Dharavi, widely known as Asia’s largest slum, is home to more than a million people and characterized by its prime location in the middle of India’s commercial and financial capital of Mumbai. With significant government and market pressure to develop into a world-class city, and increasing population growth continuing to limit housing opportunities, the fate of Dharavi has become a highly contested and politicized issue (Boano, Lamarca & Hunter 2011). In light of this pressing problem, this essay will provide an overview and description of Dharavi, an outline of the key housing issues and challenges that the government and stakeholders face, and an analysis of housing policy initiatives.
Overview of the city’s/neighborhoods general characteristics
Dharavi is situated on prime real estate in the heart of Mumbai, encompassing almost 293 hectares and housing between 700,000 and 1.2 million residents (Chatterji 2005, p. 198; Sharma 2000). From a distance, a view of Mumbai city exposes the very stark divide between the rich and abject poor; decrepit informal huts made of mud, brick, asbestos and garbage (Desai 1988, p. 71), set against a backdrop of modern million dollar skyscrapers (figure 1). Contrary to this depiction though, Dharavi also stands out for its lively and prosperous informal economy in small-scale industry, handicrafts and recycling (SPARC 2010); that employs over 80% of Dharavi’s residents and produces an annual turnover of over $500 million a year (BUDD 2009; The Economist 2005, p. 43). As a slum, Dharavi is therefore unique in the fact that it is characterized as both a residential and industrial area, a feature that has greatly influenced both the tolerance and encouragement of its existence (Sharma 2000) .
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Boo’s story begins in Annawadi, a trash-strewn slum located by the Mumbai International Airport. This “sumpy plug of slum” had a population of three thousand people living within 335 huts (Boo, 2011, xi). The land owned by the Airport Authority of India and was surrounded by five hotels that Abdul’s younger brother described as “roses” versus their slum, “the shit in between” (Boo, 2011, xi). Abdul is a Muslim teenage who buys garbage of the rich and sells it to recyclers to support his family. Abdul’s family, Muslim, is a religious minority in the slum of Hindus; in fact a major element of tension within the book can be distilled to these Hindu-Muslim tensions. This difference in religion makes Abdul fearful of his neighbors for two reasons: (1) they would attempt to steal the family’s wealth, and (2) if Abdul were caught, he would not be able to support his family. The other major character was Fatima, a woman who burned herself by attempting suicide through self-immolation. She accused Abdul, his father, and sister of beating and threatening her; in India, it is against the law to convince someone else to kill him or herself. With a corruption-ridden legal sys...
With increasing housing prices, it is not bearable to indigenous residents. The author reiterates that many residents of gentrifying neighborhoods fear the possibility of being displaced and are unsettled by the feeling of being pushed out. The issue of displacement in gentrifying areas is one of the biggest issues implied in this chapter. This relates a lot to my research because of the fact one of the main concerns mentioned in my research is figuring out what occurs to residents who are displaced from their homes because they are not able to afford their rent? There must be a certain mechanism that tap the wealth created by gentrification for the benefit of indigenous and poorer residents who may wish to one day live in a neighborhood.
Sudhir Venkatesh’s ethnography Gang Leader for a Day is a summary of his research through the University of Chicago in the 1990s. Venkatesh chose to do research on poor African-Americans in Chicago, and their experiences in public housing developments. He concentrated his study on the Robert Taylor Housing to better understand how residents lived and differentiated from those in other parts of the city. Venkatesh’s target population was those living in harsh living conditions, primarily black and poor. Throughout this paper, I will be addressing Venkatesh’s research and its limitations. I will also share my opinion on Venkatesh’s analysis and understanding of his findings about the residents, and how his experiences mesh with my own. In
In the movie “The Real Slumdogs” the many people of Dharavi work hard to survive in their slum. There are many businesses and other ways to make a living all in this very small area. Some examples of work in this slum are sorting garbage to find plastic to recycle, making pottery, and cooking bread to sell to the masses. Dharavi has a population around one million people. This is a large amount of people who rely on Dharavi as a place to live, learn, and earn a living. The conflict theory that presented itself in this movie is that wealthy people have put a very large price on the real estate Dharavi
The concept of social status is vitally important in the documentary “The Real Slumdogs”. As defined in our text books, “ascribed statuses is involuntary. You do not ask for it, nor do you choose it (pg. 98).” All of the citizens of Dharavi are either ascribed their status or achieved their status in this mega-slum city. It is seen throughout the documentary that many rag-pickers are generational. This is most noted in Sheetal’s family- her grandmother is a rag-picker and so is her mother and this has become a form of a family business for many of those living in poverty in Dharavi. While some people living there generationally, some find themselves coming into Dharavi later in life, where they are taken in by other families until they can
“Understanding people who are homeless also plays a very important role – as many poor people who are being provided homes through government schemes are renting their homes to others and they are going back to their previous dwellings (slums/huts). The solution to slums is not to evict people, or to eradicate the dwellings, but to create conditions so that people can improve their own dwellings, with the assistance of the community. One of the best ways to do that is by giving slum-dwellers security of tenure, so they know they are protected against arbitrary, unfair, or illegal eviction. If people know that, even if they only make a couple of hundred dollars a year, which many people do, they'll spend money improving their house that they wouldn't otherwise do if they were afraid of being evicted. If governments acted in partnership with people in this way, many good things could
This paper will be predominantly focusing on public housing within Ontario. Not only will it look at the basics of Ontario but examine more directly on Regent Park within Toronto. It will discuss what public housing is and the explanation for why it exists, the government housing programs that are present with regards to public housing and the results of the government programs. The Purpose of this essay is to argue that the problem of public housing will never
Mike Davis, in his book Planet of Slums, discusses the Third World and the impact globalization and industrialization has on both urban and poverty-stricken cities. The growth of urbanization has not only grown the middle class wealth, but has also created an urban poor who live side by side in the city of the wealthy. Planet of Slums reveals astonishing facts about the lives of people who live in poverty, and how globalization and the increase of wealth for the urban class only hurts those people, and that the increase of slums every year may eventually lead to the downfall of the earth. “Since 1970 the larger share of world urban population growth has been absorbed by slum communities on the periphery of Third World cities” (Davis 37). Specifically, this “Planet of Slums” Davis discusses both affects and is affected by informal labor and migration, ecological and industrial consequences, and global inequalities, and it seems this trend of urbanization no longer coincides with economic growth, thus reinforcing the notion that the wealth gap only widens, as the rich gain money and the poor lose money.
Set in the slums of India’s Mumbai district, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo guides readers into the undercity of Annawadi. Separated from the flourishing world city merely by “a coconut-tree-lined thoroughfare”(Boo 68) and billboards, illegally residing residents of Annawadi lives and stories are documented by Boo during her stay. As residents acclimate to her presence, they continue with their daily lives, and her work follows. From the female slumlord who dreams to hold power to the young boy with his head in the clouds, Behind displays the hopes that even the poorest and richest people have: to be better than their surroundings. But below these aspirations lies darker routes to success, including corruption. Forevers warns
For all Annawadians except Asha, corruption ingrained in society prevents the impoverished citizens of a Mumbai slum from being able to become successful in life. Despite working hard, saving money, and only wanting to better the life of their family, the Husains’s story is demonstrative of the fact that an unintentional entanglement in the “great web of corruption” “in which the most wretched tried to punish the slightly less wretched” could easily lead to near ruin (Boo 115). Over the course of her narrative, Boo shows that Annawadians recognize the issues of corruption present in their society, and the fact that they lack the power to change the system. For Annawadians, the courage and aspiration to become more successful in life meant taking a gamble, and Boo shows that their gamble could only be made in a system where the odds were forced against their
For example people living in Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, who have poor housing conditions with poor schools and lack of employment opportunities, may be denied to other opportunities which other sections of society posses. Banks might refuse loan opportunities due to lack of collaterals, insurance companies might reject their applications, or an opportunity of employment might be taken away from a deserving person due to personal and past records. It can also be possible that people themselves might exclude themselves from society’s mainstream. Individuals might drop out of education or turn down a job opportunity or due to lack of confidence, self-esteem and self-value. This might happen due to interaction between human agency and responsibility or social forces might shape people’s views and situations. (Giddens,
Slumming it is a 2010 documentary directed by Kevin McCloud. McCloud heads over to dharavi slum in search to find how people live and what they do to live till the next day, McCloud encountered eye to eye contact in and shocked at how space is a valuable thing in dharavi, McCloud is revolted to see children playing beside open sewers full of human waste and toxic sludge and explains how diseases like diphtheria, tuberculosis and typhoid are rampant. Mr McCloud seems quite admiring of the slum factory and their owners who’ve made themselves slum millionaires by avoiding to pay their taxes and by exploiting both child and adult labour, and how the people of dharavi have a strong sense of community, these are all show under long shots, close up, voice over, interviews and mise en scene
This is necessary as the vast majority of individuals migrating from rural to urban centers has been steadily increasing with the level of economic growth seen within the past twenty years as mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, this situation has further shown the structural issues and inequalities of cities, as most migrants end up having a poor quality of life living in informal settlements as highlight substantially by Boo. As a means of tackling this, however, the Indian government has turned its focus on investing rural regions, developing the agricultural sector. Specifically, Boo mentions that “the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had come down from Delhi to express his concern for the farmers’ hardships, and the central government’s determination to relieve it” (p. 138). While this is definitely important funds are not being divided justly. For starters, between rural and urban areas almost all investments are being targeting towards rural regions, which is only addressing issues of inequality in one section of the country. Furthermore, across rural areas inequalities of investment are quite often overlooked. Although, “one of the governments hopes was to stop villagers from abandoning their farms and further inundating cities like Mumbai, but Asha’s relatives knew nothing of these celebrated relief programs” (p. 138). Therefore, even though
In the second chapter of the book "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis seeks to answer what characteristics and types of slums are prevalent in different parts of the world. Davis continues his startled, alarmed, disgruntled and depressing tone from the previous chapter. Overall, the chapter is divided into two parts. The first part attempts to explore and examine the global slum census, and the other part describes the various slum typologies
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