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It has been quite some time since I’ve posted anything, tomorrow is my deadline (!). Here’s the abstract of the report I’m submitting. The full version will go up shortly.
With cities in developing countries unable to cope with increased density from urban migration, many urban migrants are taking it upon themselves to build shelter and create livelihoods in informal settlements. While the city presents many economic opportunities, these informal settlements, built without government support and without legal tenure, and at the fringes of the urban landscape, force the urban migrant into a precarious existence. Allowing the urban migrant and his family to become vulnerable to disease, crumbling and deteriorating physical infrastructure, and for many, a long battle to find permanence and legitimacy in the city.
Dharavi, an informal settlement in Mumbai, India, is threatened by erasure because it fails to be recognized as a legitimate and equal part of the city. By creating connections to the interdependent weave of networks and systems that is Mumbai, Dharavi can become recognized and permanent, keeping its autonomous internal identity, but shedding its exterior projection as an informal part of the formal city.
Through the investigation of the current state of urbanization and the conditions that create informal settlements, examination of historical schemes for redevelopment and analysis of techniques for understanding the complex systems of urbanity, a framework for challenging the illegitimacy of informal settlements will be provoked. This will enable an intervention that deals with connections between the informal settlement and the city, but also reaffirm forgotten connections to the urban ecology that firmly places Dharavi in the history of Mumbai.
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