slumming

Slums

It seemed that many of these articles when speaking of slums also referenced words like misconception and myth. It’s interesting to note that some of these misconceptions could have been derived from the evolution of the word “slum” itself. Mike Davis in Planet of Slums defines slums by citing mid nineteenth century sources with words and phrases like “racket”, “criminal trade”, “room with low goings-on occurred”, and “an area of dirty back streets, especially when inhabited by a squalid and criminal population” (pg. 22). He defines the word with a more classical definition of “overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water or sanitation, and insecurity of tenure”. What is important to note is that the previous definition had a negative connotation of crime and implied that the people living there were prevalent to social disorder.

Janice Perlam addresses this in Six Misconceptions. She point that squatters are traditionally stigmatized and accused of “social breakdown, crime and prostitution, and maladaptive rural behaviors” and “seen as parasites on the economy” but in reality they “have the aspirations of the bourgeoisie, the perseverance of pioneers, and the values of patriots. She follows up by saying that “What they do not have is an opportunity to fulfill their aspirations”.

The global community and nations in response to such a statement have attempted to give squatters such an opportunity. But again due to misconceptions of slums those attempts have failed to give viable solutions. Shlomo Angel and Stan Benjamin have noted this by describing what they call “technological transfer”. They define it as “the largely unsuccessful attempt to take housing solutions from developed societies and modify them for application in the developing world”. They continue to say “It has the great advantage of fitting well into elite middle-class aspirations. But it fails on three important counts; lack of realism…a complete misunderstanding of people’s needs and poor use of available resources” (pg. 20).

In terms of solving the issues of slums many of the articles were getting to the point of eradicating these misconceptions by actually studying the conditions of the slums and their realities. One article went so far as to define the typology of slums.

While reading these articles I couldn’t help but think back to when Alejandor Aravena came to speak last semester. He discussed a low income housing project that he worked on. He described that the process of the project involved speaking to the community to understand their needs. It was interesting to note that the project did not “look complete” with it cinderblock construction and unfinished walls. But when referencing back to Angel and Benjamin’s article they talk about this “aesthetic desire to produced finished projects”. For the people of the slums, cinderblock meant security and permanence and the ability for them to add on and invest in their homes.