We are all children of Mike Davis. The publication of his City of Quartz was an inspiring moment when we realized that we can and should talk about cities not just as architects and urbanists but also as engaged citizens, critics and activists, allowing ourselves to be confused by an urban experience of infinite depth. He introduced us to a perverted aesthetic where urban dreadfulness became attractive and fascinating. A camera on a street corner, a homeless-proof bench, defensive walls were all turned into iconic expressions of the paranoid urbanity of a city living in fear of itself.

The simple act of taking a picture of a surveillance camera and walking these supposedly dangerous streets came across as gesture of defiance, a direct engagement with the urban realm, and a kind of cure to the city’s neurosis. The idea that anyone can be an urbanist stayed on our minds . All we really need is to explore our environment, critically assess it and let our imagination drift. We don’t need to be urbanists to have ideas about space, what we need is a direct engagement.

Mike Davis’ intimate relationship with Los Angeles is what made City of Quartz a great read, and it is what is terribly lacking in his Planet of Slums, which at times reads more like a UN report than anything else. The intention was noble and the topic is obviously of critical relevance, but a direct form of engagement with the topic was missing. Not that Mike Davis never stepped in a slum before. No doubt he has many friends in many parts of the world. The problem was rather that he tried to say too much about slums, putting an enormously varied bunch of habitats in one very problematic and ill defined category. In fact slums around the world share little in common, apart from a vague definition born from the uncreative minds of bureaucrats and academics. According to the United Nation Task Force in Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers, a slum is “a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following necessities: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, structural quality and durability of dwellings, and security of tenure.”

Oh my God, my Tokyo apartment is a slum!

This type of broad amalgamation and labeling opens the way to all kinds of man-made urban disasters. The well-intentioned UN Millennium project targets to “Have achieved by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.” How do you realistically make a difference on such a scale? Just to get an idea of the extent of the project, 100 million is anything between 100 and 200 Dharavi, which as a settlement definitively fits in the UN definition of a slum -although many of the residents do not conceive of it as such. 100 million is a third of the US population. How can you invent a program that can impact the living conditions of so many people at once?

Lets imagine a best case scenario; an UN officer’s dream: An enlightened new US president gets elected and says: “No more war, we will give instead all these billions to the UN so it can accomplish its target of improving the life of 100 million slum dwellers.” The UN officer smiles in his sleep and his dream flies to the near-by bedroom of a real-estate developer: Mass housing construction for 100 million people throughout the world. His smile is twice as large as that of the UN bureaucrat. What a project!

“I will make world-class townships and improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers!…”

That would translate in the redevelopment of hundreds of thousands settlements throughout the world. And everyone would ride on a great feeling of social justice. Except that Redevelopment is not development. Development is what is happening all the time in so-called slums throughout the world and it is not just urban, but also economic, political, social and cultural. Redevelopment plans do much less for the concerned population and much more for private developers and financial institutions than is often believed. They actually often do more harm than good, especially large scale ones.

The main problem with large scale development projects, such as the Dharavi Redevelopment Project is that they usually have no consideration for the neighborhoods they are set to redevelop. After all, these are slums and slums can only be seen in negative terms. Most middle-class people sincerely conceive of slum as urban junk. And anyone pointing out to that the settlements in questions cannot be reduced to their depressed appearance, but are also complex economies with intricate social webs and vibrant cultural life, will immediately be called “romantic”. By the way, this generic “romantic” label put on anyone questioning the dominant logic of urban development ought to be the theme of a future post on this blog.

Moving people from their makeshift homes to a mass-produced concrete building won’t turn them into middle-class citizens by magic. If anything is truly “romantic” it is this crazy idea and conviction. Just as the idea that middle-class pity and paternalism will help the poor in any way. As our good friend Bhau, who was born in Dharavi and lived there his whole life, often reminds us:

“They say they will redevelop Dharavi, but look at what they’re doing! These high-rise buildings mushrooming all round us. Families who are given a flat are soon selling and leaving. They need money because they cannot continue with their livelihoods in these buildings. People living in these high-rises don’t know their neighbours anymore. This street activity will be gone. Where will my people go now? They say it is development but it’s just the opposite.”

So Mike, if by any chance you come across this blog and are reading these lines: We love you as a street-wise urban prophet, but not so much as a proxy UN reporter. The real-life vision and direct engagement that we liked so much in City of Quartz was missing from your Planet of Slums. Please stop reading statistics and come join us in Koliwada-Dharavi!

More on that theme here.