Many of these people prefer to stay in the "slums" because they make tons of money without any accounting or tax purposes. Also, many of them tend to love the sense of community they find in these places. Maximum City has quite a few anecdotes from people who had the chance to move up and regretted it.

There is 24-hour electricity and running water, and 2006 research shows 85 percent of households have a television, 56 percent a gas stove and 21 percent own a telephone.

What, then, is your definition of a slum? Maybe they have all the amenities they need?

And if you want to make a credible argument about something, anything, please don't quote Fukuyama :)

Let me offer another hypothesis. The Dharavi world is in some respects strikingly reminiscent of the world of Adam Smith and the classical economists, a world of the individual, self-employed entrepreneur competing against numerous other such entrepreneurs. This world, unfortunately for its participants, is nested in a world of firms (which remember should not exist according to classical economics; hence Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm") and other interests that, though in a minority, are highly organized. Therefore if you construct a bargaining model, you will find out that the slum-dwellers, not being organized, realize very little of the profit (you will notice that an "institutionalist" rather than "marginal productivity" conception of capital is implicit in this hypothesis).

An earlier SM post on poverty tourism in Dharavi.

I forgot to add that if my hypothesis is plausible, it follows that unionization of these self-employed workers should probably improve their situation. Hence we need more organizations like SEWA.

It is interesting to contrast this post (and Abhi's interesting one about the one lakh car), to Amardeep's post on Mr. Mishra and Dr. Nusbaum.

My instinct is that India's middle and urban working classes are moving in one direction (towards freer markets, confidence in their role in a globalized economies), while many academics / intellectuals view India's increasingly rapacious aspirationalism as negative.

There was a pretty good article in National Geographic a couple months ago about Dharavi that touched on the resourcefulness and self-sufficiency of it's inhabitants as well as the value of the land upon which they reside.

It gave me pause about the stuff we throw away each day. I recycle but it all goes into a blue trash can that is picked up twice a month, but who knows where it ends up. It also reminded me of Fight Club and how Tyler Durden sells back rich people's fat to them under the guise of designer soap. Who knows the shirt you buy at Neimann's or Nordstroms or the paint you use to faux your walls may have been recycled in Dhavari.

This article may have some insights:

FROM WORK TO WELFARE
A New Class Movement in India

The rigidity of early class analysis and the recent demise of any type of class analytics have turned attention away from examining the growing population of informally employed workers as a class. By not examining informal workers as a class "in themselves," we are losing insights into how they are translating their positions into a class "for themselves." As a consequence, the recent literature on globalization and liberalization is increasingly concluding that the decreasing proportion of formally employed workers (and the subsequent rise in informal employment) the world over signifies a decline in all class-based organization. Such arguments have obscured our understanding of the current social dynamics of exploitation and resistance. In an attempt to begin filling this gap, this article recovers class as an important analytical tool with which to examine (1) the current relations of power between the state, employers, and the majority of India's workers, and (2) how the structures of production within which informal workers operate affect their collective action strategies. A reformulated labor movement model is offered to expose the underlying mechanisms through which informal workers translate their location in the class structure as a class "in itself" into a political group as a class "for itself." Insights into how informal workers organize can have profound implications for our understanding of changing state-labor relations as national governments attempt to liberalize their economies and simultaneously rein in their welfare functions.

Previous post on the Dharavi economy.

I know too many people who argue that DeSoto's work is a "Just So" story, it has a cute explanation but it is factually incorrect in important ways. I haven't read the in-depth critiques.

Vinod

Hernando De Soto’s Mystery of Capital was, for many, the single best explanation of the phenomena of Hidden Capital. According to this argument, the key thing that prevents the 5,000 single-room factories from combining forces, achieving scale, and thus far greater wealth is the lack of firm property rights for existing operations and thus collateral for investment capital to expand. Without contractual enforcement predicated on clear, legally-enforced ownership of your factory, you can’t get the institutional assistance necessary to succeed.

I know too many people who argue that DeSoto's work is a "Just So" story, it has a cute explanation but it is factually incorrect in important ways. I haven't read the in-depth critiques.

Yeah, in places the arguments are almost circular, but in others they are pretty good (once you restrict them to certain context and apply certain ceteris paribus conditions, which De Soto does not always do).

There is 24-hour electricity and running water

i've seen this phenomena--the rich poor--up-close in the US. welfare recipients with hundreds of thousands in investable assets. insurance companies know all about this and send agents into the projects to get them to put their $$ in cash (whole life) insurance policies that have little tax reporting and are tax advantaged. sandy weil set up primerica (part of citigroup) in part to penetrate this market. i knew a smith barney broker whose biggest client (around 5m, i think) was a professional beggar. BOA knows what its doing when it issues credit cards to illegals. the whole sub-prime mortgage market knows all about the hidden wealth of the poor with their no-doc loans aimed at illegals, welfare moms, small biz owners, limo drivers, plumbers, etc. entrpreneurship+ avoiding taxes=wealth

the professional class is really missing out.

i knew a smith barney broker whose biggest client (around 5m, i think) was a professional beggar.

but what use is all that money when you have to live like a beggar? I am assuming the guy didn't change into clean clothes and drive back to his $400k house in NJ. Did he?

but what use is all that money when you have to live like a beggar? I am assuming the guy didn't change into clean clothes and drive back to his $400k house in NJ. Did he?

he lived in a house in queens with his mom. he dressed like a bum though.

I think Manju has it correct. Also see this paper which talks about parallel economies in the world.

Oh my god. Manju, I can't believe you trotted out the tired myth of "rich poor people."

Do you really, for one moment, believe that there exists a hidden privileged class that looks, acts, and lives the lifestyle of poor people...simply to mask the fact that they're secretly rich?

You're nuts, man. Seriously, find me one non-anecdotal example of a person that fits that bill. There's simply no such thing as "rich poor." There are rich people...and there are poor people. A rich person who dresses poor and lives in a shack is still rich. He's just weird, too.

And the hidden economy is very different from this notion, brown.

I believe ghostface killa put it best when he exclaimed, "Those smart-dumb N^%^#@s"

the rich-poor, the smart-dumb--all conspiring to steal the rug right from under us hard-working smartypants millionaires.

So if they’re so productive and have such amazing turnover, the obvious question is why is the place a slum?

Slum is such a handy word for deflating property values so that developers can buy tracts for a song. If Dharavi were billed as an example of the New Urbanism in India (an American notion now being used to define hip, mixed-income and mixed-use development in former slum areas, especially in Africa--Johannesburg, Durban, Nairobi, etc.) then those parcels would be expensive and the residents would have a political voice. The Mumbai Corporation wouldn't be able to bulldoze hutments or refuse to extend sewage and electricity connections.

Slum = poverty = crime = violence = squalor = cheap land.

That fact that Dharavi is economically vibrant and diverse flies in the face of its famous moniker as "Asia's Largest Slum." As if it's charming that such activity takes place in a slum, even amid the industrial pollution and standing sewage.

New York's Lower East Side before the Second World War was as rough and squalid as any place on the planet, filled with "undesirables," Jews, Irish, Germans, Russians, Poles--Catholics and Jews--not the Anglo and Dutch (Protestant) elites who controlled the city and provided few incentives for improvement of the area. Do-gooding societies (the NGOs of the day) provided a little relief. But mostly the people were on their own. The Lower East was never bulldozed and cleared, but slow change came from zoning laws and building codes that resulted in a greater safety (especially from fire and disease). The area lay fallow from the 1940s to the 1980s, as the immigrant residents found other, better places to live in New York.

The people of Dharavi shouldn't have to wait two or three generations to see their area made livable. India's (and Mumbai's) economy is strong. There's no shortage of good ideas about how best to improve the area. There's plenty of money. There's just no political will and the system, especially the government, is corrupt. Rather like the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

the whole sub-prime mortgage market knows all about the hidden wealth

Yep they sure do. I suspect the "goodies" the poor in America have will shortly be arriving to slums globally.

Manju I think there isn't as much sophistication as you suspect with the insurance policies.
The earliest black enterprises in the US were beauty/barber shops, and undertakers/funeral homes.. these became funeral societies- and some very successful black owned/operated insurance companies. I suspect that in many cases the families you are talking about have a grandparent whose knowledge of financial instruments starts and ends with a "policy". That matriarch may be the most stable person/care taker in the family unit, who makes the 'investment' decision.

Somewhere along the way it became a culturally necessity' that no matter how dirt poor you were in life,your family had to "put you away nicely"- having a policy meant you could have an expensive funeral. A simple(cheap) funeral was a key doctrine preached by the Nation of Islam to combat the backwardness of that line of thinking.

Do you really, for one moment, believe that there exists a hidden privileged class that looks, acts, and lives the lifestyle of poor people...simply to mask the fact that they're secretly rich?

not sure what you're talking about salil. i never mentioned any hidden privileged class or living the lifestyle of a poor person to hide the fact they are secretly rich. the bum i met has a house and car. lots of middle class looking people are really millionaires (check out "the millionaire next door"...required reading in the brokerage houses). warren buffet himself lives in a middle class neighborhood. so, i think the people i met in the projects are living under the same philosophy as buffet and the millionaries next door.

A rich person who dresses poor and lives in a shack is still rich. He's just weird, too.

you're burning down the strawman salil. i never mentioned a shack. many inner city projects are hardly squalor, check 'em out yourself. i guess the phenomena of hidden assets is tied to the fact that many people with wealth prefer to invest and save rather than spend. i not aware of the myths you're talking about.

Manju I think there isn't as much sophistication as you suspect with the insurance policies. The earliest black enterprises in the US were beauty/barber shops, and undertakers/funeral homes.. these became funeral societies- and some very successful black owned/operated insurance companies. I suspect that in many cases the families you are talking about have a grandparent whose knowledge of financial instruments starts and ends with a "policy". That matriarch may be the most stable person/care taker in the family unit, who makes the 'investment' decision.

Somewhere along the way it became a culturally necessity' that no matter how dirt poor you were in life,your family had to "put you away nicely"- having a policy meant you could have an expensive funeral. A simple(cheap) funeral was a key doctrine preached by the Nation of Islam to combat the backwardness of that line of thinking.

dilettante:

this definitely rings true. culturally, as a group, US blacks are married to these policies. but the use of these policies in the manner you describe does not exclude a more sophisticated use. i think insurance companies probably used the trust they had built in these communities with this product as a natural launching pad to secure the wealthier among them who need to hide cash they have no intention of reporting to the irs. so more sophisticated riders were built into the polices ("Paid Up Additions Rider") and the govt was lobbied by the all-powerful insurance industry to make this $$$ and interest non-reportable (or less reportable, i forget).

so you're right, whole life did not begin as a sophisticated tax scheme, but upon the discovery of the hidden wealthy in poor neighborhoods, its surely become one.

#19 Manju: "(check out "the millionaire next door"...required reading in the brokerage houses)"

My favorite book! Like most revelations, not a theory but a discovery of patterns that have always existed. It's just that nobody had quite put it that way.

Vinod's post: "So if they’re so productive and have such amazing turnover, the obvious question is why is the place a slum?"

Slum is a relative term. In a country like India, there are even better "localities" than Dharavi, to use Indian English for a second, that are slums by western standards. I have relatives and friends living in lower middle-class neighborhoods with open sewers, cattle roaming the streets and children defecating in public. Yet there is no crime on the streets, no drugs, no truancy among the children, no broken homes. These are people who have good values and great aspirations for their children, who work at clerical jobs or run little shops, send their children to schools and colleges, and usually see their children do a little bit better than them and move to a better locality. That's an upwardly mobile society, not a slum even by western standards.

I try not to romanticize about India. My point simply is that living conditions alone do not define a slum. The acid test of a slum belongs more in the values and lifestyle department. The tragic lives of poor African Americans trapped in a Chicago project, with window air conditioners and elevators that do work, define slum. Dharavi may be just a poor neighborhood in a poor country. There's a difference.

Sorry. Forgot to mention the book, "Shantaram." I am sure most of you have read it. (How the heck do you do those link thingies?)

My favorite book! Like most revelations, not a theory but a discovery of patterns that have always existed. It's just that nobody had quite put it that way.

yes. a great book floridian. i had to read it--when i was in a training program at salomon smith barney--in conjuction with "the warren buffet way." went together like sushi and saki.

(How the heck do you do those link thingies?)

highlight the word you want the link to appear in. then hit the 2nd icon (some ball-looking thingie) after "comments." then paste the link into the box that appears.

Great posting, discussion. Thanks!

Here's a superb photoessay by English photographer Rob Appleby on Dharavi. His work is notable for being ahead, by many years, of the current interest in Dharavi. The National Geographic photo-essay is (IMHO) derivative of his work.

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0204/city_intro.htm

Preston, with respect to your comment #17, the Economist recently had an article about plans for developing Dharavi.

Interesting and important questions, Vinod. De Soto's argument is all the more relevant in this case as the BMC and its legions of vested builder interests are trying (with a nod to social needs and housing the displaced) to turn Dharavi into a legal sort of place, settle residents elsewhere, build new units on the land, etc. So if you were to recognise the Dharavi residents' right to their homes and land and small businesses in some way, and give them certificates or compensation that they could use to buy property legally, would that lead us to de Soto utopia? I doubt it, because one of the reasons Dharavi works well is precisely that costs are kept low by illegality and informality. You couldn't run cheap production units out of there with market price land, just as the old mills in Bombay couldn't be profitable without the cheap 100 year leases given to them back in the day. Would Dharavi residents be able to make better and more secure lives for themselves, even if not in Dharavi but in resettlement colonies, once their property is legally recognised? I don't know. But I'm sceptical, because every time the govt has tried to get rid of slums they have come right back, because the city is built on and depends on these low-cost workers.

The people of Dharavi shouldn't have to wait two or three generations to see their area made livable. India's (and Mumbai's) economy is strong. There's no shortage of good ideas about how best to improve the area. There's plenty of money. There's just no political will and the system, especially the government, is corrupt. Rather like the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

I agree Preston.

I think enterprise and hard work are great and should be rewarded...but not with a trickle down that's going to arrive after people like the guy photographed above are probably dead.

Maybe it's the floods of wealth in other countries which have contributed to a 'trickle' of money so small in the Third World that the majority of the world still lives in poverty.

This new instalment in the glorification of poor people as hardworking and enterprising just reminds me of all that discussion about tiffinwallahs who went to lecture people at Harvard Business School. Where the fuck are they now? Oh, that's right, exactly where they were before. I guess maybe they've got a photo album with a few snapshots of them and some guys in pinstriped suits.

Obviously with all the economic rationalists around here I'll just be labelled and then shot down as a bleeding heart liberal but I'd rather go down and be seen by them that way than say nothing about the rather disgusting stench of the inconvenient empirical side of purist neoliberal theory that is seeping through this post and some of the comments.

"Poor But Far From Idle" as the caption to the post suggests that it should come as a big shock that poor people actually! don't! sit! around! ripping! off! rich! people! Some of them might just be working hard and as a reward all they have to day is wait 500 years and maybe somethin' will trickle down the way a tiny drizzle of rain would quench a dying man in a desert.

Yes, I'm making a 'choice' to participate in a global economy (even though nowadays privatisation has become the only option for almost everything that used to be publicly provided), yes so is the guy in the photo, yes I did live as a middle class person in Mumbai and yes luckily for me I live on the right side of the global economy and now live a middle class life in a first world country.

Does that mean I don't think there's something wrong with presenting the world's richest slum as a celebration of what's right with the world? No.

Don't tell me that just because I can afford to sit around on a computer doesn't mean that there isn't something instinctively, intuitively wrong with discussions of people on welfare making 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' while the professionals are missing out in the US, or rejoicing that although people in Dharavi are still dirt poor, they work hard for their dirt just like good little worker bees.

On an intellectual level economic rationalism and neoliberal theories are interesting, well thought-out, appealing to logic and full of hope for a better world.

In real life, when they dominate the global economy, this is what we see. Followers of neoliberalism actually discussing why people are still starving and dying which ends with praise for their determination and a vague hope that soon (maybe tomorrow!) that $1 billion in revenue will pop up like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, because that's how well their system is working.

It's sick and sad and wrong, and yes, I would be willing to give up some of my privileges to even things out a bit and I think many people are willing to do that too. I think people like those in Dharavi don't need a handout or even a helping hand, they just don't need one that shuts them down every time they try to live a life of human dignity. The world economy needs fair trade, just as a start at least. We don't have to make a choice between pure free market liberalism and people living in utopian communes. We just need to make markets fair.

Feel free to shoot me down now, Manju et al. I'd rather voice my view that if this is what 'India Shining' means, then I think it's a sad, pathetic facade.

And I think the neutral, rationalist discourse of classical liberalism hides a racist, sexist, and highly discriminatory vision of the world.

There's just no political will and the system, especially the government, is corrupt. Rather like the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

I agree Preston.

Neither of you have lived in India with its political will trying to help people. Tash, I agree that we need to see the people get better, and notions of "trickle down" is probably way too vague. But like you say:

...they just don't need one that shuts them down every time they try to live a life of human dignity.

That is *exactly* what will happen if you get the government to help. I dont care for the Harvard types inviting
tiffinwallahs. But I do think that left alone, most groups in India will do quite well for themselves. Statistically, there is no reason to believe otherwise. And as most will attest in India, the biggest impediment to progress in the last half century was the government not doing its job because it was so busy doing things it should not have been in. Not poverty, not ignorance, not helplessness like the "progressives" so want to believe.

Governmental non-interference is not just about corruption in India. Personally, I believe it is fundamentally not possible in India to institutionally lead people by hand out of poverty. Because to do so inherently requires sacrifice, and guess what? Group A (most powerful) makes Group B sacrifice for Group C. Example: Arundhati Roy can cry herself hoarse against globalization simply because she can afford it---when push comes to shove, who will pay? it is the lower middle class kid who will probably be the first generation in his/her line to get out of poverty and need, not her. She may even cite examples of how if the lower middle class kid stayed poor, others may not go hungry. But the fact is, she is not the one who will *have* to sacrifice---if she does, good for her. But she has a choice, and however good her intentions, what happens? The hungry go hungry and the lower middle class kid remains half hungry and frustrated.

Socialism is doomed in India, because it is simply so much easier to put down people than to help them. And I think the more diverse a country is, the less practical socialism is because group identity will prevail to put down some at the expense of others. Besides for the most part, socialism has only worked in countries that had colonies (internal or external) to leech off.

Not to say some government intervention is always unwarranted. The rural employment scheme for example. There is ample scope for corruption, but there is hopefully there is a way we can make it work. But I would prefer that the government lay its hands off Dharavi, neither helping developers (who will move in sooner or later) nor stalling them unnecessarily. The people there can negotiate their way out with the developers, the government only needs to see that no laws are flouted in the transactions.

And more generally, the job of the government is not to micromanage. With very few exceptions, it is to regulate so that the *economy grows*. Get credit to people---good. Improve transport, so that they can sell their products at better prices---good. Fix prices so that no one takes advantage of farmers---disaster. List worker rights and make sure they are enforced---good. Stop companies from firing employees---as is the case now---disaster.

Neither of you have lived in India

Wrong.

I'm not an advocate of socialism, I think capitalism just needs fair trade.

That way all enterprising people can gain (unequally, depending on luck, merit etc.) from their businesses, as long as the base level of their gain doesn't involve them living in slums.

And I think the neutral, rationalist discourse of classical liberalism hides a racist, sexist, and highly discriminatory vision of the world.

This is incorrect as a blanket statement. What classical liberalism are you talking about? The liberalism of Adam Smith? Then you should carefully read the Wealth of Nations in its entirety; after that read his Theory of Moral Sentiments (I think you will gain an appreciation of how 'radical' the documents are). Adam Smith was an anti-racist when racism was not even in peoples' radar screens. Same with the German liberal Wilhelm Von Humboldt. These people were deeply anti-authoritarian and deeply egalitarian. They railed against the State b/c in the 17th and 18th centuries that was the most powerful concentration of power. They would have railed against corporations if they were alive today. On the other hand your statement is more applicable to Malthus or Ricardo. But even here it is important to contextualize. True, Malthus said that people do not have any rights in the "market" (note Adam Smith would have been scandalized if he had heard that); but labor was also extremely mobile then (no visa restrictions, for instance). So basically what he was saying was that one should go to another market if one could not make a living in this one; any plenty of people did (They moved to the Americas or elsewhere in Europe). Still I agree that insofar as you equate classical liberalism with Malthus you are more less correct than wrong. But neither Humboldt nor Smith would recognize Malthus's thought as "liberalism".
The problem is that terms such as "liberalism", and "conservatism" have lost all their meaning because of their vulgar use for sloganeering etc. We should not be joining in reducing a rich body of thought into empty slogans (you can say the same about the Socialist corpus; indeed many anarchists contend that Bakunin or Prouhdon are the logical intellectual descendants of Humboldt).

Typo. and plenty of people did

Another typo: Still I agree that insofar as you equate classical liberalism with Malthus you are more correct than wrong.

Neither of you have lived in India

Wrong.

How then can you even say that the government should step in for these people? We were a wreck before the govt went bankrupt in 91, and was forced to ditch socialism. You know then that there were no telephones in India because you had to *prove* that you needed one in the application process. Not due to lack of demand, not due to lack of technology, nothing. If you needed a scooter, again, you had to "apply" for one, someone would later approve it.

Unless you were already rich, you knew there was no real hope of getting out of partial dependence on ration cards---try starting a business, and there was no way you could until you bribed yourself out of the hundred laws you *had* to flout to start one. The laws were designed that way, to prevent travel abroad, to prevent businesses from exporting, to prevent businesses from growing out of subsistence. And if you have nothing to start with, how are you going to raise the money for it? Loans were not available without ridiculous collateral if you didn't have "contacts". Credit was meant to be discouraged.

If you didn't have to go through all this, you are proving my point: your sympathy for government intervention in India exists simply because you were privileged enough economically or socially not to be hurt by it. I don't mean to offend you personally, maybe you are an exception and the above doesn't apply. In which case I take it back and apologize. But you know the point I am trying to make.

A rich person who dresses poor and lives in a shack is still rich. He's just weird, too

i know it might be difficult for some of you model minorities to understand why someone would choose to live in the inner cities, so allow me to explain. first, they make their living there, so they want to stay close to the action. secondly, their money is off-the-books so they want to use some discretion. thirdly, they don't see their neighborhood as slums or shacks as you latte sipping liberals might. in fact they're vibrant communities rich with culture, history, family, and charm.

last but not least is the warren buffet effect. buffet's worth 52bill but lives in a middle class neighborhood and drives a buick (or something). in short he's not a social climber. you beorgeoisie have been trained to pursue prestige, not money, and cannot fathom the existence of someone not in that mindset. i've seen even the self-appointed representatives of the poor (like prema) thumb their nose down at motel owners and 7-11 franchisees. the professional class is concerned about climbing the social ladder. others, not so much. this goes also for white ethnic small biz owner who doesn't pay taxes and lives in the working class neighborhood he grew up in, while having more investable assets than your average doctor or lawyer. (some of you have at least written a check to your plumber and done the math on how much he must make a day, right?)

we live in a country where something like 50% of those considered poor own a home. like dr. yunus, lenders have devised new ways to evaluate credit. i know, the foreclosure rate is higher in the sub-prime market, but for every 1 foreclosure there are ten people who own a home they wouldn't have otherwise. in many ways the capitalist revolution is reaching the poor. the revitalization of america's inner cities since the reagan revolution is one of the great unwritten stories of our time. illegals form that feudal society called mexico swarm to port chester and corona ny to benefit. someone told me on the immigration thread that 50% are middle class by 2nd generation and that perfectly coincides with my observations of portchester and corona as vibrant economies replete with bmw's and satellite dishes (like an insane amount of dishes, i don't know why). obviously, india's growth is even more dramatic with 1% of the poor crossing over to the middle class every year. i don't understand why some people can't take pleasure in the poor getting some wealth.

I used to work with a guy who is from Washington Heights, went to Philip Exeter and Penn did well professionally and still chose to live in Washington Heights. The dishes may be because a lot of channels from Mexico are available through dish. BTW Manju are you still with Smith Barney?

BTW Manju are you still with Smith Barney?

no. left smith barney years ago for an ibanking boutique.

I don't believe the studies that state people prefer to live in Dharavi. I believe that they simply prefer living in a cesspool to being dispossessed of their businesses if the govt. relocates them in their typical hamfisted manner. I'm sure if the govt provided:
a) proper habitations with option to buy (ala the UK's housing estate purchase scheme)
b) Industrial park for their microindustries

the residents would happily opt for "New Dharavi". They just can't believe that the government would work in their interest to make this a reality so they opt for what they know

Louiecypher,

It is not as simple and there are many other factors at play, I am not sure if you have ever gone to Dharavi but new Dharavi is already there, there are slums and their are apartment buildings. With the inflow of increased cash the slums are proper structures now, people for one don't leave as it is prime real estate in central Mumbai closer to the burbs and downtown. It makes commerce easier.

Also most of these businesses don't pay taxes so getting them to relocate to Industrial parks is far fetched.

It is not as simple and there are many other factors at play, I am not sure if you have ever gone to Dharavi but new Dharavi is already there, there are slums and their are apartment buildings. With the inflow of increased cash the slums are proper structures now, people for one don't leave as it is prime real estate in central Mumbai closer to the burbs and downtown. It makes commerce easier.

Do they have legal title to these proper structures ? If not it is not a long term solution

Probably older than most of u, educated here, lived in India for half a century. Point? I remember immediately after independence we did not have food, or even a sharp knife to cut with. We took food mixers, radios, pens, clothes back with us from the west. We came from a country totally devastated and robbed by colonization. Every product, good or miserable, had millions wanting it and so we needed permits for phones/ cars/ railway tickets, etc. We had ration cards to ensure at least some folk got cheap food, when it was available. You forget that today 350 million live in a fashion comparable to the US. The same no. as in the US. No other country has managed to do that in 50 years. That too this has happened with millions of refugees pouring from Tibet, Bangladesh etc and attacks by China and Pakistan every few years. By the way, India's forex came from the poor Gulf workers not educated NRIs in the US (who send money to India or opt to live there only when the going is good). Yes, we have to take care of the other 600 mill and it will happen and no thanks to us NRIs or POI who seem basically good for criticising.

Hilarious discussion by 1st gen desi-Americans! Mere immigrunts like me chuckle as you try and figure it all out. Just as we middle class types used to try and figure poverty in India out when we were young and back home. You are no better informed than us; on the other hand I suppose its very creditable than you are not any worse informed than us middle-class young folk in India were back then.

Louiecypher, I believe those who live in the apartment buildings have legal titles, those who live in the kholis probably don't, but there's a rental market and their property rights are recognised de facto, even if not legally, by the cops, but as often happens in these cases, a resettlement program puts these de facto rights at risk, because the government doesn't have much incentive to do right by these (uninfluential, often non-voting, non-Maharashtrian) people and the kholi owners don't have much legal ground to stand on. But Dharavi is not one of those flimsy slums where people are worried about cops swooping down and kicking them out or anything, they know there's too much at stake and it's too big. Which is probably why its redevelopment is being approached with more planning than the ham-handed Delhi govt style version of "slum clearance."

I'm not sure what the last two commenters are trying to say with their rather lame put-downs. I am from Bombay and my friends and family, whether as social workers or drawing-room policymakers, talk about slum redevelopment and land use a fair bit, it's a vital issue for our cities, and the debate here is for the most part quite well informed.

You forget that today 350 million live in a fashion comparable to the US. The same no. as in the US. No other country has managed to do that in 50 years.

What a load of bullcrap! Only someone totally clueless or totally delusional would make an outrageous claim like that. The fact that so many indians are actually dumb enough to fall for such nonsense is very disturbing.

I would ignore #43, and #44 (man, talk about stupidity and nonsense!).

Louiecypher,

SP is right the buildings are regularized and for the kholis it doesn't make a difference if people don't have legal titles, they are vote banks. People have ration cards regaular electricity and phone connections. The congress government in Mumbai tried to demolish some of the structures but the local politicians were not for it. Displacing the inhabitants mean upsetting a substantial chunk of voting populace. As for long term solutions, most of those people have been there for generations so that is as long terms as it cane be.
And you understand that they only option for relocation can be outside the city (New Bombay) which nobody is willing to do.

Also do you understand is what may have worked in situations like these in the West will may not necessarily work in India. IF you have ever been to Mumbai you will know that the stretch going from Saki Naka to Sahar Airport was a cluster of slums, now there are many new hotels and they tried to regularize the slums by making a building similar to low income housing here. Most of the people who were allotted apartments have rented them out and have gone back to living the way they were. Someone rightly pointed out that it is the sense of community that drives them. The small business they operate out of their kholis thrive on these communities.

Brown

Also do you understand is what may have worked in situations like these in the West will may not necessarily work in India.

Thanks for the explanation, but you've only rehashed why there is inertia with respect to change. I don't believe in Indian exceptionalism...sanitation and water are basic human needs. The residents of Dharavi have already shown remarkable ingenuity, we should expect the government to work with them to find a more liveable solution. Having a million people counting on political whim to avoid eviction is dangerous

I understand where you are coming from but solutions are being devised although eviction is not really going to happen. If you went to Dharavi five years back and now there is a sea of change. The roads are wider (that area is notorious for bad traffic at peak hours) and much better and there is a big Indian Oil complex. It is changing slowly but surely.

Apologies in advance if I'm repeating; I had to stop reading in depth because my eyes started to hurt. I think the myth of the slum-worker who pulls himself up by his bootstraps and the premise behind the "entreprenuerial poor" really romanticize poverty in sick ways. I'm not denying that communities are complex and that there are folks who are doing (relatively) well and others doing (relatively) not as well, but let's not get confused and think slum life is all hee hee ha ha.

many inner city projects are hardly squalor, check 'em out yourself.

I just want to qualify my statement #1 because it makes me cringe :( Unlike for other slums in India, there are quite a few accounts of people with disproportionate wealth in Dharavi. Is it
a. that Dharavi is richer than the average slum, but the wealth is still not sufficient to move out of Dharavi, or
b. many of these businesses rely on some sort of social network that makes it preferable for these people to stay in Dharavi, or
c. that there is only a small number of people with this kind of wealth, but they attract attention due to the cognitive dissonance?

Also, given this statement: "There is 24-hour electricity and running water, and 2006 research shows 85 percent of households have a television, 56 percent a gas stove and 21 percent own a telephone.", what makes it a slum? Sad as it, open sewers and muddy lanes are a feature of many areas of India not considered slums. Is it the high population density?

#52 Camille " think the myth of the slum-worker who pulls himself up by his bootstraps and the premise behind the "entreprenuerial poor" really romanticize poverty in sick ways."

Agreed. Enterprise becomes a necessity in a society lacking food stamps, social security and Medicaid. The streets of India are teeming with little children trying to make a living fetching tea and lunch for every shopkeeper in the bazaar or running into heavy traffic to clean windshields for a rupee, and emaciated men and women hauling, cutting, repairing, selling all kinds of wares just to survive. I have heard nice white folks label Indians here as very intelligent, not realizing that most Indian immigrants have to be educated professionals in order to just make it to the US. Similarly, the poor slum dwellers have to be enterprising due to their circumstances.

I am an unapologetic free market thinker, but there has to be social welfare programs commensurate with the rising GDP of India. It is not only the human thing to do but actually good for capitalism.

Floridian, you are right on. The market is great, but it is focused on near term gains. The government has to make the investment in human capital development (i.e. education, health broadly defined to include basic infra) where the return won't be seen for 20 years.

Wow. Nothing beats hearing I-bankers and venture capitalists talking about the poor. It's topsy-turvey day for sure.

Also, just want to point out the the startling statistics about poverty in America come from a writer for the Heritage Foundation and he's quoting factoids he heard on Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Pardon my skepticism regarding the accuracy of said statistics.

Wow. Nothing beats hearing I-bankers and venture capitalists talking about the poor. It's topsy-turvey day for sure.

Most of the people I know who have gone back to India to do constructive work are us much maligned business folk, former I-bankers/execs. Not to paint with too broad a brush, but many of the left leaning anthropologists & sociologists who get involved are good for very little besides writing position papers and manifestos.

Sad as it, open sewers and muddy lanes are a feature of many areas of India not considered slums. Is it the high population density?

rahul,

i think the general definition of a slum, less so in countries where building codes are a fancy and not a reality, is any community that isn't planned in any way.

I think, in terms of Dharavi, none of the residents took area-wide surveys to decide what areas should be zoned as light commercial or residential. Homes and businesses pretty much sprouted where they could--sewage, power and water were more like afterthoughts.

Most of the people I know who have gone back to India to do constructive work are us much maligned business folk, former I-bankers/execs.

i hope you're not equating your anecdotal information with the empirical variety. Is there any kind of survey/study done on what demographics tend to 'go back and help' the most?

muralimannered, that doesn't seem like a particularly useful definition for India, no? The government infrastructure is poor enough in many places, that local residents fend for themselves even in communities that are not impoverished.

Muralimannered, I'll get right on it. Maybe I'll hire a recent Pomona grad to do a study on NRI returnees who run NGOs and publish the results. Arts grads are useful for these kinds of activities, street theatre, papier mache effigy mfg etc

louiecypher: you're the classic conservative--quick with anecdote and a liberal smattering of snark but slow with that pesky foundation of western civilization: empirical data collection.

I too can make sweeping statements regarding phenomena with which I feel as if I've acquainted myself, i.e All using the handle of 'Louie' on message boards are dreadful bores, impressed by superstition and a lurid rumor or two.

If all the 'arts grads' were really out splashing feces on sidewalks and burning paper-mache models of noted humanitarians like Dubya, instead of seeking gainful employment as most (I count myself among them)do, the US would look much more like Europe. See any coffeeshops that sell Super Skunk in Boise?

Rahul: you are the brown Sherlock to whom shit was a great discovery. Now put on your sleuthing hat and come up with a succinct definition of a slum in the sub-continent.

muralimannered, I was asking a genuine question, but you seem to have all the non-answers.

but many of the left leaning anthropologists & sociologists who get involved are good for very little besides writing position papers and manifestos.

Thanks, Floridian. I feel you on the role of the state re: social welfare; what kind of enterprise is it when people still have an awful quality of life? Personally, I think we need to think more broadly about wealth and investments.

muralimannered, I was asking a genuine question, but you seem to have all the non-answers.

so you don't know it all?

I'm shocked, frankly.

Manju, what projects are you talking about!? I have NEVER seen or been in a project that wasn't full of squalor. Granted, my geographic frame of reference is limited, but for real!?

south bronx, w. harlem. no way anyone could describe them as squalor, although 20yrs ago it was quite a different story, even around yankee stadium. the hispanic neighborhoods, corona and portchester--full of illegals--are even better. lots of families stuffed into one house but perfectly clean and incredibly economically vibrant. and lots of nice cars and cool cheap bars.

i was inside one of the projects over the winter (an old lady was stuck in her electric wheelchair on 3rd ave in the snow so i dragged her back to her apartment). i thought the place was ugly, messy, and lacked character; but i would not say it was squalor.

and i wouldn't say these neighborhoods are re-gentrified. everyone is black or brown with only a splatering of whites and asians.

so you don't know it all?

If you checked your poisonous attitude, and the seeming gargantuan chip on your shoulder at the door, you might actually contribute something to the discussion, instead of the mockery and lashing out that are a feature of many of your comments on this and other threads. Unlike several of the other commenters on this thread, you have said nothing at all of any substance (right or wrong), and this is certainly not a new pattern. I come to this community as much to learn about issues from the obvious specialists in different fields, as to have fun.

My questions are about Dharavi. This slum specifically seems to confound many people as an anomaly (given the number of articles I've seen about it over the years), as one, which according to the best statistics I can find in the linked article, has 57000 families and a turnover of $1 billion. This comes to roughly $20,000 per family. Even an income level of $2,000 (10x less than this number) makes for a reasonable life in India. This is why I ask whether it is a definitional issue, reporting issue, or whatever.

So, if you've something useful to say, say it.

This slum specifically seems to confound many people as an anomaly (given the number of articles I've seen about it over the years), as one, which according to the best statistics I can find in the linked article, has 57000 families and a turnover of $1 billion. This comes to roughly $20,000 per family. Even an income level of $2,000 (10x less than this number) makes for a reasonable life in India.

You are as clueless as the nut who claimed that 350 million indians live as well as americans. To calculate per capita income from turnover is absurd. Secondly, to even consider $20,000 per family as the possible income of slum dwellers in India is idiotic.

Prema, I never said that $20,000 is the income per family, I asked if $2,000 (assuming that only 10% of the turnover is profit) is a reasonable number to assume, given that this turnover is from single room factories and cottage industries, which employ and are run by people from the slum.

I see articles about Dharavi, but not about the amazing productivity or wealth of the slums of Buenos Aires or Johannesburg. Is it purely a reporting push driven by the fact of the turnover, and ignoring the large number of people packed there?

If you checked your poisonous attitude, and the seeming gargantuan chip on your shoulder at the door, you might actually contribute something to the discussion, instead of the mockery and lashing out that are a feature of many of your comments on this and other threads. Unlike several of the other commenters on this thread, you have said nothing at all of any substance (right or wrong), and this is certainly not a new pattern. I come to this community as much to learn about issues from the obvious specialists in different fields, as to have fun.

If you are offended by my tone, i have no apologies prepared. This is not a kind nor gentle world--misconceptions, however minor, have no place in an enlightened discussion. I will always start out civilly, but if I see that my partner in dialogue is not addressing the points that I make (or refuting them with a better argument) then of course, my words will be a bit sharper. That's only to be expected.

I could say quite the same things (re: no substance, all snark and should-chips) about the bullshit you spewed on the Ethnic Cleansing thread--without a shred of the 'expertise' you say you want to gain from reading this blog. If everyone who was not an expert in that particular field decided to suddenly censor themselves and not comment, this blog would MUCH smaller.

If you have a problem with me, i'll gladly give you my email and we can continue this discussion off-line. However I don't see where you engaged with any of the points that I make--you're content to, a la the Limbaugh school of debate, throw up hearsay or generally accepted facts as a counterpoint. In fact, you openly acknowledge that your aim in a certain thread was just to piss me off. What do you gain by angering someone with a personal stake in that particular goings-on. Does it make you feel more like a man? What new and fresh information have YOU brought to this or any thread on SM?

This is what I said:

less so in countries where building codes are a fancy and not a reality

You reply: "The government infrastructure is poor enough in many places, that local residents fend for themselves even in communities that are not impoverished."

you know, if you read what I wrote, you'd realize that I allowed for locations where planning just doesn't exist and hoped that someone, perhaps you, could EXPAND on that definition. Finding problems within a definition is one thing, but not contributing at all to a better one is a pointless exercise.

"Sad as it, open sewers and muddy lanes are a feature of many areas of India not considered slums. Is it the high population density?"

A locality with a fairly large number of brick houses or brick apartment complexes is usually not called a slum. A locality where the majority of buildings are easily dismantable huts---I have the Tamil word gudisai in mind---is a slum.

Perhaps another yardstick is whether people have restrooms inside the house or have to go to a field.

Ok. I have seen empty deserts in India and empty land and it is actually clean. It seems like India is dirty wherever the people are so it seems like once they move in there will be garbage and sewage that follows.

Also, I did not realize that pickles were made in the slums, I am never eating store bought pickles again.

71 · P.G. Wodehouse

this is a sterling example of advancing the discussion by improving upon the definition of a 'slum' in India. Many thanks.

okay, How about some contributions from people who have actually lived in urban areas designated as 'poor' by the mainstream media?

I'm guessing since manju has seen every 'hood in america, she should be be the foremost authority.

you're content to, a la the Limbaugh school of debate, throw up hearsay or generally accepted facts as a counterpoint.

Does it make you feel more like a man?

Sputtering still supersedes substance, I see. But maybe civility is too much to be expected from somebody who is capable of this display (which then railroaded the thread) just two months ago on an otherwise light-hearted post. Oh, by the way, say hello to your (imaginary?) leetle friend "Smart@ssMadras" who, having lurked for 2 years, made fortuitous appearances on April 4 and 5 alone, right around the time you made an appearance. You see, you are not the only person who can cross-reference threads.

Also, facts do not become wrong immediately because they are "generally accepted". Shocking as it is, sometimes, facts become generally accepted because they are true. Hey, maybe I too can score a cheap rhetorical point while I'm at it - anybody who dignifies Limbaugh's lunacy as a school of debate, surely knows the technique of argument.

In fact, you openly acknowledge that your aim in a certain thread was just to piss me off

At least, I haven't been disingenous and did not wilfully misrepresent your statements like you do (should I have dignified your overblown "o almighty bestower of the SL tamil right" with a humble "I am sorry, I concede that right to you" instead of my obviously sarcastic response?). Also, as part of my moral agency as a Tamil, it bothers me that Tamils in India supported actors like Vaiko and the DMK who were obvious LTTE supporters, opposition to the SL government's policies does not mean support of the LTTE's tactics or behavior. And, if you genuinely believe that the LTTE's tactics are legitimate or even smart as part of a way to get equal rights for Tamils, I'd love to have seen an argument that did not involve bizarre insinuations about my parents, which I did not see fit to dignify with a response. I don't want to derail this thread on that topic though.

you'd realize that I allowed for locations where planning just doesn't exist

My question was for such a location and so your "definition" of a slum being a slum, except where it isn't, was completely useless.

Maybe my mistake was engaging somebody with this level of credibility in the first place.

rahul,

i'll forgive you for your repeated non-engagements with my points. but let's get smart-ass madrass out of the way first. Why don't you email ANNA and ask her about that whole situation? SM Intern was incredibly and unjustifiably suspicious as was shown by Smartass Madras and myself showing up at a Meetup (the one before the last in DC). Hmm, a troll that splits itself, quite magically, into two discrete people. I'm sure you'll find a way, however, to spin this as a "non-credibe ad-hominem attack." In this matter you have ZERO credibility--you were not there.

As to moral agency, I have no problem with you commenting on that situation with the history of political support for the LTTE in India in mind. I simply don't see what criticizing the LTTE does to advance the debate as they do not seek money or moral support from people like you. They extort it from people like me and make dire threats when the money is not forthcoming. They utilize front organizations to play upon my sympathies for the people back in SL who look and live so much like my own relatives. Do you have any relatives in Jaffna or Trinco? If you do, you'll know what I'm talking about. The Tigers are simply not affected by our discussion. The government, however, is nominally beholden to the international community and the ruckus that we create will give them pause when considering the next pogrom against the Tamil people.

The US has already suspended some aid to SL over human-rights concerns. India refuses to sell the government any offensive weaponry--partly because of realpolitik and also because they know that the weapons will eventually be used against civilians. The tigers are only affected by strikes against their sources of funding which is slowly being taken care of by the post-9/11 political environment.

as to the dharavi question, i'm terribly sorry for wasting your time. in the future i'll remember that self-censorship is the best way to please others.

the [personal attack] vs. [substantive comments] ratio here is getting rather skewed. As one of my blog hero's, Tyler Cowen, suggests, you shouldn't have to say something stronger about another commentor than "I don't agree with you John" and from there go on to the argument...

if it makes anyone feel any better, while harlem and the bronx are lovely, newark and detroit are pieces of crap. squalor inddeed.

I never said that $20,000 is the income per family, I asked if $2,000 (assuming that only 10% of the turnover is profit) is a reasonable number to assume, given that this turnover is from single room factories and cottage industries, which employ and are run by people from the slum.

What you wrote sure gave that impression. Make yourself clear if you are going to do calculations.

So you are not a complete idiot; but your reasoning is still deeply flawed. The article estimates the population of Dharavi at around 1 million. Thats a heck of a lot more than the 57000 families that you used to make your calculation of per capita income. You also ignorantly assumed that every family has an equal share of the turnover. And ignored the likelihood that many residents of that slum must have outside jobs as well. Stick to what you are good at: making jokes about rape, child slave labor, untouchability....

Perhaps another yardstick is whether people have restrooms inside the house or have to go to a field.

By that yardstick most of India is a slum. Which is what many horrified visitors to India actually do conclude.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/nov/chi-hazards.htm

"The impacts of a dysfunctional state of public sanitation in India are widely known, though change has not come. Nearly 70% of the Indian population does not have access to toilets. Nearly 70,000 tonnes of human waste lies in the open every day. It is the biggest contaminant of water. 600,000 die of diarrhea in India every year, most of them are children. Toilets cannot be built without political will."

http://swopnet.com/engr/sanitation/India_sewers.html

"Fewer than 30 percent of India's 950 million people have bathrooms in their homes or easy access to public toilets. The rest routinely relieve themselves in the open -- along roadsides, on farmland or in municipal parks.

No more than 250 of the country's 4,000 cities and towns have sewer systems, and many of those systems do not have treatment plants. The bulk of municipal sewage -- even from such major cities as Bombay and Calcutta -- flows untreated into rivers, lakes or the sea."

"In rural areas, where more than 70 percent of Indians live, fewer than 10 percent of homes have toilets. Government officials and aid workers say they have experienced difficulty persuading uneducated villagers to abandon ancient customs and use an enclosed bathroom."

"Besides overpopulation, religious beliefs of Hindus, who account for 80 percent of the population, have compounded India's sanitation problems. The cities of an early civilization in the Indus River valley had sophisticated sewer systems and among the oldest known toilets -- brick models that date back 4,500 years. But the development of Hinduism and its caste system in later centuries changed attitudes and practices concerning the disposal of human waste.

Bindeshwar Pathak, whose private organization, Sulabh International, has built 700,000 toilets in 25 years, said an ancient Hindu text gave "firm religious sanction" to unsanitary behavior by forbidding defecation near dwellings. "It's very difficult to bring it into the homes," Pathak said. "It's a cultural problem in India."

"Traditionally, efforts to improve sanitation in India have not had public health as their main motivation. Instead, it has been liberation of low-caste workers formerly called "untouchables" from the degrading occupation of cleaning waterless toilets and carrying away woven baskets of human waste on their heads. Hinduism teaches that contact with human feces defiles members of the upper castes.

These religious beliefs frustrated a crusade launched a century ago by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who led India to independence in 1947. Gandhi defied tradition by cleaning his own toilet and urging other members of upper castes to do the same. He also criticized Indians for casually relieving themselves in the open.

"It filled me with agony to see people performing natural functions on the thoroughfares and river banks, when they could easily have gone a little farther away from public haunts," Gandhi wrote in his autobiography of a 1915 visit to the Ganges River.

Little has changed in the intervening decades."

Coincidentally, there is an article in a recent Economist on slums. It has a little bit of the Economist's "look on the bright side" attitude, but actually gives some detailed information:

It has quite a comprehensive and depressing account of what it means to be in a slum: The density (shacks packed so tightly that many are accessible only on foot); the dust (in the dry seasons) and the mud (when it rains); the squalor (you often have to pick your way through streams of black ooze); the hazards (low eaves of jagged corrugated iron); and the litter, especially the plastic (Kibera's women, lacking sanitation and fearing robbery or rape if they risk the unlit pathways to the latrines, resort at night to the “flying toilet�, a polythene bag to be cast from their doorway, much as chamber pots were emptied into the street below in pre-plumbing Edinburgh). Most striking of all, to those inured to the sight of such places through photography, is the smell. With piles of human faeces littering the ground and sewage running freely, the stench is ever-present.

It seems like the absence of sewage and restrooms really defines life in a slum - Thanks for pointing it out, PG. I should have seen it.

The article I linked to has some pretty useful and damning statistics. 600,000 people. Let's say 10% of 1 billion is the income, that's 100 million (I have no idea whether this is a reasonable number, it might be too low if the cost of their "raw materials" is close to zero, due to recycling, but I don't see any hints as to guess this fraction either). That's roughly $166 per person as a back of the envelope, which is far below poverty line, so I assume an actual significant fraction of these people don't have any choices, even despite some of the examples in the National Geographic article (linked to by Asha's dad #6).

I now completely don't see the meaning of these articles talking about "$1 billion turnover" and so on when there is such a high volume of people. I would assume that other slums across the world (some even larger than Dharavi) are forced to do similar things to survive, and I have to say I am confounded by all these articles over the years that specifically talk about the enterprise of Dharavi.

The closest I can see to an "explanation" is this excerpt from the Natl Geographic article: Yet Dharavi remains unique among slums. A neighborhood smack in the heart of Mumbai, it retains the emotional and historical pull of a subcontinental Harlem�a square-mile (three square kilometers) center of all things, geographically, psychologically, spiritually. That, and the real estate value. Well, then!

Prema, the economist article has some catnip for you too.

Also in the Natl Geographic article on Page 4, is this description:

Much of his critique is familiar. The government's failure to create housing for middle-income people was responsible for the existence of the slums, Mobin contends. Many people in Dharavi make enough money to live elsewhere, "a house like you see on TV." But since no such housing exists, they are doomed to the slum. Mobin doubts Mukesh Mehta's private developers will help. All over Dharavi are reminders of developmental disasters. Near Dharavi Cross Road, members of the L.P.T. Housing Society, their houses torn down in preparation for their promised apartments, have spent the past eight years living in a half-finished building without steady electricity or water, at the mercy of the goons and the malarial Mumbai heat.

But when it comes down to it, Mobin says, Dharavi's dilemma is at once much simpler and infinitely more complex: "This is our home." This is what people such as Chief Minister Deshmukh and Mukesh Mehta will never understand, Mobin says. "Mukesh Mehta says I am his hero, but what does he know of my life? He is engaged in shaikhchilli, which is dreaming, dreaming in the day. Does it occur to him that we do not wish to be part of his dream?"

Are there examples of successful slum relocation projects in other countries?

#79 -- PREMA - please cut out the useless personal attacks.... more like that and you will face the fury of SM intern.

P.G.W.,
A locality with a fairly large number of brick houses or brick apartment complexes is usually not called a slum. A locality where the majority of buildings are easily dismantable huts---I have the Tamil word gudisai in mind---is a slum.
Actually, slums are more or less permanent housing. I think the characterization of slums is more in economic terms.

Rahul,
I see articles about Dharavi, but not about the amazing productivity or wealth of the slums of Buenos Aires or Johannesburg. Is it purely a reporting push
Some interesting questions. Dharavi has potential as real estate. Not sure about the other places.

Notwithstanding Francis "It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power” Fukuyama's arguments, there is a need in this case for government to set the rules of the game to try and ensure that this turns out to be a win-win outcome. I suspect that in Dharavi, we might not be able to use the trusty Fukuyama Trust-O-meter ("very high-trust", "low-trust", "not very high-trust at all").

Rahul,
Look for Buenos Aires and Johannesburg on the list of the world's most expensive office markets. Neither of them is in the top 50. In the list of the world's most expensive office markets, Mumbai is at #5 and Delhi is at #7 (ranked by occupation in US$/square foot/annum).

The solution to "Dharavi's dilemma" is not nescessarily complex. The important thing is to ensure a level playing field.

I was raised in the middle of a slum. Walked around and over defecating kids to go to school. Even today no squalor can faze me coz I have seen much worse. Many of my neighbours were petty thieves/ small time arrack dealers / porters. Even after we upgraded to a real house, a year after high school, I lived in a "nagar" that was surrounded by slums.

Many slum dwellers detest know-it-all do-gooders. Wonder why ? It is not the politics of envy. It is the attitude. And this includes not just Ibankers but also development activists. Both are equally obnoxious.

To the commenters who have a good idea on how to improve slums but have never lived in one, try it for a few months. Will be a real eye opener.

For those who know Chennai - I am talking about Basin Bridge / Vyasarpadi.

Incidentally Tamil Nadu had a Slum Clearance Board. They built muti storey apartments that often crashed in a few years. Is it any wonder that the slum dweller preferred to squat on vacant land. Also one had to carry water up 3 floors because water was delivered by tanker.

For those who know Chennai - I am talking about Basin Bridge / Vyasarpadi.
I know what you talkin' about.

Incidentally Tamil Nadu had a Slum Clearance Board. They built muti storey apartments that often crashed in a few years. Is it any wonder that the slum dweller preferred to squat on vacant land. Also one had to carry water up 3 floors because water was delivered by tanker.
This is exactly the type of response we, or at least I, was looking for. There was one that they built near Mylapore, and the folks who worked at .....'s house got an apartment allotment. I thought they were pretty happy with the deal overall.

It seems like the absence of sewage and restrooms really defines life in a slum - Thanks for pointing it out, PG. I should have seen it.

Manju, we clearly grew up around different projects. I guess it makes me wonder about how we think about "projects" and poverty. I know the term means any and all public housing, but I guess the connotation is different for me.