies from 1.5 to 4.5 meters. This informal planning allows the development of more comfortable social activities with a market, shops, workshops, temple, etc.

The smallest building blocks are the cooperative housing societies that “are aggregated into Nagars with a distinct © Copyright all rights reserved

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2.Photos of Dharavi 12

sense of identity based on religion, social origins, shared

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working conditions or other factors.» All the other areas that

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are not included in those groupings are the ambiguous areas.

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They are often very congested spaces with no natural light, the

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ditches flood, leading to an extremely bad quality of life. They

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are generally the densest areas, for example the one behind Mahim train station. Those different and contrasted areas of Dharavi are crossed and linked by only three main roads, some

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wider streets and a labyrinthic network of paths. Orientation is

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therefore difficult since only a few streets like PV Chawls have

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a precise name and “the numbers on the houses in Dharavi

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do not refer to the order of the houses along a horizontal line,

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as they would do in Europe. Instead they refer to electricity

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supply and water distribution.” In spite of the size of Dharavi

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orientation is made possible, like in many villages, by means

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of landmarks such as religious places, public spaces or urban

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details, shapes and colors.

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Moreover, the cultural division of Dharavi’s urbanism is strictly

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related to commerce and industries. Most of the time in India, a

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neighborhood is specialized in a particular business. This can

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be notified also in Dharavi where each population is grouped

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in one area with the same type of business. For example

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«Kumbhar potters come from Saurashtra in Gujarat, tanners

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from Tamil Nadu and Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, leather and

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textile workers from Maharashtra and Bihar, and Valmiki Street

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sweepers from Haryana.»

In the following cartography of

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the different activities we can see the more or less important

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groupings: the agriculture sector, the leatherworks, the textile

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sector, etc. At the opposite of the grocery stores areas that are

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spread along the main roads and circulation paths. Dharavi

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dwellers have progressively organized their spaces to develop

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a high informal economy and industry. The spaces of the slum

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serve different roles: producing, selling and buying. In fact, it

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is impossible to demarcate residential areas from commercial

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and industrial ones since «mixed pattern of living and working

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conditions are found everywhere in Dharavi.» Because of the

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lack of space, the inhabitants have developed multifunctional

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surfaces where the houses are often used also as a working

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place or small factories for fabrication and storage. The

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streets have also many important functions that

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change according to the different business needs: they can

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be markets, small shops, or extensions of the inside factories.

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«Open spaces in Dharavi account for only two percent of the

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total area.» They are strategically placed in the residential

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network but have no precise function and therefore evolve or

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adapt according to the different activities. «In the leather

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district there is an open space where hides are set out to dry

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after the tanning process. When this area is not being used it

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becomes a temporary cricket ground.» Commercial activities 18

are essentially located along the main roads and biggest © Copyright all rights reserved

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3.Cartographies of Dharavi 19

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streets, supposedly to facilitate transportations, deliveries and to be found easily. In the study of Dharavi, informal urbanism, space and economy cannot be separate. Each one leads to the other and depends on it.

An independant city within Mumbai Dharavi has the status of an informal city within a city but when analyzing it from closer we can almost compare the slum to a formal city. This comparison is first based on details in the infrastructure, architectural characteristics and real estate appropriation. Dharavi’s inhabitants reshape the small percentage of public space they have in order to look like a formal city. They installed urban furniture like benches, indication panels, traffic barriers, flowerpots and other forms of decoration, street lights, advertising paintings on walls, post boxes, playground games, etc. These small details show an interest and a wish to organize the streets like a formal city.

The architecture in Dharavi is also different from the other slums. «An informal city using formal architectural methodologies.»21 The majority of the houses are in fact built or reinforced by cement and bricks. This progressive improvement to stabilize houses has an important impact on the image of Dharavi that progressively changes from instable and informal toward the image of an «urban village»22. But the particularity of Dharavi is its irregular skyline presenting 77 story buildings in the middle of the slum horizon. Those buildings are part of private lands inside Dharavi itself. There are built by private constructor, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) or inhabitant’s organization. «Since the 1980s, authorities have more or less admitted to the need for improving the situation of the slums without, however, officially acknowledging their existence.»23 Those neighborhoods in Dharavi allowed thousands of people to be rehoused. But it is important to know «that living in a slum does not mean living for free, since residents pay between 500 and 1,000 rupees (or eight to sixteen euros) monthly to informal “landlords,” a sort of local mafia who, in the absence of the state, dominates the housing market and access to water, electricity, sanitation facilities and arbitrarily imposes its rules on residents.»24 An important particularity of Dharavi compared to the other slums in India is its almost autonomous situation regarding the rest of Mumbai. As mentioned earlier in the article, Dharavi developed a parallel informal economy that offers a variety of activities making the slum very dynamic. «All kind of services are available here as in the formal city.»25 Unlike other Mumbai slums, 80% of Dharavi’s residents also work

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there, and even many people from outside come to work

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there during the day. «This is a parallel economy (...). In most

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developed countries, there is only one economy. But in India, © Copyright all rights reserved

4.Appropriation of public spaces by inhabitants 20

there are two. India is a rising economic power, even as huge

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portions of its economy operate in the shadows. Its “formal”

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economy consists of businesses that pay taxes, adhere to

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labor regulations and burnish the country’s global image.

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India’s “informal” economy is everything else: the hundreds

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of millions of shopkeepers, farmers, construction workers,

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taxi drivers, street vendors, rag pickers, tailors, repairmen,

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middlemen, black marketeers and more.»

In 1986, the

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National Slum Dweller Federation (NSDF) counted 1044

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manufacturing units of all kinds in Dharavi and later another

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survey counted 1700 units. But the actual number is even

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larger since many industries are located inside housing. In

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2006, the BBC «estimated that its thriving informal economy

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generates an annual turnover of business to be more than

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$541 million.» This important annual income is due to a lot 28

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of products that are made for industries such as Bollywood,

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bigger cities structures and also for the international market.

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“We are all connected to Dharavi, and Dharavi is connected to

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every corner of the world through merchandise and labor.”

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Moreover, Dharavi is made independent by its proper

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institutions. Like a formal city it is composed of religious, educational, medical, and funerary institutions with several cemeteries. But the strangest thing is that Dharavi has also a

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police station. Given that, how can we still define this place as

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informal? One definition of the informal is the notion of constant

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flux, a place where people are «free» in the sense that there is

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no regulation by the police to assure law is enforced . But in

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this case, the city model of Dharavi is similar to formal cities,

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creating therefore the notion of society, composed according

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to Michel Foucault by institutions, places of discipline, places

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of enclosure, heterotopias, and regulated by the police that

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«from the XVIII century started to make almost automatic all

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the mechanisms of society.»

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In the case of Dharavi, the regulation of the slum comes from

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the strong notion of community that has been developed. The

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development process of a slum is by definition communitarian,

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resulting from a collective effort and participation in the

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shelter-making and the improvisation of basic services.

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The sense of community is especially related to the urban

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organization. First of all, we can notice the almost nonexistent

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differentiation between public and private space. Since the

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houses or shelter are so small, the street in Dharavi has many

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functions of the order of the private, like a living room or a dining

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room. In the Chawls, the houses are composed of semi public

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terraces facing onto the street encouraging communitarian

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life. The few open spaces used as multifunctional areas are

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also important socio-cultural places that adapt to the different

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activities such as religious festivals, sports, markets or simple work. «From the most minimal space for social interaction at the door step to the optimum community spaces for various © Copyright all rights reserved

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5. Cartography of Dharavi’s institutions32 6. Axonometry of houses located in the Chawls

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social and cultural activities.»33 This communitarian life leads passively to regulation and spontaneous surveillance due to a constant, sometimes just visual interaction between the inhabitants. «Some problems are resolved by informal mechanisms in which the testimony of neighbors is utterly decisive.»34 This constant interaction is due to the lack of privacy as explained earlier, and related to the high population density of Dharavi, counting 250 000 inhabitants per square kilometers.35 This situation of spontaneous and passive surveillance between the neighbors relates to Foucault’s notion of «autogovernmentality». It

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consists of a combination of self-surveillance, self-regulation and self-enumeration controlling a precise population. In the case of Dharavi, the state doesn’t pay attention to Dharavi’s population, but the notion of autogovernmentality has been developed inside the slum by its sectorization into Nagars, Chawls, and co-operative societies: «it is at this level that the community produces and shares information about its own members»36.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Project Since the nineties, Dharavi’s territory is subject of a Redevelopment Project, the DRP, directed by Ashok Chavan, chief minister of the state of Maharashtra. Over the years, Dharavi’s land has become very valuable for real estate promoters and developers such as Mukesh Mehta, architect of the DRP which divides Dharavi into five sectors, each one directed by its own developer. The process consists of a radical tabula rasa where existing boundaries based on Nagars and existing communities are totally ignored. It led to five different projects inside the DRP, having no coherent relationship with each other, but neither trying to link the actual organization and infrastructure of Dharavi with the city’s infrastructure37.

The dominant ideology, which in the case of the DRP is that of the Government of Maharashtra, attempts to hide the real purpose of this rehabilitation project. It does not aim the improvement of Dharavi’s dwellers’ living conditions, but the extension of a new business district: the Bandra-Kurla Complex located south of the international airport. While they praise a rehousing process for Dharavi’s inhabitants, they develop a strategy to make more money with it. In fact, they want to relocate the population in a small area to cumulate the remaining space and dedicate it for the development of this new district, composed of towers, malls and parks shaped in a «futuristic Dubai or Shanghai-style landscape».38 By consequence, they apply this idea by proposing highrise buildings for Dharavi’s residents in order to densify the

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residential area. «A maximum increase of Floor Space Index

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contributes to higher urban densities and the adoption of a © Copyright all rights reserved

7. Section of a street in the Chawls 32

spatial transformation from horizontal, low-rise ‘slums’ to a

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high-rise podium style typology (G+12 and higher).»

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The Dharavi Redevelopment Project is clearly based on

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business capitalist interests hidden by the superficial

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intention of resolving the slum’s condition in Mumbai. The

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slum for Indian politicians is related to Slavoj Zizek’s notion of

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ideological mystification. Politicians are conscious about what

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is going on but act as if the opposite were true, and therefore

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don’t do anything to find real solutions for the relocation of

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the slum dwellers. We are not able to act, we are blocked by

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the capitalist mentality and don’t question it anymore . In

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the case of the DRP, the slum of Dharavi and its inhabitants

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is completely ignored and replaced by capitalist ideals

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of redevelopment that the government doesn’t question.

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According to ZIzek, ideology distorts our view.

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According to David Harvey, “the spatial forms of our cities

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increasingly consist of fortified fragments, gated communities,

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and

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privatized

public

spaces

kept

under

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surveillance.» He makes a reference to Foucault’s notion of

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places of enclosure, which have composed our cities since

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the mutation of capitalism. A slum is a consequence of this

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progressive neoliberal ideology that has created a universal

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city model in which poor communities were expulsed outside

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the city or accepted in the city without having access to its advantages. This governmental action results from a desire to

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control the type of population that owns a right to live inside

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a city, and creating therefore another kind of enclosed space:

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a slum. As the city grows, this neoliberal urban process leads

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to the phenomenon of gentrification. “It is inevitable in large

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cities. The poor inhabit shadows and margins, creating value

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where none existed. They come into the public eye when the

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city expands around their settlements, which is when formal

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real estate begins to look at the land they occupy. Values of

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properties in particular locations transform neighborhoods

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and push existing groups of households and communities

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to other places.»

The Dharavi Redevelopment project’s

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consequence is the expulsion of the slum dwellers. The

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process of the project didn’t include any input or feedbacks

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from Dharavi’s inhabitants whereas «in earlier slum rehabilitation schemes, the consent of at least 70% of slum

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dwellers was mandatory.»

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The argument from the city

planner’s point of view is that it is an unnecessary step in

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Dharavi’s case since the project already has received support

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from the government.

If the actual residents received no

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information about the DRP is again explained by the fact that

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it is not its purpose. «According to the government there are

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about 57 000 families who are eligible for rehabilitation or 285

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000 people when multiplied by the average family size of five

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people. Since there is a mix of formal and informal housing

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in the area, the government figure might only be counting its © Copyright all rights reserved

8. The Dharavi Redevelopment Project

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formal residents: people who have contracts for their flats in high-rise and people who were the original inhabitants of the villages.»46 What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people that won’t be relocated? They will lose everything they own, their home, their job, etc. But the state does not consider it and totally rejects Dharavi’s inhabitants’ «right to the city».

«Will the people who are displaced get compensation? The lucky ones get a bit. But while the Indian Constitution specifies that the whole population, irrespective of cast or class, and to guarantee rights to housing and shelter, the Supreme Court has issued judgments that rewrite this constitutional requirement. Since slum dwellers are illegal occupants and many cannot definitively prove their long-term residence, they have no right to compensation. (...) Increasingly, we see

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the right to the city falling into the hands of private or quasi private interests.”47 The «right to the city» of a population is linked with Foucault’s notion of governmentality, based on the mechanisms developed by a state to control its society and exercise its power. «Foucault doesn’t show interest in ideologies but focuses on the instruments, procedures and political rationalities that underly them.»48 From the seventeenth century, those instruments have taken form with planning, censuses, and statistics specific to a population. They are also made with laws, regulations, and financial reports. «They lead to a framing of individuals to control their behavior from a distance.»49 In the case of the slum population, the notion of governmentality is absent since no specific censuses and population studies are made by the State. There are therefore rejected and not rehoused. Indeed, as we saw with the DRP, only a small part of the population of Dharavi will be rehoused in high-rise building because there are considered as formal inhabitants of the slum. «Frequently, it is through this kind of techniques that the state of domination becomes established and remains.»50 No compensation at all for Dharavi’s residents will engender a migration of the residents toward other slums of Mumbai or other states of India, and will only postpone the problem. Today, poor communities already manifest their anger onto the streets.

What are the direct consequences of the DRP according to the residents’ communitarian life and work? The architect Mukesh Mehta declared: «we plan to erase all the small habitations and rehouse everybody in small buildings, each one separated by twelve meters from another. Each flat will be 28m2, which is a bigger space than what 96% of the residents have today in Dharavi. At the ground level, a space will be dedicated to commerce where each one will be able to continue its activity.»51 But for this latter proposal, the architect did not take the time to study the current situation of the slum leading therefore to an incoherent project, devalorizing © Copyright all rights reserved

9.Protesting Residents of Dharavi against the DRP

the residents. “The floor area in the zoning system is set to

legislation affecting slum dwellers in Mumbai tie security of

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28m2, regardless of family size. Even if a house often occupies

tenure to the data from which occupancy of a piece of land or

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this size on the ground, there are often two or three floors.

a structure can be demonstrated, such information collection

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Some have managed to extend to 50m2 or more. When this

is vital to any official effort to relocate and rehabilitate slum

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flooration is moved up in high-rise, the family only get one

populations.”

The Alliance strategy of participation can be

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room to share. Not even toilet and running water can make up

related to Henri Lefebvre’s approach to the «right to the city».

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for the loss of space. People simply cannot fit into the spaces

Critical of the generic approach of urban planning nowadays,

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offered.” But the main issue is that the state and developers

he defends the notion of playful experience of the city in which

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are only offering compensation «based on resettlements, not

the population is actively engaged and appropriates it. In fact,

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on the resident’s loss of investments.» As we saw earlier,

with neoliberalism, cities and urban projects such as the

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the spatial organization of Dharavi is entirely related to its

DRP have become products by which citizens are completely

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economy. In the DRP proposal, the standardization with

alienated. According to Lefebvre, the best strategy to approach

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high-rise habitation is insensitive and non-adapted to the

the redevelopment of Dharavi would be the re-appropriation

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real needs of the population’s cultures, religions, and work

by a public debate with the poor. Lefebvre’s thinking can be

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activities. Since most of the residents work in their own

related to the notion of architectural process that in this kind

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house, the lack of space will also lead to a loss of millions

of situation should model the project. For Alfredo Brillembourg

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of small industries and shops. It is clear that the street level

and Hubert Klumpner, from the Urban- Think Tank studio, the

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space dedicated to commerce in the DRP is not adequate.

architect is the person who designs the process of the project

The residents’ organization related to their business became

and not necessarily the form. «We decided to implement

possible by the horizontal landscape of the slum. The streets

realizable micro-projects, rather than proposing grand master

and few public spaces adapt to their needs, and are places of

plans that would end up in the dark recesses of a bureaucrat’s

constant sharing information, buying and selling. With the new

drawer.»57 Their work rejects therefore the idea of a rigid

vertical typology of habitation those quotidian rituals won’t

master plan in order to reshape the slums, defending rather

be possible anymore and it will engender the loss of their

punctual and smaller interventions that can bring events

communitarian life. «Schools, mosques, temples, markets.

and life improvement for slums inhabitants. This process of

How can these structures survive in high rise buildings?»

intervention is related to Aldo Rossi’s definition of Locus. With

«The potters of Kumbharwada are another case. This

the example of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project, we saw

neighborhood of 2000 potter families, who came from Gujarat

that it is compulsory to analyze the existing living and working

at the start of the 20th century, spreads out over five hectares.

conditions of the population to develop a strategy to replace

For them, space is essential. They estimate that they need at

the informal. The Aranya housing project is a response to the

least 92m2 to store and mould clay, make their pottery and dry

1980s housing shortage in Indore, and completed in 1988 by

it, install ovens where it can be baked, and for some, to have

the Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi. He studied the «process

space on the street where they can sell it. The proposed area

and patterns of slums to develop a concept of slum networking.

is very clearly inadequate and their level of poverty makes it

(...) Himanshu Parikh, a consulting engineer and coordinator of

impossible for them to buy land.»

the project developed this concept to restructure the urban

The Alliance is a partnership of the NGO SPARC (the

infrastructure. This has had a tremendous impact on the

Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers), and

transformation of not only the urban slums but also the other

two organizations named Mahila Milan and the National

neglected areas and services, resulting in development of an

Slum Dwellers Federation. Since the 1990s, the Alliance is

appropriate urbanscape.»58

working in parallel and fighting against the DRP. Their aim

The project spreads on a rectilinear site of 86 hectares divided

is to make this latter more human and sensitive, including

into six sectors converging on a central area: the business

the slum inhabitants in the redevelopment process. They

district. The result is a very simple re-adaptation of slum’s

did an intense study of Dharavi and its population. They

spatial and communitarian features. Doshi accorded much

articulated and reinforced the strategy of self-enumeration

importance to the public spaces and created a hierarchy

and autogovernmentality inside each Nagar. “By rendering

between them: from the small courtyard to bigger playing

them statistically visible to themselves, the Alliance comes

or green fields. The habitation typologies are also favoring

into control of a central piece of any actual policy process-

the communitarian life by readapting the notion of minimum

the knowledge of exactly which individuals live where, how

shelter and multi-functional living spaces. We can recognize

they make their livelihood, how long they have lived there, and

the low habitations similar to the Chawls’ houses in Dharavi,

so forth. Given that some of the most crucial pieces of recent

opened on the streets with terraced and rooftops. They can

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© Copyright all rights reserved

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adapt to different types of families. This project has won Aga Khan Award for architecture and the United Nations Habitat

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award for community up-gradation. But could the Aranya

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housing project work in the case of Dharavi? The first problem

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is the location of Dharavi inside Mumbai’s polluted urban

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environment that in terms of climate and living condition

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is very different from Indore’s environment. According to

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Dharavi’ size, it would require more infrastructure, with larger

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and cement roads to maintain the outdoor spaces healthier

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and less congested. Moreover, the Aranya housing project is successful in terms of its low population density compared to Dharavi where low-rise settlement are not compatible to a

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better life quality in which a family could receive more space

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to live. The real challenge in Dharavi is to find a project inspired

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by the inhabitants’ way of life, but that would improve their

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conditions without however imposing them a rigid solution

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that would end to their activities and communitarian life.

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10. Aranya housing project: communitarian life, typologies of

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habitation © Copyright all rights reserved

F Since the 19th century, Dharavi slum has acquired the image of an independent urban village inside Mumbai. It got developed

1

around different neighborhoods in relation to the population’s

D

identity, religion and business. The investment of the residents

F

in their slum has created a real sense of community and

2

society with institutions and regulation similar to any formal

S

city. However, Dharavi doesn’t receive any recognition by

3

the Indian government. In a neoliberal ideological context,

4

the dominant ideology has led to a denial of Dharavi’s’

S

inhabitants’ rights, particularly their «right to the city». When

y

the government of Maharashtra proposed the redevelopment

5

project in the 1990s, the gap between informal and formal

M

increased. Through a superficial rehousing project for only

6

a small percentage of the residents, the proposal rather

2

orients itself toward a capitalist urban planning development

R

serving the dominant ideology, obviously interested in global

7

capital. The consequences are violent for the actual residents

B

which consent and opinion were not considered, since the

h

government is conscious that they will loose home, work and

8

their place in Mumbai.

2

The case study of Dharavi opens an important debate on the

R

slums. «Some even suggest that Dharavi should be given

9

UNESCO heritage status because it stands as a historical

1

monument of investment and design from below. Dharavi

1

describes perfectly how most cities develop: the poor build

1

their own homes, investing bit by bit, carving communities and

1

neighborhoods and finally towns as generations of families

1

continue their work. When such flexible processes become

D

incorporated in the norms of town planning, formalization

F

occurs and over time, further upgrading produces legal and

1

livable spaces. Official support for these incremental processes

1

are also signaled when the city provides urban infrastructure

2

and services.”

How should architects, urban planners,

R

politicians and the inhabitants themselves strategically act to

1

improve their condition instead of postponing the problem? To

D

make slum-dwellers participate in the process is primordial,

F

but maybe their situation should also inspire the debate.

1

59

1

2

D

F

2

2

«

T

s

s

2

2 © Copyright all rights reserved

©

FOOTNOTES

slum», DPH, may 2009, http://base.d-p-h.info/fr/fiches/dph/ fichedph- 7867.html 25 Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul,

1. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

«Re Dharavi», November 2010 http://www.sdinet.org/media/

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

upload/documents/ReDharavi.pdf

Fine Arts, 2008)

26. Jim Yardley, «In One Slum, Misery, Work, Politics and

2. From Akhtar Chauhan, «Learning from slums» in Minimal

Hope», The New York Times, 28th December 2011

Space-Minimal Housing, (Technische Universitaet Graz, 1996)

h t t p : / / w w w. ny t i m e s . c o m / 2 0 1 1 / 1 2 / 2 9 / w o r l d / a s i a /

3. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, op.cit.

i n - i n d i a n - s l u m - m i s e r y-w o r k- p o l i t i c s - a n d - h o p e .

4. Ben Smith and Meghan Lewis, “Infill city: Mumbai”, Yale

html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

School of Architecture, September 2012, http://architecture.

27. From Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, op.cit.

yale.edu/gallery/infill-city-mumbai

28. «Contested Urbanism: Reclaiming the Right to the City in

5. Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, (Oppositions-

Dharavi?», Polis a collaborative blog about cities around the

MIT-1999)

world, 14th April 2010, http://www.thepolisblog.org/2010/04/

6. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re Dharavi», November

contested-urbanism-reclaiming-right-to.html

2010

29. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

http://www.sdinet.org/media/upload/documents/

ReDharavi.pdf

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

7. Madhura Swaminathan, «Aspects of human poverty in

Fine Arts, 2008)

Bombay» Environment and Urbanization, 1995

30. From Michael Hays, “Space, Knowledge and Power, Michel

http://eau.sagepub.com/content/7/1/133

Foucault interview with Paul Rabinow” in Architectural theory

8. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re Dharavi», November

since 1968 (MIT, 1998).

2010

31. ibid.

http://www.sdinet.org/media/upload/documents/

ReDharavi.pdf

32. From Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, op.cit

9. ibid.

33. Akhtar Chauhan, «Learning from slums» in minimal space-

10. ibid.

minimal housing, (Technische Universitaet Graz, 1996)

11. ibid.

34. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

12. ibid.

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

13. ibid.

Fine Arts, 2008)

14. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

35. From «Designer interactifs, Philippe Rizzotti», http://www.

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

designersinteractifs.org/articles/dizain/page/5

Fine Arts, 2008)

36. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re Dharavi», November

15. ibid.

2010

16. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re Dharavi», November

ReDharavi.pdf

2010

37. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

http://www.sdinet.org/media/upload/documents/

http://www.sdinet.org/media/upload/documents/

ReDharavi.pdf

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

17. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

Fine Arts, 2008)

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

38. «Contested Urbanism: Reclaiming the Right to the City in

Fine Arts, 2008)

Dharavi?», Polis a collaborative blog about cities around the

18. ibid.

world, 14th April 2010, http://www.thepolisblog.org/2010/04/

19. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, op.cit.

contested-urbanism-reclaiming-right-to.html

20 Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

39. ibid.

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

40. From Slavoj Zizek, «The Spectre of Ideology» in Mapping

Fine Arts,2008)

Ideology, (ed Verso, 1994)

21 ibid.

41. ibid.

22. Citation of Alfredo Brillembourg in Tim Smedley,

42. David Harvey, «The right to the city» in Social Justice and

«Sustainable urban design: lessons to be taken from slums»,

the City, (Georgia, 2009)

The guardian, 5th June 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/

43. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

sustainable-business/sustainable-design-lessons-from-

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

slums

Fine Arts, 2008)

23. Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, op.cit.

44. Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re Dharavi», November

24. Valérie Fernando, «In the heart of Bombay: the Dharavi

2010

© Copyright all rights reserved

http://www.sdinet.org/media/upload/documents/

ReDharavi pdf

Sébastien Farcis, «Dharavi, en Inde: le plus grand bidonville

45. FromJonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, op.cit.

d’Asie pourrait être bientôt rasé», France inter, 4 janvier 2012,

46. ibid.

http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-ailleurs-dharavi-en-inde-

47. David Harvey, op.cit.

le-plus-grandbidonville- dasie-pourrait-etre-bientot-rase

48.

My

translation

from

Pierre

Lascoumes,

«La

Valérie Fernando, «In the heart of Bombay: the Dharavi slum»,

Gouvernementalité: de la critique de l’Etat aux technologies du

DPH, may 2009, http://base.d-ph. info/fr/fiches/dph/fiche-

pouvoir», le portique, 2004, http://leportique.revues.org/625

dph-7867.html

49. ibid.

Pierre Lascoumes, «La Gouvernementalité: de la critique de

50. ibid

l’Etat aux technologies du pouvoir», le portique, 2004, http://

51. My translation from Sébastien Farcis, «Dharavi, en Inde: le

leportique.revues.org/625

plus grand bidonville d’Asie pourrait être bientôt rasé», France

Henri Lefebvre, «The right to the city» in Writings on Cities,

inter, 4 janvier 2012, http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-

(Blackwell 1999) Sheela Patel and Aneerudha Paul, «Re

ailleurs-dharavi-en-inde-le-plus-grand-bidonville-dasie-

Dharavi», November 2010 http://www.sdinet.org/media/

pourrait-etrebientot-rase

upload/documents/ReDharavi.pdf

52. From Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

«Designer

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

designersinteractifs.org/articles/dizain/page/5

Fine Arts, 2008)

Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, (Oppositions-MIT-1999)

53. ibid.

Tim Smedley, «Sustainable urban design: lessons to be

54. ibid.

taken from slums», The guardian, 5th June 2013 http://www.

55 . Valérie Fernando, «In the heart of Bombay: the Dharavi

theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-design-

slum», DPH, may 2009, http://base.d-p-h.info/fr/fiches/dph/

lessons-from-slums

fichedph- 7867.html

Ben Smith and Meghan Lewis, “Infill city: Mumbai”, Yale School

56. From Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, op.cit.

of Architecture, September 2012, http://architecture.yale.edu/

57. Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, «Build Simply:

gallery/infill-city-mumbai

South of the border», Mas context, http://www.mascontext.

Madhura Swaminathan, «Aspects of human poverty in

com/tag/hubert-klumpner/

Bombay» Environment and Urbanization, 1995 http://eau.

58 . Akhtar Chauhan, «Learning from slums» in minimal space-

sagepub.com/content/7/1/133

minimal housing, (Technische Universitaet Graz, 1996)

Jim Yardley, «In One Slum, Misery, Work, Politics and Hope»,

59.

Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi

The New York Times, 28th December 2011 http://www.nytimes.

Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of

com/2011/12/29/world/asia/in-indian-slum-misery-work-

Fine Arts, 2008)

politics-andhope. html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, «Build Simply: South of the border», Mas context, http://www.mascontext. com/tag/hubert-klumpner/ «Contested Urbanism: Reclaiming the Right to the City in Dharavi?», Polis a collaborative blog about cities around the world, 14th April 2010, http://www.thepolisblog.org/2010/04/ contested-urbanismreclaiming- right-to.html Akhtar Chauhan, «Learning from slums» in Minimal Space Minimal Housing, (Technische Universitaet Graz, 1996) Jonatan Habib Engqvist and Maria Lantz, Dharavi Documenting Informalities, (The Royal University College of Fine Arts, 2008) David Harvey, «The right to the city» in Social Justice and the City, (Georgia, 2009) Michael Hays, “Space, Knowledge and Power, Michel Foucault interview with Paul Rabinow” in Architectural theory since 1968 (MIT, 1998). © Copyright all rights reserved

interactifs,

Philippe

Rizzotti»,

http://www.

Slavoj Zizek, «The Spectre of Ideology» in Mapping Ideology, (ed Verso, 1994)