WEBVTT 00:00:01.032 --> 00:00:03.642 What is our imagery of cities? 00:00:04.016 --> 00:00:05.825 When we imagine cities, 00:00:05.849 --> 00:00:08.825 we often imagine it to be something like this. 00:00:09.587 --> 00:00:13.778 But what if what you're looking at is just half a picture, 00:00:13.802 --> 00:00:16.428 but there is a city within the city. 00:00:17.929 --> 00:00:20.834 This part of the city is often seen as slums, 00:00:20.858 --> 00:00:22.879 squatters, informal, 00:00:22.903 --> 00:00:26.093 and people living here are called illegal, informal, 00:00:26.117 --> 00:00:29.204 criminals, beneficiaries, supplicants, etc. 00:00:30.149 --> 00:00:31.575 But in reality, 00:00:31.599 --> 00:00:34.662 these are poor people with no choices. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:35.702 --> 00:00:37.766 Poverty is a vicious cycle. 00:00:37.790 --> 00:00:40.758 If born poor, it can take three or more generations 00:00:40.782 --> 00:00:41.932 to escape one. 00:00:42.521 --> 00:00:45.547 Many are forced in this cycle without choices, 00:00:45.571 --> 00:00:48.490 to live on pavements, 00:00:48.514 --> 00:00:50.545 along train tracks, 00:00:51.765 --> 00:00:53.550 in dumping grounds, 00:00:54.463 --> 00:00:56.662 along rivers, 00:00:56.686 --> 00:00:59.749 swamps and many such unlivable spaces, 00:00:59.773 --> 00:01:02.701 without clean water, toilets or housing. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:03.841 --> 00:01:06.405 But these places are not unfamiliar to me, 00:01:06.429 --> 00:01:10.730 because since the age of six, I accompanied my father, a doctor, 00:01:10.754 --> 00:01:13.728 who treated patients in the slums of Bombay. 00:01:13.752 --> 00:01:16.736 Growing up, I would help him carry his bag of medicines 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:17.934 after school lessons -- 00:01:17.958 --> 00:01:19.225 I loved doing that. 00:01:19.744 --> 00:01:22.276 Wanting to do something about these habitats, 00:01:22.300 --> 00:01:24.997 I decided to become an architect. 00:01:25.577 --> 00:01:27.863 But quite early on, I realized 00:01:27.887 --> 00:01:31.043 that the beauty of architecture was only for the rich. 00:01:31.782 --> 00:01:35.195 So I decided to do urban planning 00:01:35.219 --> 00:01:38.623 and joined an NGO in India that works with the urban poor 00:01:38.647 --> 00:01:41.633 who organize themselves to access basic services, 00:01:41.657 --> 00:01:45.331 such as water, sanitation and housing, for the poor living in cities. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:46.228 --> 00:01:51.927 Now I spent 10 years of my life in professional education, in learning, 00:01:51.951 --> 00:01:54.418 and then five years in unlearning it. 00:01:54.815 --> 00:01:57.061 Because I realized 00:01:57.085 --> 00:02:00.434 that all my training in architecture, design and planning 00:02:00.458 --> 00:02:02.553 failed ground realities. 00:02:03.879 --> 00:02:07.497 And this is where I learned the power of choice. 00:02:08.069 --> 00:02:10.044 I unlearned many things, 00:02:10.068 --> 00:02:11.908 but there are two myths about the poor 00:02:11.932 --> 00:02:14.625 that I would like to share that we live with. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:15.619 --> 00:02:17.643 The first myth is a perception 00:02:17.667 --> 00:02:21.095 that migration of poor people into cities is a problem. 00:02:22.572 --> 00:02:24.904 Is migration really a choice? 00:02:25.831 --> 00:02:27.863 My mentor Sheela Patel 00:02:27.887 --> 00:02:31.410 asked to those who think of this as a problem, 00:02:31.434 --> 00:02:34.830 "Go ask your grandfather where he came from," she says. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:37.798 --> 00:02:40.933 So what do poor people do when they migrate in cities? 00:02:40.957 --> 00:02:42.557 Let me share an example. 00:02:43.188 --> 00:02:45.609 This is the Mumbai international airport. 00:02:45.633 --> 00:02:49.355 All that you see in blue are large informal settlements around it. 00:02:49.862 --> 00:02:52.754 Close to 75,000 people live here. 00:02:53.445 --> 00:02:58.751 So who are these people that work silently in hotels, restaurants, 00:02:58.775 --> 00:03:02.077 as laborers, babysitters, house helps 00:03:02.101 --> 00:03:03.752 and countless other jobs 00:03:03.776 --> 00:03:06.522 that we need for cities to function without a glitch? 00:03:07.133 --> 00:03:08.666 And where do they live? 00:03:09.165 --> 00:03:12.037 In most cities, they live in slums. 00:03:13.204 --> 00:03:14.728 So let us think again. 00:03:15.204 --> 00:03:18.137 Do we want poor people to stop migrating in our cities? 00:03:19.278 --> 00:03:22.039 What if they had a choice of not to? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.730 --> 00:03:27.793 The second myth is my personal experience. 00:03:28.188 --> 00:03:31.922 It's this attitude that we professionals know better. 00:03:32.688 --> 00:03:35.634 We professionals love to make choices for others, 00:03:35.658 --> 00:03:37.523 especially for the poor. 00:03:37.547 --> 00:03:39.347 Let me share an experience. 00:03:40.349 --> 00:03:44.650 In a workshop that looked at designing 250 new houses for poor families 00:03:44.674 --> 00:03:46.579 from a slum nearby, 00:03:46.603 --> 00:03:50.090 there were different building materials that were presented, 00:03:50.114 --> 00:03:53.662 ranging from papier-mâché, cardboard, honeycomb, etc., 00:03:53.686 --> 00:03:55.649 simply because they were affordable. 00:03:56.646 --> 00:04:00.217 But there was this one idea that was of shipping containers. 00:04:01.370 --> 00:04:03.029 Now we immediately approved of it, 00:04:03.053 --> 00:04:06.735 because we thought it was sustainable, scalable, affordable. 00:04:07.553 --> 00:04:09.434 But during this presentation, 00:04:09.458 --> 00:04:11.924 a lady from the slum humbly spoke up. 00:04:12.545 --> 00:04:15.046 And she asked the presenter, 00:04:15.070 --> 00:04:17.012 "Would you choose to live in it?" NOTE Paragraph 00:04:17.458 --> 00:04:18.878 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:19.514 --> 00:04:22.505 "If not, then why did you think we would?" 00:04:23.704 --> 00:04:26.577 Now this was a personal unlearning moment for me, 00:04:26.601 --> 00:04:30.069 where I realized that poverty only changes affordability -- 00:04:30.093 --> 00:04:32.160 it does not change aspirations. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:33.268 --> 00:04:37.283 Now poor people have lived in temporary structures all their life. 00:04:37.307 --> 00:04:38.839 They go from wall to wall, 00:04:38.863 --> 00:04:40.772 moving from bricks to tin. 00:04:41.307 --> 00:04:43.450 They move from building from bamboo, 00:04:43.474 --> 00:04:46.474 tarpaulin sheets, plastic, to cardboard, to tin, 00:04:46.498 --> 00:04:47.649 to bricks and cement, 00:04:47.673 --> 00:04:49.273 just like the way we do. 00:04:50.069 --> 00:04:53.633 So somewhere here, we were forcing our choices on them. 00:04:53.657 --> 00:04:56.125 So should we force our choices on them, 00:04:56.149 --> 00:04:58.656 or should we broaden their choices? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:59.752 --> 00:05:03.219 Now what if the opportunity to choose was given to was given to people? 00:05:03.998 --> 00:05:08.512 These are women who lived on the pavements of a neighborhood in Mumbai. 00:05:09.037 --> 00:05:12.849 Now they faced constant evictions, and in response to it, 00:05:12.873 --> 00:05:16.339 they organized a women's network called Mahila Milan. 00:05:17.055 --> 00:05:20.839 Not only did they fight against evictions with those in power, 00:05:20.863 --> 00:05:23.141 saved money and bought land, 00:05:23.165 --> 00:05:26.696 but they also designed and helped construct their own houses. 00:05:27.538 --> 00:05:30.837 Well, these were illiterate women, so how did they do that? 00:05:32.593 --> 00:05:36.923 They used floor mats and saris to understand measurements. 00:05:37.423 --> 00:05:41.549 A sari is four meters in length and one point five meters in width. 00:05:42.098 --> 00:05:46.700 They used these simple day-to-day items to demonstrate house models. 00:05:47.115 --> 00:05:49.965 And even they made three options to choose from 00:05:49.989 --> 00:05:53.040 and invited all their fellow residents to come and have a look. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:53.064 --> 00:05:54.750 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:54.774 --> 00:05:59.135 And everybody loved this option that had a loft in it, 00:05:59.159 --> 00:06:01.119 simply because it did two things. 00:06:01.143 --> 00:06:04.683 One is that it accommodated larger families to sleep in, 00:06:04.707 --> 00:06:07.720 and two, it allowed home-based work, 00:06:07.744 --> 00:06:10.108 such and bangle-making, jewelry-designing, 00:06:10.132 --> 00:06:12.973 embroidery-stitching, packaging items, etc. 00:06:14.212 --> 00:06:17.745 Now they also decided to not have a toilet inside, 00:06:17.769 --> 00:06:20.698 but instead have it outside in the corridors, 00:06:20.722 --> 00:06:23.602 simply because it gave them more space and it was cheaper. 00:06:25.095 --> 00:06:27.540 Now, professionals could have never thought 00:06:27.564 --> 00:06:28.885 of something like that. 00:06:29.798 --> 00:06:33.663 A formal design would have necessitated to have a toilet inside. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:35.259 --> 00:06:37.688 Now these are smaller examples -- 00:06:37.712 --> 00:06:40.077 let me share some larger context. 00:06:41.228 --> 00:06:43.475 Eight hundred eighty-one million people -- 00:06:43.499 --> 00:06:46.593 that's about one sixth of this world, as we talk here -- 00:06:46.617 --> 00:06:49.051 are living in slums and informal settlements. 00:06:49.482 --> 00:06:55.130 Almost every city in the global south has large slums in the size of townships. 00:06:55.789 --> 00:06:58.416 Kibera, in Nairobi, 00:06:59.313 --> 00:07:01.211 Dharavi, in Mumbai, 00:07:03.046 --> 00:07:05.664 Khayelitsha in South Africa, just a few. 00:07:06.903 --> 00:07:10.473 Now initially, they were all on waste and abandoned lands 00:07:10.497 --> 00:07:12.412 that cities were never interested in. 00:07:12.857 --> 00:07:14.110 As cities grew, 00:07:14.134 --> 00:07:16.460 poor people started building on these lands 00:07:16.484 --> 00:07:18.817 and brought value to this over time. 00:07:20.038 --> 00:07:23.393 And today, these lands have become real-estate hot spots 00:07:23.417 --> 00:07:25.550 that everybody wants a piece of. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:26.331 --> 00:07:29.713 So how do cities and those in power chose to deal with them? 00:07:31.442 --> 00:07:33.678 They demolish them and evict them 00:07:33.702 --> 00:07:37.448 and move them away from their cities and economies 00:07:37.472 --> 00:07:39.995 in order to build a new infrastructure. 00:07:41.456 --> 00:07:44.099 They move them into vertical housing, 00:07:45.234 --> 00:07:47.879 which in reality looks like this. 00:07:48.982 --> 00:07:50.782 Now when built in high densities, 00:07:50.806 --> 00:07:52.744 they lack natural light and ventilation, 00:07:52.768 --> 00:07:55.206 and it often leads to unhealthy conditions. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:56.815 --> 00:07:58.702 Now, on one hand, 00:07:58.726 --> 00:08:02.218 poor people are not involved in the participation of design, 00:08:02.242 --> 00:08:04.649 and there is poor quality of construction. 00:08:04.673 --> 00:08:07.139 And on the other hand, 00:08:07.163 --> 00:08:09.465 they do not understand how to do maintenance, 00:08:09.489 --> 00:08:13.323 you know, keeping bills, keeping records, forming societies -- 00:08:13.347 --> 00:08:15.050 this is always difficult for them. 00:08:16.564 --> 00:08:21.056 And being forced to move into this formal society, 00:08:21.080 --> 00:08:23.833 they end up looking like this in a few years. 00:08:24.580 --> 00:08:26.913 Because formalization is not a product, 00:08:26.937 --> 00:08:28.088 it's a process. 00:08:28.112 --> 00:08:31.569 Moving from informal to formal for poor people is a journey. 00:08:31.903 --> 00:08:34.450 It takes time to accept and adapt. 00:08:36.187 --> 00:08:38.569 And when that choice is not given, 00:08:38.593 --> 00:08:39.821 it becomes like this, 00:08:39.845 --> 00:08:43.450 which I'm afraid, in future, these would become the slums. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:47.077 Now instead of doing this, 00:08:47.101 --> 00:08:49.482 what if we accommodated poor people 00:08:49.506 --> 00:08:52.053 and gave them a choice to be a part of our cities 00:08:52.077 --> 00:08:54.180 and develop them where they are, 00:08:54.204 --> 00:08:56.894 giving them basic services, like in this picture? 00:08:58.553 --> 00:09:02.093 Now what happens if cities and governments could work together, 00:09:02.117 --> 00:09:04.950 if governments acknowledge poor people, 00:09:04.974 --> 00:09:06.894 and they could build it together? NOTE Paragraph 00:09:07.458 --> 00:09:09.061 This is Mukuru. 00:09:09.609 --> 00:09:12.433 It's a large informal settlement in Nairobi. 00:09:12.457 --> 00:09:14.781 It's one of the largest settlements in Africa. 00:09:15.244 --> 00:09:17.410 It's home to 300,000 people 00:09:17.434 --> 00:09:20.069 living over 650 acres of land. 00:09:21.007 --> 00:09:22.624 To help us understand that scale, 00:09:22.648 --> 00:09:25.464 it's like squeezing the population of Pittsburgh 00:09:25.488 --> 00:09:27.421 into the New York Central Park. 00:09:28.396 --> 00:09:29.546 That's Mukuru. 00:09:31.220 --> 00:09:32.982 So to give us a glimpse, 00:09:33.006 --> 00:09:35.206 this is the condition of housing. 00:09:36.776 --> 00:09:38.978 And this is what it is in between them. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:41.105 --> 00:09:44.465 So what is life in Mukuru like, just talking briefly? 00:09:45.065 --> 00:09:49.339 Five hundred and fifty people use one single water tap 00:09:49.363 --> 00:09:50.857 and pay nine times more 00:09:50.881 --> 00:09:53.569 than what anybody else in the city could pay, 00:09:53.593 --> 00:09:55.831 simply because there is no water infrastructure 00:09:55.855 --> 00:09:57.055 and water is sold. 00:09:58.546 --> 00:10:02.720 Many come back from work to find out that their houses do not exist, 00:10:02.744 --> 00:10:04.926 because they have either been bulldozed, 00:10:04.950 --> 00:10:06.479 or they have been burned down. 00:10:08.695 --> 00:10:10.758 So, tired of this situation, 00:10:10.782 --> 00:10:13.659 a local slum dwellers' federation called Muungano 00:10:13.683 --> 00:10:15.647 decided to do something about it. 00:10:16.227 --> 00:10:17.696 In four years, 00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:22.133 they organized 20,000 residents to collect data, 00:10:22.157 --> 00:10:25.061 map structures and put it together. 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:27.910 And the plan was very simple -- 00:10:27.934 --> 00:10:29.720 they only needed four things. 00:10:29.744 --> 00:10:31.696 They wanted clean water, 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:34.331 toilets, decent roads 00:10:34.355 --> 00:10:37.022 and, most importantly, not to be evicted. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:38.958 --> 00:10:42.069 So they presented this with the government of Nairobi. 00:10:42.492 --> 00:10:45.262 And for the first time in history ever, 00:10:45.286 --> 00:10:47.086 a city has agreed to do it. 00:10:47.500 --> 00:10:49.716 The city of Nairobi, the government of Kenya, 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:53.212 declared Mukuru to be a special planning area. 00:10:53.236 --> 00:10:56.467 which means that people could come up with their own plan. 00:10:56.491 --> 00:11:00.291 People could decide to come up with their own norms and standards, 00:11:00.315 --> 00:11:03.251 because the standards that work for the formal citizens 00:11:03.275 --> 00:11:05.142 do not work in informal settings. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:05.887 --> 00:11:08.648 So what does that mean, to give us an instance? 00:11:09.736 --> 00:11:11.204 If these are roads in Mukuru, 00:11:11.228 --> 00:11:14.942 you can see that there are houses along both sides of the road. 00:11:15.815 --> 00:11:18.712 Now in order to bring in a city bus, 00:11:18.736 --> 00:11:20.037 as for the standards, 00:11:20.061 --> 00:11:23.696 planners would have gone for a luxurious 25-meter-wide road. 00:11:24.585 --> 00:11:29.133 Now that would mean displacing 25 percent of the structures -- 00:11:29.157 --> 00:11:30.623 that's a lot of people. 00:11:31.823 --> 00:11:35.782 So instead of doing that, we came up with a 12-meter-wide road, 00:11:35.806 --> 00:11:38.719 which had the structures intact and brought the city bus 00:11:38.743 --> 00:11:41.060 without compromising on much services. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:42.203 --> 00:11:46.204 In another instance, let's talk about community toilets. 00:11:46.228 --> 00:11:47.785 You know, in high-density areas, 00:11:47.809 --> 00:11:50.633 where there is no scope for individual toilets, 00:11:50.657 --> 00:11:52.950 like the public toilets that we have here. 00:11:53.665 --> 00:11:56.982 So we would go for a male section and a female section. 00:11:57.894 --> 00:11:59.694 But imagine this situation. 00:12:00.141 --> 00:12:03.037 In the morning rush hours to the toilet, 00:12:03.061 --> 00:12:06.291 when everybody is in intense pressure to relieve themselves, 00:12:06.315 --> 00:12:08.901 and if you're standing in a queue of 50 people, 00:12:08.925 --> 00:12:11.734 and there is a child standing behind an adult, 00:12:11.758 --> 00:12:12.908 who wins? 00:12:14.203 --> 00:12:16.470 Children end up squatting outside. 00:12:17.004 --> 00:12:19.077 And that's why women decided 00:12:19.101 --> 00:12:21.974 to come up with a separate squatting area for children. 00:12:21.998 --> 00:12:24.429 Now, who could have thought of something like that? NOTE Paragraph 00:12:25.427 --> 00:12:28.304 The idea here is that when poor people choose, 00:12:28.328 --> 00:12:29.884 they choose better. 00:12:29.908 --> 00:12:32.041 They choose what works for them. 00:12:33.551 --> 00:12:35.773 So choice is everything. 00:12:35.797 --> 00:12:37.939 And power decides choice. 00:12:38.363 --> 00:12:41.609 And we need those in power -- 00:12:41.633 --> 00:12:44.426 politicians, leaders, governments, 00:12:44.450 --> 00:12:47.651 architects, planners, institutions, researchers -- 00:12:47.675 --> 00:12:51.638 and all of us in our everyday lives to respect choices. 00:12:52.857 --> 00:12:56.982 Instead of choosing what is right for people, for the poor, 00:12:57.006 --> 00:12:59.939 let's acknowledge and empower their choices. 00:13:00.307 --> 00:13:02.050 And that is how we can build 00:13:02.074 --> 00:13:04.515 better and inclusive cities for tomorrow, 00:13:04.539 --> 00:13:06.301 completing the imagery of cities 00:13:06.325 --> 00:13:08.959 built by the choices of its own people. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:08.983 --> 00:13:10.134 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:10.158 --> 00:13:13.962 (Applause)