If we consider consumption as we consider a food chain, we may understand that products we recycle everyday and consider in ‘old’ terms “near the end of their life-span” and in ‘new’ terms “at changing point in their lifecycle” may be understood very different to people living and working in the heart of slums across the world.
Trying to understand arts of survival Dhavari a central slum-city of Mumbai is a good place to take a closer look. An Indian (but American trained) architect Mukesh Mehta, has accomplished to get the official stamp to carry out his urban plan for this slum area. The ‘problem’ being that Dhavari has grown for over 3 generations and Mumbai has now expanded so far out that it is surrounding the slum, making Dhavari the physical city-center. It is clear that the response to the plan within Dhavari is varied and mainly negative. A debate site www.dhavari.org expresses a few opinions.
We may try to solve the problems with the best intentions and sometimes with necessity but how do we consider the soul of the lives of people we intend to help in the process.
A big issue is that the main industry of Dhavari, as in so many other slum cities, are recycling-factories and pottery, both very polluting. In the case of Dhavari both types of industry is no longer feasible to have in the center of as large a city as Mumbai, the smoke from the potteries are so bad that it affects nearby hospitals. Any polluting industries are banned in the new plan. These industries will have to move outside the city. Having found a way to make something new from scrap and build a house and a life from not much, the concern of the ‘slum-dwellers’ is logical. It doesn’t take much imagination to think that if this ‘urbanization’ is carried out merely with good intentions but without great caution, it could end up forcing the inhabitants of Dhavari to the new edge of Mumbai to start all over again.
Tate Modern ‘Global Cities’ Exhibition Folder
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10311257
Image from above Economist article
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0705/feature3/index.html?fs=seabed.nationalgeographic.com
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