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Every year, millions of people around the world are leaving the countryside for cities, hoping to find a better life. But most end up in slums. In fact, the United Nations estimates that by the year 2020, 40% of the population will be slum-dwellers.
We travel with CBC reporter Avril Benoît into the slums of Mumbai, India and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her journey through areas suffering from abject poverty is also a journey to the heights of human strength and tenacity.
MUMBAI
The city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) has a population of 10 million. Double that if you were encompassing the greater metropolis. Mumbai is the largest city in India – the third largest in the world, after Tokyo and Mexico City, according to City Mayors. While slum pockets cover a mere 6% of the land in Mumbai, they hold 60% of the population. This means that those tiny slum enclaves hold a staggering 6 million people. Avril travels with her crew to Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. There, her visit highlights the mixed results of India’s slum rehabilitation projects.
Mumbai’s slums are under mounting pressure. The land they sit on is in the heart of the city—some of the most valuable real estate in Asia. But they’re illegal—the residents have no title to the land. The state has entered into deals with private industry to re-develop the land and provide new housing for slum dwellers—but that housing is often out in the countryside, far from the places most slum dwellers work.
Our cameras were rolling during a very dramatic scene – a slum demolition by government crews that happened without warning to the residents. This near-daily occurrence has a devastating impact on its dwellers. These flimsy shacks are their everything – their home, their shelter, their only possession. But these slum dwellers are the backbone of India’s society and economy. They work as construction workers, train operators, factory workers and do all the other low-paying jobs that keep Mumbai’s economy functioning.
Avril takes the viewers to meet with various stakeholders in Mumbai's slum situation:
And we hear the passion of Shabana Azmi, a Bollywood star and Member of Parliament fighting for the rights of slum-dwellers.
RIO DE JANEIRO
Rio de Janeiro is home to 12 million people. One third of Rio’s population lives in slums, known as favelas. There are almost 800 favelas in Rio de Janeiro alone. They often co-exisit side by side -- but in sharp contrast with the opulent neighbourhoods and tourist-filled beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana.
Avril takes the viewer on an exploration of the bustling favela of Rocinha, the largest in Rio. Although Rocinha is still a favela, it has developed from a shanty town into an urbanized slum. Unlike the wooden shacks that are characteristic of the slums of Mumbai, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro are substantially more built up. Almost all the houses in Rocinha are five to seven stories high and made of concrete with basic sanitation, plumbing and electricity. But don’t let this facade fool you.
Rocinha, like many of Rio’s favelas, falls under the control of drug-trafficking groups and gangs. These groups maintain a very high level of control over social behaviour, strictly prohibiting street crimes such as rape, muggings and break-ins. They are, however, heavily involved in drug-trafficking. Rocinha alone is responsible for 30% of narcotraffic in Rio. Such gangs in Rio have historically been involved in armed struggles, bank robberies, kidnapping and murder. Not only that, but the frequency of gun battles between police and rival gangs in these communities present real dangers. Our crew got caught up in a gun battle as the cameras were rolling. It was a dangerous experience for the crew but a true reflection of the dangers that underlie a seemingly quiet veneer.
However, the residents of Rocinha are tenacious and entrepreneurial. We meet:
We then go to Vigário Geral, another favela on the northern edge of Rio de Janeiro that is infamous for its intense drug trade and for a massacre in 1993 in which police killed 21 residents. There, we meet members of the rock and hip hop band AfroReggae whose members empower children from Rio de Janeiro's favelas through workshops in dance and art. They use culture to steer youths away from the drug trade and provide them with the means to communicate with society in a way that has captured the attention of national and international foundations, governments and the news media.
Photo Galleries:
Mumbai Photo Gallery - photos by Avril Benoît
The Favelas of Rio Photo Gallery
CBC Radio:
Dispatches: Avril Benoît report on slums
"There's a part of Cairo they call the City of the Dead, though it's anything but.
The name comes from the fact it is a sprawling cemetery.
But due to Cairo's acute housing shortage, the above-ground tombs have been colonised over the years by more than five-million of the city's poorest.
It is a slum, make no mistake. But unique as slums go; people are friendly, the architecture is exquisite. And while it is a graveyard, you're never far from a coffee shop.
But then, every slum has its own rhythm, and its own surprising industry, as we hear now in this essay from the CBC's Avril Benoit, who has recently completed a year-long tour of some of the world's largest slums."
The Current: Mumbai - a radio documentary by Avril Benoit
"The city of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is enjoying one of the hottest real estate markets in the world. It's a bonanza for land speculators, but the bane of the poor who keep the city running... But while the state government has won international kudos for its progressive policy toward slums, squatters living on public land remain at the mercy of developers. Since 1995, longtime squatters, or PAPS, project affected persons, were assured that developers would include low-cost housing in their plans to build condos, office towers and malls. If only those promises were kept. The CBC's Avril Benoît took us on a tour of Mumbai's slums, where the greatest threat is eviction."
Mike Davis - Feature Interview (The Current)
"Earlier this week, Anna Maria Tremonti took us into the shanty towns surrounding Buenos Aires and Avril Benoît told us about the harsh realities of living in a Mumbai slum. It was part of the Current's global take on what makes cities work. And yesterday we tried to apply some of those lessons to Canadian cities.
A lot of that conversation focused on the difficult questions of how and where to house the steady influx of people into the cities. Outside Canada the answer for many cities is the slum.
Because, tragically, slums are the only form of housing that seems to be keeping up with demand. Mike Davis has been studying housing patterns for years and has just published a new book called Planet of Slums. He joined us this morning from San Diego."
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
Avril Benoît bio
CBC Cityspace - cbc.ca
World Urban Forum
Canada hosts the World Urban Forum in Vancouver from June 19-23, 2006. The theme: "Our Future: Sustainable Cities - Turning Ideas into Action."
Cities Alliance: Cities Without Slums
Mumbai:
Shack/Slum Dwellers International
"Megacities must urgently address the needs of slum dwellers to prevent human disaster" by Patricia Nunan (article about Mumbai on the City Mayors website)
Mumbai's Slum Rehabilitation Authority: Dharavi Redevelopment Project
Support Our Slums - Consultant Mukesh Mehta's website
"For a
new Mumbai, at great cost" by Anupama Katakam Frontline (India), Jan. 15, 2005
Rio de Janeiro:
Jorge Jauregui - architect and urbanist
AfroReggae: Funk, hip-hop, rock band and favela NGO (in Portuguese)
AfroReggae: From the favela to the world
(English-language website created for the band's 2006 UK tour)
Viva Favela portal (in English)
Tony Barros is the community photographer for Viva Favela.
Two Brothers Foundation, NGO providing educational opportunities in the favela of Rocinha
Favela-Bairro Program (The Slum-to-Neighborhood Program)
Some Introductory Remarks about a New City For a New Society
By Marcelo Lopes de Souza, 2003
Tracing the Evolution of Poverty in Rio's Favelas
A description of Janice Perlman's research about how life has changed for people in Rio's favelas over the last 30 years.
Includes links.
Publications:
"A Home in the City" - United Nations Millennium Project report: Task Force on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers
The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003 by the United Nations Human Settlements Program. (Chapter 1)
The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion - The World Bank, 2005 (205 page report)
Press kit for "The Slum Challenge" (scroll down)
Slum Ecology
BY Mike Davis, Photographs by Sebastiao Salgãdo. Orion Magazine Online, March-April, 2006
"A field guide to how the "other half" lives, replete with earthquakes, floods, and economic policies likely to expand the number of people living in squalor."
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, New Left
Review, March-April 2004
squattercity:
squatters and squatter cities around the world
- a blog by Robert Neuwirth, author of Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World (Routlege, 2004)
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DON MURRAY'S WORLD - column by CBC foreign correspondent Don Murray
FIGHTING FOR THE NEVER BORN - Adrienne Arsenault reports on the missing women of India
LAND GOLD AND WOMAN: CBC News Indepth feature MORE
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