Slums Are Incubating The Neighbourhoods Of Tomorrow: Rahul Srivastava & Matias Echanove

Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove, co-founders of Institute Of Urbanology, have written extensively on urban development for global publications and given lectures at reputed educational institutions. This list includes Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Rio, and The Institute of Arts in Stockholm. Even if you disagree with their arguments, their work will still make you think.

The Institute of Urbanology, which has an office each in Mumbai and Goa, studies urban development, armed with years of fieldwork in New York, Bogota, Tokyo, Istanbul, New , Goa and Mumbai.

In an interview with Shanu Athiparambath, the two share their views on how slums are incubating the neighbourhoods of tomorrow. Edited excerpts from the interview:

PropGuide: Real estate in Mumbai is highly expensive. What could the government do to shelter Mumbai's growing population?

Rahul and Matias:  The government could facilitate the construction of dwelling units that can be rented out cheaply to people who cannot afford to buy or rent at market rates. The government can ensure that there is stock available for people who contribute to Mumbai's local economy. This can be achieved by ensuring that the land on which rental stock exists are out of the speculative field (by keeping them in the ownership of the government). Moreover, the government should allow and promote the development of affordable housing by local actors. Our research shows that local contractors can do better and cheaper than institutional and corporate players, who only manage to cut costs by scaling up and compromising on quality.

PropGuide: Why do you believe that “slum” is a loaded word, and prefer to say “user-generated” or “homegrown” neighbourhoods?

Rahul and Matias:  Homegrown neighbourhoods are more common than usually assumed. Globally, they are the norm rather than an exception. Entire cities have been developed outside official plans. Tokyo or even Shenzhen (one of China's newest and most flamboyant cities, where at least 50 per cent of the population lives in hyper-dense urban villages) are cases in point. Most Middle Eastern and old European towns, with their charming, irrationally narrow streets and small buildings, are homegrown. Even well-planned streets of New York and Los Angeles' suburbs are full of houses that have been modified by their users in contradiction to zoning codes (Think of Steve Job's garage startup – an illegal business activity in a residential neighbourhood). Slums belong to the same family of 'homegrown' habitats. They are work in process. The government and the market should learn how to support locally driven urban improvement instead of repressing it, which is costly and counterproductive.

PropGuide: You believe that Mumbai needs better infrastructure and amenities more than anything. This is especially true of Mumbai's slums. Tell us more about this.

Rahul and Matias: There is a lack of affordable homes in urban India. But, this is not because the government or people lack resources. This is a classic case of not understanding the given realities in our cities. The "poor" are highly skilled, productive, and quite capable of producing built environments of good quality - if they are given the basic security of tenure. If the government sets aside land, provides security of tenure for the poor, and builds better basic civic infrastructure in cities such as Mumbai, the residents will be able to handle the rest of their needs quite well. Of course, support could and should be extended far beyond security of tenure.

PropGuide: Many in Mumbai commute for hours in trains. Every day, nearly nine people die on the railway network. You argue that this is because they cannot afford Mumbai's expensive houses. Wouldn't verticalization lower the commute?

Rahul and Matias:  Look at the city where it has grown higher, in south Mumbai and the western suburbs. Has verticalization brought prices down? Has it been able to decongest neighbourhoods? Has it absorbed more density? Not at all. This is largely because verticalization creates a high-end economy where speculators, high-end investors and the rich rule the roost. Speculators build high-rises that serve as parking for cash, not housing. How else do you explain that half a million flats remain vacant in one of the densest cities in the world? As a result the less rich are pushed to the suburbs. It is not just the poor in our city who commute. In fact, many of them live in poorly serviced neighbourhoods like slums to shorten the commute. It is the middle classes that are squeezed in super-crush densities in trains for hours every day.

PropGuide: If there are no high-rises, Mumbai would still be dense, with low-rise buildings. You have written much on Tokyo. Harvard economist Edward Glaeser points out that vast Tokyo can be traversed largely on foot. But, the built-up area of Mumbai is spread over a large area because its buildings are short.  Doesn't this require greater investment in infrastructure?

Rahul and Matias:  Tokyo is pretty spread out, too, with high rises in several places. It is not the size alone, but the way urban spaces are organised that matters. member that Mumbai manages to protect, to some extent, more than 100 square kilometers of urban forest in its municipal area (Sanjay Gandhi Park, Borivali). With basic checks in place, Mumbai can build low-rise high density neighbourhoods along with high-rises wherever needed. A diversity of forms can be created based on need and not speculation. This means vertical and a combination of other forms. We are not advocating low-rise high density for the sake of it. We are connecting it to the city's past history, which allowed a diversity of forms to exist. This can still be achieved. This will bring prices down considerably for everyone, produce better habitats for the poor and create a dynamic, mixed-use city. The point is not to be lost in abstract notions of form - whether it should be high-rise (the existing scenario) or low-rise (a vision that seems to be attributed to our argument) but the way we build, produce and live in spaces.

PropGuide: What can Mumbai learn from Tokyo?

Rahul and Matias:  As much as it can teach. In fact, both Tokyo and Mumbai are part of an Asian spectrum of urban form, where density, local skills, co-operative spaces, and live-work conditions have been part of its history. We need to validate those histories and integrate them into modern needs of urban living.

PropGuide: Do you believe that a city like Mumbai, with much of its built-up area spread over a large area, could be traversed through foot or fit for mass transit with low-rise settlements?

Rahul and Matias:  We need to enter this discussion not purely as a question, but also as a process, as argued above. The city cannot be either high-rise or low-rise. But, if the processes in place allow for its residents to shape the environment more creatively and in a manner that is inclusive, a tapestry of forms will emerge. Large parts of London and even New York are not high-rise either. The reason they are becoming out of reach for middle classes is not because of spatial constraints alone, but also because of runaway speculation. We need to understand how different cities function and work with existing realities. In , the existing reality is that the city's economy thrives on its surplus and highly skilled labour. The economy needs to give back to them, and make itself more productive. We are advocating a prioritisation of the needs of millions of service providers and workers in very simple ways.

PropGuide: Economist Alain Bertaud points out that many affordable residential projects shift people from slums near the central city to formal settlements in the periphery.

Rahul and Matias:  This has much to do with speculation of land, its high cost, and a naive belief in the assumption that you can keep producing efficient urban systems based on outdated 20th century centre-periphery models. While no one can deny that life can be very hard in some parts of Mumbai, the lives of the kind of long distance commuters our city is producing, is not always better.

PropGuide: What are the major misconceptions people have about
“slums” in Mumbai? Why are they underrated?

Rahul and Matias: The major misconception people have about slums is the belief that poor people produce “slums”. Poor urban policy creates slums by not supporting people's efforts to turn their habitats into well-functioning neighbourhoods. Moreover, slums are underrated because, in India, we undervalue and underpay our talented workforce.