The Rise of Slums (er Squatter)

Land economics, faulty policies and builder driven unusual political understanding is pushing slums to new heights. What used to be a single to double storey squatter settlement has now become/or is in the process of becoming a multi storey slum (6 to 8 storeys). What is good is that the erstwhile squatters, having got ownership of a tenement are no longer squatters but they still live in a slum, or to put it other way the settlement they are given may as well get transformed to a slum later.

Confused with squatters and slums? A lot of people do get so. As per oxford dictionary “squatter” means “a building occupied by people living in it without the legal right to do so”. It may be a building, land or property and it is not necessary that the structure be temporary or permanent and not necessarily a dilapidated one. Similarly “Slum” has been defined as a squalid and overcrowded urban street or district inhabited by very poor people/a house or building unfit for human habitation. It may not necessarily mean an illegal occupation. It relates to the economic conditions of survival and degraded sanitation levels for the people. Different countries have different criterion for identification of slums. Slums may or may not necessarily be a squatter settlement, but generally all squatter settlement happen to be slums because those inhabiting them are poor, have no access to basic civic or sanitation services and are densely populated.

India’s fame or rather its infamy is its large swathe of slums and a large percentage of urban poor. It is recognized for the fact that these slums have a large flourishing economy some of them contributing about a billion dollars to the national economy. The high cost of living, the larger household sizes and suppression from authorities and other powers to be, makes them inventive of new sources of revenue and untapped opportunities. After all necessity is the mother of all inventions.

Now if the slums have such a thriving economy, why have they not been able to improve their conditions to rise above? Is it the security of tenure preventing them or the lack of political will and initiative or is it the slum dwellers greed having squatted on prime land and who do not want to relinquish the location (the land is not theirs after all).

The “Green” Revolution

In the recent past months there has been a lot of noise regarding the Copenhagen summit on climate change, Kyoto protocol commitments, Green House Gas emissions, sustainability etcetera on a global scale. Closer home the bad monsoons have resulted in droughts and shortage of drinking water supply, erratic climate patterns. All these have resulted in a call for adoption of “Green” approach towards everything, every process, life cycle and toward every human need - be it built forms, water, fuel resources, food or any materialistic & non materialistic pursuit. “Green” has become the keyword for development now.

Why green? What is that “Green” signifies’ that today this keyword “green” has come to be associated with every process, every structure, and every community that we imagine for the future? “Green” is just a color, a median among a rainbow of colors and yet there are countless voices which can be heard from across continents of  the world which talk about a “Green” future. What then signifies this green movement? Just as the trees and plants convert Carbon dioxide to Oxygen, replenishing or renewing our atmosphere with fresh oxygen, so that our ecological environment (also consisting of human and other species of life) can “sustain” in this world for a long time, we need to have mechanisms, community and possibly structure which carry on the same endeavor – sustainability. So we can have Sustainable communities, sustainable buildings, sustainable processes and mechanism. Metaphorically, the term “Green” has been used to mean “sustainability”, being inspired from the color of trees/plants in general, which otherwise essay the nature defined role of sustainability.
In the Built environment space, we have “Green Buildings” which thanks to the pioneering role of Robert K Watson and the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) in the development of LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Ratings system have become benchmark for sustainability. In India, there is the Indian Green Buildings Council (IGBC), a licentiate of the USGBC’s LEED® rating system, which promotes the development of “Green buildings” in India. The Indian Government is also promoting an indigenously developed rating system GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment), promoted by TERI (The Environmental Research Institute) and also the Energy conservation Star ratings promoted by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) for and based on the usage of electronic/electrical/power appliances and machineries.
Such small “Green”steps taken today will go a long way in having a sustainable and safe life tomorrow for all of us.