Tag Archives: static city

Informal Intervention

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Architects have to ability to become urbanites and work with the higher political and economic powers which cause constant movements of religious and trade communities in the slum cities. At the street level, architects have no business with clients but they are able to work at a larger scale. I am not saying that there is a need to change the systems that are already in place because they are in some way problematic, but these systems can be enhanced and nurtured to produce even more efficiency to the system.

In “Living in the Endless City” by Ricky Burdett and Dayan Sudjic, Rahul Mehrotra discusses how Mumbai is a Static City and also a Kinetic City. The Static City is all the infrastructure and permanent constructions that define streets and neighborhoods and overlapping with those is the constantly changing Kinetic City. There is the city which is constructed by markets and festivals which changes space and ownerships by the minute. The Kinetic City is out of the control of any political, economic, or even architectural organization, it simply exists in the present. As communities get pushed out of certain areas, others move in and change the Static condition making the Static City affected and part of the Kinetic City. There is potential in this overlapping relationship which can foster opportunities for architectural interventions.

In the case of Dharavi, “’Redeveloping’ a place like Dharavi is no easy matter, as successive government and planning authorities have discovered” (xxiv, Sharma). Slums don’t necessarily need to be redeveloped or gentrified for the higher classes to move in later. Instead, infrastructure can be focused on to benefit existing conditions so that people can stay and thrive rather than be pushed out. Monuments become markers and public transportation offers connectivity. These Static City constructions can be strategically useful for networks like the Dabbawalas which are illiterate and need symbolic markers throughout the city. Architects can recognize the realities of slums like Mumbai and Dharavi and instead of proposing a Haussman plan to destroy and rebuild the land, they can increase the effects of positive cultural systems.

 

Sources

 

“Living in the Endless City”, London School of Economics

“Dabbawals, Tiffin Carriers of Mumbai: Answering a Need for Specific Catering”, Marie Percot

“Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories From Asia’s Largest Slum”, Kalpana Sharma

Exploding Myths

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When thinking about the attitudes of people living in slums, an assumption that seems easy to make is that the people forced to live in slum conditions will be bitter, depressed, and aggressive to get what they need. This would be linked to crime and violence that should be a regular occurrence in a place packed full of people with an attitude such as this. When compounded with religious tension and rivalry, it should only make matters worse. However, when reading about the slums in Mumbai, India, the opposite is true. Kalpana Sharma describes in his book Rediscovering Dharavi this assumption: “it is this deemed illegal status of informal settlements like Dharavi that makes people presume that they are breeding grounds for criminals and other ‘antisocial’ elements. It is also assumed that the spatial layout of such settlements, where people have no place to breathe and live literally on top of each other, exacerbated tensions – communal, class or caste….[yet] Dharavi explodes these myths.” Even though clashes have happened between the groups of Muslims and Hindus living together, Sharma demonstrates that the statistics are drastically low for this area.

A sense of community and dependence on others and the avoidance of conflict makes sense to cultivate in a slum environment, which benefits all parties involved. When trying to survive and provide for your family and yourself, fear of violence and crime is understandably something to avoid at all costs. In what may be seen as a benefit of this understanding is the link that the Mumbai slums have with the formal city. The connection between the “static city,” the formal, legal construct of Mumbai, and the “kinetic city,” the informal, always-changing slums, can be seen as desirable. Described by Rahul Mehrotra in Living in the Endless City, the attitude of being able to live together despite differences within the slums has become a conduit for the interconnectedness of the poorer class in the kinetic city living and inhabiting Mumbai alongside the static city.

The shared sense of community and survival of the kinetic city, with its drastically impermanent environment and the need to adapt to different neighbors and people groups is something that is worth studying more. In different places where kinetic-static city relationships exist, it would be interesting to observe the relationships between the communities and the individuals who share the same heritage and cultural backgrounds and locations.

In an interesting related post, this article notes the ways in which lower-income families in the Unites States have historically and consistently been more generous in terms of giving money, despite a lacking of it.

http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120826/LOCAL10/308269954

Illegitimacy Becoming Legitimate

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The situation within Mumbai shows that a strong and complex relationship exits between those in the city that are illegitimate, the “kinetic city” and those that are legitimate, the “static city”. [1] This relationship is, in a way, self-serving in how the static city legitimizes the kinetic city. Mehrotra depicts the kinetic city as brushed under the rug to make room for the static city, but the physical girth of the kinetic city has made that less of an option. Therefore the static city has no choice but to acknowledge the presence of the kinetic city. This acknowledgement of the kinetic city, is more then simply an acknowledgement of a problem but more a confession. The static city had in a way denied the existence of the kinetic city.

This new acceptance alters the relationship that exists between the static and kinetic city. The static city, the city of the working class has legitimacy. The inhabitants that make up the static city follow the norms of the established society with all the legal ramifications and standards that come with it. They have legitimacy as a people and as individuals. The static city did not have the legitimacy. But the new relationship between the two gives the static city legitimacy. As the kinetic city grew and became more complex it forced it self into a position where it had to coexists with the static city. This created the opportunity for interaction.

The dabbawalas are an example of this legitimacy and interaction. The working class of Mumbai, the static city, and the dabbawalas, the kinetic city, exists in a homeostatic relationship. The dabbawalas need the socially motivated wishes of the working class to have a home cooked meal for lunch as to provide them with jobs while the static city needs the dabbawalas to indulge there wishes. [2] This relationship forces the working class to realize the existence of the kinetic city. This admittance of existence is what gives the static city its legitimacy. The working class is now integrating the lower class into existence.

This legitimacy has effects on both the kinetic city and the static city. If the kinetic city was to be threatened then the static city too will change. If the dabbawalas cannot do there job because the trains stop working then the static city loses it home cooked lunch on a day to day basis. The static city has now become dependent on the survival of he kinetic city and the systems and infrastructure that maintains the institution of the dabbawalas and the kinetic city.

This is based on the idea that the static city legitimized the kinetic city, but it is very possible that the kinetic city delegitimizes the static city. If the static city has become dependent on the kinetic city and the practices of the kinetic city, with out directly altering the nature of the kinetic city, yet becoming dependent of the kinetic city it can be said that the kinetic city is the instigator of change.

 

[1] “Living in the Endless City”, Rahul Mehrotra. pg 108.

[2]” Dabbawalas, Tiffin Carriers of Mumbai: Answering a Need for Specific Catering”, Marie Percot. pg. 2