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What is our imagery of cities?

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When we imagine cities,

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we often imagine it
to be something like this.

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

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but there is a city within the city.

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This part of the city
is often seen as slums,

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squatters, informal,

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and people living here
are called illegal, informal,

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criminals, beneficiaries,
supplicants, etc.

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But in reality,

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these are poor people with no choices.

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Poverty is a vicious cycle.

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If born poor, it can take
three or more generations

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to escape one.

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Many are forced in this cycle
without choices,

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to live on pavements,

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along train tracks,

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in dumping grounds,

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along rivers,

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swamps and many such unlivable spaces,

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without clean water, toilets or housing.

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But these places are not unfamiliar to me,

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

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who treated patients
in the slums of Bombay.

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

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after school lessons --

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I loved doing that.

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Wanting to do something
about these habitats,

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I decided to become an architect.

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But quite early on, I realized

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that the beauty of architecture
was only for the rich.

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So I decided to do urban planning

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

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who organize themselves
to access basic services,

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

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

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and then five years in unlearning it.

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Because I realized

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that all my training in architecture,
design and planning

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failed ground realities.

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And this is where I learned
the power of choice.

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I unlearned many things,

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but there are two myths about the poor

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that I would like to share
that we live with.

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The first myth is a perception

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that migration of poor people
into cities is a problem.

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Is migration really a choice?

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My mentor Sheela Patel

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asked to those who think
of this as a problem,

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

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

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Let me share an example.

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This is the Mumbai international airport.

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

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Close to 75,000 people live here.

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

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as laborers, babysitters, house helps

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and countless other jobs

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that we need for cities to function
without a glitch?

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And where do they live?

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In most cities, they live in slums.

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So let us think again.

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

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What if they had a choice of not to?

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The second myth is my personal experience.

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It's this attitude that we
professionals know better.

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We professionals love
to make choices for others,

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especially for the poor.

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Let me share an experience.

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

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from a slum nearby,

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there were different building materials
that were presented,

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

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simply because they were affordable.

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

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Now we immediately approved of it,

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because we thought it was sustainable,
scalable, affordable.

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But during this presentation,

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a lady from the slum humbly spoke up.

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And she asked the presenter,

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"Would you choose to live in it?"

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(Laughter)

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

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Now this was a personal
unlearning moment for me,

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where I realized that poverty
only changes affordability --

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it does not change aspirations.

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

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They go from wall to wall,

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moving from bricks to tin.

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They move from building from bamboo,

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tarpaulin sheets, plastic,
to cardboard, to tin,

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to bricks and cement,

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just like the way we do.

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

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So should we force our choices on them,

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or should we broaden their choices?

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

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

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

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they organized a women's network
called Mahila Milan.

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

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saved money and bought land,

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but they also designed
and helped construct their own houses.

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

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They used floor mats and saris
to understand measurements.

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A sari is four meters in length
and one point five meters in width.

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

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And even they made
three options to choose from

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

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(Laughter)

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

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simply because it did two things.

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One is that it accommodated
larger families to sleep in,

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and two, it allowed home-based work,

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such and bangle-making, jewelry-designing,

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embroidery-stitching,
packaging items, etc.

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Now they also decided
to not have a toilet inside,

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but instead have it outside
in the corridors,

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

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Now, professionals
could have never thought

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of something like that.

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

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Now these are smaller examples --

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let me share some larger context.

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Eight hundred eighty-one million people --

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

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are living in slums
and informal settlements.

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

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Kibera, in Nairobi,

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Dharavi, in Mumbai,

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Khayelitsha in South Africa, just a few.

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Now initially, they were all
on waste and abandoned lands

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that cities were never interested in.

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As cities grew,

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poor people started building
on these lands

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and brought value to this over time.

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And today, these lands have become
real-estate hot spots

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that everybody wants a piece of.

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

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They demolish them and evict them

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and move them away
from their cities and economies

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in order to build a new infrastructure.

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They move them into vertical housing,

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which in reality looks like this.

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Now when built in high densities,

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they lack natural light and ventilation,

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and it often leads
to unhealthy conditions.

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Now, on one hand,

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poor people are not involved
in the participation of design,

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and there is poor quality of construction.

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And on the other hand,

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they do not understand
how to do maintenance,

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

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this is always difficult for them.

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And being forced to move
into this formal society,

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they end up looking like this
in a few years.

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Because formalization is not a product,

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it's a process.

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

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It takes time to accept and adapt.

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And when that choice is not given,

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it becomes like this,

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

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Now instead of doing this,

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what if we accommodated poor people

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

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and develop them where they are,

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giving them basic services,
like in this picture?

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Now what happens if cities
and governments could work together,

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if governments acknowledge poor people,

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and they could build it together?

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This is Mukuru.

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It's a large informal
settlement in Nairobi.

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It's one of the largest
settlements in Africa.

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It's home to 300,000 people

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living over 650 acres of land.

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To help us understand that scale,

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it's like squeezing
the population of Pittsburgh

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into the New York Central Park.

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That's Mukuru.

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So to give us a glimpse,

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this is the condition of housing.

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And this is what it is in between them.

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

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Five hundred and fifty people
use one single water tap

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and pay nine times more

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than what anybody else
in the city could pay,

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simply because there is
no water infrastructure

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and water is sold.

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

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because they have either been bulldozed,

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or they have been burned down.

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So, tired of this situation,

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a local slum dwellers' federation
called Muungano

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decided to do something about it.

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In four years,

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they organized 20,000 residents
to collect data,

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map structures and put it together.

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And the plan was very simple --

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they only needed four things.

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They wanted clean water,

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toilets, decent roads

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and, most importantly, not to be evicted.

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So they presented this
with the government of Nairobi.

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And for the first time in history ever,

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a city has agreed to do it.

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The city of Nairobi,
the government of Kenya,

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declared Mukuru
to be a special planning area.

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

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

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because the standards that work
for the formal citizens

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do not work in informal settings.

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

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If these are roads in Mukuru,

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

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Now in order to bring in a city bus,

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as for the standards,

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

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

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that's a lot of people.

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

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which had the structures intact
and brought the city bus

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without compromising
on much services.

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

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You know, in high-density areas,

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where there is no scope
for individual toilets,

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like the public toilets that we have here.

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

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But imagine this situation.

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In the morning rush hours to the toilet,

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when everybody is in intense
pressure to relieve themselves,

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

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and there is a child
standing behind an adult,

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who wins?

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Children end up squatting outside.

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And that's why women decided

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to come up with a separate
squatting area for children.

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Now, who could have thought
of something like that?

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The idea here is
that when poor people choose,

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they choose better.

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They choose what works for them.

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So choice is everything.

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And power decides choice.

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And we need those in power --

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politicians, leaders, governments,

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architects, planners,
institutions, researchers --

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

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

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let's acknowledge
and empower their choices.

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And that is how we can build

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better and inclusive cities for tomorrow,

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completing the imagery of cities

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built by the choices of its own people.

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Thank you.

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00:13:10,158 --> 00:13:13,962
(Applause)