Inside+the+Slum+--+Article

Record: 1
INDIA -- Social conditions -- 1947- || 925120 Administration of Urban Planning and Community and Rural Development 624190 Other Individual and Family Services ||
 * ~ Title: || Inside the slums. ||
 * ~ Source: || Economist; 1/29/2005, Vol. 374 Issue 8411, p43-43, 3/4p, 1 Color Photograph ||
 * ~ Document Type: || Article ||
 * ~ Subject Terms: || *SLUMS
 * CITY planning
 * URBAN renewal
 * SMALL business
 * ENTREPRENEURSHIP
 * COMMUNITY change
 * GENTRIFICATION
 * INNER cities
 * COMMUNITY organization
 * URBAN beautification
 * METROPOLITAN areas
 * SOCIOLOGY, Urban
 * URBAN policy
 * ~ Geographic Terms: || INDIA ||
 * || NAICS/Industry Codes237210 Land Subdivision
 * ~ Abstract: || The article reports that Mumbai's Slum Rehabilitation Authority plans to begin drawing up a list of developers who will bid to transform Dharavi, one of Asia's largest slums, into a multibillion-dollar showpiece over seven years. In Dharavi and Mumbai's other sprawling slums is a thriving entrepreneurial spirit that has spawned small businesses ranging from pottery to leather goods, and that is also now beginning to support formal property development. Some of these businesses are owned and operated by members of a single family. In others, workers are employed by an upwardly-mobile owner who lives elsewhere. Local residents and non-governmental organisations are sceptical about the motives for developing Dharavi. Dharavi is on a prime location adjacent to a big nature park and a mile or so from the city's new Bandra-Kurla business district, as well as being near the airport. ||
 * ~ Full Text Word Count: || 802 ||
 * ~ ISSN: || 00130613 ||
 * ~ Accession Number: || 15873054 ||
 * ~ Persistent link to this record (Permalink): || http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=15873054&site=ehost-live ||
 * ~ Cut and Paste: || Inside the slums. ||
 * ~ Database: || Academic Search Premier ||
 * ~ Cut and Paste: || Inside the slums. ||
 * ~ Database: || Academic Search Premier ||
 * ~ Database: || Academic Search Premier ||

Section: Asia India =Inside the slums= Light in the darkness Dateline: MUMBAI FLYING into Mumbai airport, many visitors' first view of India is of a mass of corrugated-roofed slums clustered on hillsides around the end of the main runway. That is scarcely a viable image for a country's commercial capital that has set Shanghai as its role model, and it is a problem that has defied government action for over 30 years. But hidden in these and Mumbai's other sprawling slums is a thriving entrepreneurial spirit that has spawned small businesses ranging from pottery to leather goods, and that is also now beginning to support formal property development. In Dharavi, one of Asia's largest slums, covering 220 hectares (530 acres) near the airport, some 100,000 people produce goods worth over $500m a year. Alleyways a few feet wide lead to bakeries, metal workshops and sheds that recycle discarded plastic goods ranging from medical syringes to telephones. Lorries crammed with buffalo, goat and other skins collected from abattoirs push through narrow lanes to grimy tanneries. Nearby, workers in a series of tiny workshops spray-paint, cut and press strips and sheets of leather and vinyl that eventually finish up as cheap wallets and bags plus, in some cases, upmarket luggage (often fake international brands). Few of the workers earn more than Rs100-200 ($2-4) a day, and families often live in overcrowded lofts over the workshops. More than 800 homes are involved in pottery, moulding items such as traditional clay water jugs and flower pots on potters' wheels for sale inside and outside Dharavi. Their kilns burn wood and other polluting garbage, including tyres. Metalworking includes casting items such as brass belt-buckles in small unventilated rooms. In another workshop, the buckles are electroplated with nickel because, say the workers, a nickel finish does not need polishing and is more popular. Some of these businesses are owned and operated by members of a single family. In others, workers are employed by an upwardly-mobile owner who lives elsewhere. Abdul Hassan, who was born in Dharavi, runs a plating workshop with his brother and 12 workers. The brothers each take home about Rs4,000 a month. Abdul has bought a flat just outside Dharavi and is paying for his two children's education, in the hope that they will become doctors or engineers. Next month, Mumbai's Slum Rehabilitation Authority plans to begin drawing up a list of developers who will bid to transform Dharavi, turning this hotch-potch of unregulated homes and mini-factories into a $1.2 billion showpiece over seven years. Companies like Mitsubishi of Japan and parts of India's Godrej and Reliance business groups are interested. Local residents and non-governmental organisations are sceptical about the motives. Dharavi is on a prime location adjacent to a big nature park and a mile or so from the city's new Bandra-Kurla business district, as well as being near the airport. "We think it's a way to appear to do something for the poor while really gentrifying the area," says Sheila Patel, director of SPARC, a voluntary organisation that has begun redeveloping small sites on a piecemeal basis in collaboration with residents. But Mukesh Mehta, an architect who has drawn up the scheme for the government, insists that existing residents and businesses will all be housed. The redevelopment of Dharavi is part of an attempt to give Mumbai a dramatic make-over, with a $40-billion ten-year development programme, based on a report by McKinsey, a consulting firm. To be financed mainly by the private sector, the remit is for "a world-class city with a vibrant economy and globally comparable quality of life", reversing a slowdown over the past decade. Despite the many businesses, it will be tough going. Approximately half of the city's 13m population (part of a 20m conurbation) lives in the slums--areas of unregulated, poor-quality structures, usually built of mud or brick and asbestos sheets, with no sanitation. Governments have rarely dared try to evict the occupants of the slums because they are condemned for destroying the homes of the poor, though about 70,000 relatively new dwellings have been bulldozed in the past month. Using a scheme that allows a developer to cover some of his costs by selling any excess property, organisations such as SPARC (backed in two projects by international aid agencies and banks) have built blocks of 21 sq m (225 sq ft) flats that dramatically improve living conditions. But progress is slow, which has opened the way for Mr Mehta's overall redevelopment. Many residents are sceptical. "For years people keep promising to redevelop but nothing happens," says Jagmohan Bhattia, who has four employees pulverising old plastic crates, a job he has been doing in the middle of Dharavi for 15 years. But for some, there is hope. PHOTO (COLOR): The way out of Dharavi

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