What if the poor were part of city planning?

Almost a billion people worldwide live in informal communities and slums, often without basic infrastructure like clean water, toilets or adequate roads. Urban planner Smruti Jukur Johari breaks down myths about these communities and shares examples of simple, common-sense solutions that arise when governments and architects work together with the residents -- instead of around them.

What is our imagery of cities?

When we imagine cities,

we often imagine it
to be something like this.

But what if what you're looking at
is just half a picture,

but there is a city within the city.

This part of the city
is often seen as slums,

squatters, informal,

and people living here
are called illegal, informal,

criminals, beneficiaries,
supplicants, etc.

But in reality,

these are poor people with no choices.

Poverty is a vicious cycle.

If born poor, it can take
three or more generations

to escape one.

Many are forced in this cycle
without choices,

to live on pavements,

along train tracks,

in dumping grounds,

along rivers,

swamps and many such unlivable spaces,

without clean water, toilets or housing.

But these places are not unfamiliar to me,

because since the age of six,
I accompanied my father, a doctor,

who treated patients
in the slums of Bombay.

Growing up, I would help him
carry his bag of medicines

after school lessons --

I loved doing that.

Wanting to do something
about these habitats,

I decided to become an architect.

But quite early on, I realized

that the beauty of architecture
was only for the rich.

So I decided to do urban planning

and joined an NGO in India
that works with the urban poor

who organize themselves
to access basic services,

such as water, sanitation and housing,
for the poor living in cities.

Now I spent 10 years of my life
in professional education, in learning,

and then five years in unlearning it.

Because I realized

that all my training in architecture,
design and planning

failed ground realities.

And this is where I learned
the power of choice.

I unlearned many things,

but there are two myths about the poor

that I would like to share
that we live with.

The first myth is a perception

that migration of poor people
into cities is a problem.

Is migration really a choice?

My mentor Sheela Patel

asked to those who think
of this as a problem,

"Go ask your grandfather
where he came from," she says.

So what do poor people do
when they migrate in cities?

Let me share an example.

This is the Mumbai International Airport.

All that you see in blue
are large informal settlements around it.

Close to 75,000 people live here.

So who are these people
that work silently in hotels, restaurants,

as laborers, babysitters, house helps

and countless other jobs

that we need for cities to function
without a glitch?

And where do they live?

In most cities, they live in slums.

So let us think again.

Do we want poor people
to stop migrating in our cities?

What if they had a choice of not to?

The second myth is my personal experience.

It's this attitude that we
professionals know better.

We professionals love
to make choices for others,

especially for the poor.

Let me share an experience.

In a workshop that looked at designing
250 new houses for poor families

from a slum nearby,

there were different building materials
that were presented,

ranging from papier-mâché,
cardboard, honeycomb, etc.,

simply because they were affordable.

But there was this one idea
that was of shipping containers.

Now we immediately approved of it,

because we thought it was sustainable,
scalable, affordable.

But during this presentation,

a lady from the slum humbly spoke up.

And she asked the presenter,

"Would you choose to live in it?"

(Laughter)

"If not, then why did you think we would?"

Now this was a personal
unlearning moment for me,

where I realized that poverty
only changes affordability --

it does not change aspirations.

Now poor people have lived
in temporary structures all their life.

They go from wall to wall,

moving from bricks to tin.

They move from building from bamboo,

tarpaulin sheets, plastic,
to cardboard, to tin,

to bricks and cement,

just like the way we do.

So somewhere here, we were forcing
our choices on them.

So should we force our choices on them,

or should we broaden their choices?

Now what if the opportunity to choose
was given to people?

These are women who lived on the pavements
of a neighborhood in Mumbai.

Now they faced constant evictions,
and in response to it,

they organized a women's network
called Mahila Milan.

Not only did they fight against evictions
with those in power,

saved money and bought land,

but they also designed
and helped construct their own houses.

Well, these were illiterate women,
so how did they do that?

They used floor mats and saris
to understand measurements.

A sari is four meters in length
and 1.5 meters in width.

They used these simple day-to-day items
to demonstrate house models.

And even they made
three options to choose from

and invited all their fellow residents
to come and have a look.

(Laughter)

And everybody loved this option
that had a loft in it,

simply because it did two things.

One is that it accommodated
larger families to sleep in.

And two, it allowed home-based work,

such as bangle-making, jewelry-designing,

embroidery-stitching,
packaging items, etc.

Now they also decided
to not have a toilet inside,

but instead have it outside
in the corridors,

simply because it gave them
more space and it was cheaper.

Now, professionals
could have never thought

of something like that.

A formal design would have necessitated
to have a toilet inside.

Now these are smaller examples --

let me share some larger context:

881,000,000 people --

that's about one sixth of this world,
as we talk here --

are living in slums
and informal settlements.

Almost every city in the global south
has large slums in the size of townships.

Kibera, in Nairobi,

Dharavi, in Mumbai,

Khayelitsha in South Africa, just a few.

Now initially, they were all
on waste and abandoned lands

that cities were never interested in.

As cities grew,

poor people started building
on these lands

and brought value to this over time.

And today, these lands have become
real estate hot spots

that everybody wants a piece of.

So how do cities and those in power
choose to deal with them?

They demolish them and evict them

and move them away
from their cities and economies

in order to build a new infrastructure.

They move them into vertical housing,

which in reality looks like this.

Now when built in high densities,

they lack natural light and ventilation,

and it often leads
to unhealthy conditions.

Now, on one hand,

poor people are not involved
in the participation of design,

and there is poor quality of construction.

And on the other hand,

they do not understand
how to do maintenance,

you know, keeping bills,
keeping records, forming societies --

this is always difficult for them.

And being forced to move
into this formal society,

they end up looking like this
in a few years.

Because formalization is not a product,

it's a process.

Moving from informal to formal
for poor people is a journey.

It takes time to accept and adapt.

And when that choice is not given,

it becomes like this,

which I'm afraid, in future,
these would become the slums.

Now instead of doing this,

what if we accommodated poor people

and gave them a choice
to be a part of our cities

and develop them where they are,

giving them basic services,
like in this picture?

Now what happens if cities
and governments could work together,

if governments acknowledge poor people,

and they could build it together?

This is Mukuru.

It's a large informal
settlement in Nairobi.

It's one of the largest
settlements in Africa.

It's home to 300,000 people

living over 650 acres of land.

To help us understand that scale,

it's like squeezing
the population of Pittsburgh

into the New York Central Park.

That's Mukuru.

So to give us a glimpse,

this is the condition of housing.

And this is what it is in between them.

So what is life in Mukuru like,
just talking briefly?

Five hundred and fifty people
use one single water tap

and pay nine times more

than what anybody else
in the city could pay,

simply because there is
no water infrastructure

and water is sold.

Many come back from work to find out
that their houses do not exist,

because they have either been bulldozed,

or they have been burned down.

So, tired of this situation,

a local slum dwellers' federation
called Muungano

decided to do something about it.

In four years,

they organized 20,000 residents
to collect data,

map structures and put it together.

And the plan was very simple --

they only needed four things.

They wanted clean water,

toilets, decent roads

and, most importantly, not to be evicted.

So they presented this
with the government of Nairobi.

And for the first time in history ever,

a city has agreed to do it.

The city of Nairobi,
the government of Kenya,

declared Mukuru
to be a special planning area,

which means that people
could come up with their own plan.

People could decide to come up
with their own norms and standards,

because the standards that work
for the formal citizens

do not work in informal settings.

So what does that mean,
to give us an instance?

If these are roads in Mukuru,

you can see that there are houses
along both sides of the road.

Now in order to bring in a city bus,

as per the standards,

planners would have gone for
a luxurious 25-meter-wide road.

Now that would mean displacing
[25] percent of the structures --

that's a lot of people.

So instead of doing that,
we came up with a 12-meter-wide road,

which had the structures intact
and brought the city bus

without compromising
on much services.

In another instance,
let's talk about community toilets.

You know, in high-density areas,

where there is no scope
for individual toilets,

like the public toilets that we have here.

So we would go for a male section
and a female section.

But imagine this situation.

In the morning rush hours to the toilet,

when everybody is in intense
pressure to relieve themselves,

and if you're standing
in a queue of 50 people,

and there is a child
standing behind an adult,

who wins?

Children end up squatting outside.

And that's why women decided

to come up with a separate
squatting area for children.

Now, who could have thought
of something like that?

The idea here is
that when poor people choose,

they choose better.

They choose what works for them.

So choice is everything.

And power decides choice.

And we need those in power --

politicians, leaders, governments,

architects, planners,
institutions, researchers --

and all of us in our everyday lives
to respect choices.

Instead of choosing what is right
for people, for the poor,

let's acknowledge
and empower their choices.

And that is how we can build

better and inclusive cities for tomorrow,

completing the imagery of cities

built by the choices of its own people.

Thank you.

(Applause)