Keep that in mind as you read the following article that is from an agenda-pushing globalist scitte sheet that said a depression would be a good idea; being poor is your fault; the financial crisis is the fault of American consumer; Boston business benefits from financial failings; financial failures are a good thing; that endless work and insecurity are a good thing; that these are the best of times; that this bear market is just like any other; that hunger is good business; that a shit pit is a good idea; has already told us what the Grand Depression of 2009 will look like; and thinks a nuclear war would be a good idea!
"Learning from slums; The world's slums are overcrowded, unhealthy - and increasingly seen as resourceful communities that can offer lessons to modern cities" by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow | March 1, 2009
NOT EVERYBODY LIKED "Slumdog Millionaire" as much as the Oscar committee did. Aside from slum dwellers offended by the title, some critics lambasted its portrait of life in Dharavi, the biggest slum in Mumbai, as exploitative. A Times of London columnist dubbed it "poverty porn" for inviting viewers to gawk at the squalor and violence of its setting.
I really couldn't give a shit; haven't seen it, and don't intend to!
But according to a less widely noticed perspective, the problem is not just voyeurism; it's the limited conception of slums, in that movie and in the public mind. No one denies that slums - also known as shantytowns, squatter cities, and informal settlements - have serious problems. They are as a rule overcrowded, unhealthy, and emblems of profound inequality. But among architects, planners, and other thinkers, there is a growing realization that they also possess unique strengths, and may even hold lessons in successful urban development....
When the RICHERS DESIGN ONE for themselves I'll listen; otherwise, FUCK OFF, Globe!!!!
Slums have assets along with their obvious shortcomings.
Then YOU WOULDN'T MIND TAKING UP RESIDENCE in one for a while, right, MSM shitter?
Their humming economic activity and proximity to city centers represent big advantages over the subsistence farming that many slum dwellers have fled.
Yeah, thanks to BIG AGRA CORPORATIONS that destroyed indigenous life and forced people into cities. I'm so sick of this shit-shoveling, I don't know how much longer I want to do this, readers.
Numerous observers have noted the enterprising spirit of these places, evident not only in their countless tiny businesses, but also in the constant upgrading and expansion of homes. Longstanding slum communities tend to be much more tightknit than many prosperous parts of the developed world, where neighbors hardly know one another.
Yeah, the POOR actually CARE about each other -- as opposed to Zionist-soaked AmeriKa and its values!!!
Indeed, slums embody many of the principles frequently invoked by urban planners: They are walkable, high-density, and mixed-use, meaning that housing and commerce mingle. Consider too that the buildings are often made of materials that would otherwise be piling up in landfills, and slums are by some measures exceptionally ecologically friendly.
Then a FEW RICHER MANSIONS wouldn't mind being built from the stuff, right?
Some countries have begun trying to mitigate the problems with slums rather than eliminate the slums themselves. Cable cars are being installed as transit in a few Latin American shantytowns, and some municipal governments have struck arrangements with squatters to connect them with electricity and sanitation services.
And there are thinkers who take the idea a step further, arguing that slums should prompt the rest of us to reconsider our own cities. While the idea of emulating slums may seem absurd, a number of planners and environmentalists say that we would do well to incorporate their promising elements....
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To be sure, there is something unseemly in privileged people rhapsodizing about such places....
Identifying the positive aspects of poverty risks glorifying it or rationalizing it. Moreover, some of the qualities extolled by analysts are direct results of deprivation. Low resource consumption may be good for the earth, but it is not the residents' choice. Most proponents of this thinking agree that it's crucial to address the conflict between improving standards of living and preserving the benefits of shantytowns.
But given the reality that poverty exists and seems unlikely to disappear soon, squatter cities can also be seen as a remarkably successful response to adversity - more successful, in fact, than the alternatives governments have tried to devise over the years. They also represent the future....
Seriously, readers, have you had enough? I doubt this little shitter plans on living in one any time soon, this little elite shitter from the MSM!
The word "slum" itself is controversial and slippery. In the United States, it is often used to refer simply to marginalized neighborhoods, but in developing countries, it usually means a settlement built in or near a city by the residents themselves, without official authorization or regulation. Housing is typically substandard, and the infrastructure and services range from nonexistent to improvised....
They include a wide range of economic levels and precariousness. In Kenya, about a million people live in Kibera, outside the city center of Nairobi. Its huts are built of mud and corrugated metal, trash is everywhere underfoot, and "flying toilets" - plastic bags used for defecation and then tossed - substitute for a sanitation system. In Istanbul, by contrast, where the city government has been more sympathetic, some squatter areas have water piped into every home.
Without some degree of government support, slums tend to be fetid and disease ridden, and until a few decades ago, the most popular approach to solving their problems was to demolish them.
That's YOUR FUTURE, Amurkns!!
How you SO DISAPPOINT ME, my do-nothing countrymen!
In the 1960s and 1970s, Brazil, for example, razed many of its slums, called favelas, and relocated residents to government housing. But since then, a new idea has emerged in development circles: that such settlements are more than eyesores; they are the product of years of residents' labor, and legitimate communities that should be improved rather than erased....
An early reappraisal came in the book "Freedom to Build: Dweller Control of the Housing Process" (1972), edited by John F. C. Turner and Robert Fichter. Some of the contributors had closely studied squatter communities in the developing world, and the book argued that when people had autonomy over their housing and their environments, the residents and the settlements thrived. The development community began to recognize the drawbacks of evicting people and relocating them, which can be "incredibly traumatic," says Diana Mitlin, senior research associate at the International Institute for Environment and Development in the UK. In 1975, the World Bank officially changed its position to endorse upgrading instead of new site development for squatters.
More recently, shantytowns have been reassessed in light of the growing awareness of the benefits of urbanization. Cities provide myriad economic opportunities that are lacking in the countryside, which is why millions of people stream in every month. They also offer freedom - especially, notes Stewart Brand, founder of the Long Now Foundation and author of the forthcoming book "Whole Earth Discipline," for women, who find greater access to jobs and education, as well as healthcare. Birthrates tend to fall when families move from villages to cities, not only thanks to family planning services, but also because more children, an asset on the farm, are a burden in the city.
Yeah, and LESS CHILDREN is a GOOD THING for AGENDA-PUSHING, GENOCIDAL GLOBALISTS!!! I think I'm going to be sick, readers.
What's more, cities are increasingly seen as good for the planet. Aside from slowing population growth, they're also more efficient in their use of resources, and allow abandoned land in the country to regenerate.
This is really making me ill. This kind of shit is offensive to the soul, readers.
Most of these benefits, of course, would accrue even if migrants were moving to apartments in fashionable districts. But in practice, urbanization means the movement of poor people into slums.
Well, that explains the state of U.S. cities.
And I'm SO TIRED of seeing STILL, IF, COULD BE, BUT, MAY BE, etc, etc, in the paper!! What this shitter is saying is "my written article here is really bullshit, BUT....!!!!!!!!
And while this reality certainly poses challenges, in the past few years, some analysts have begun to see slums as not simply the only realistic option, but as having certain advantages over formal settlements, especially the government-built high-rise projects where the poor are often housed.
Yeah, STAY in your slum so the GOVERNMENT doesn't have to carry you. After all, TAX MONEY is for CORPOARTE GIVEAWAYS, BANKS, and WAR-LOOTERS -- not HOUSING for the POOR!!!
Shantytowns are "pedestrian-friendly. There are small alleyways, the streets are narrow. Children can play in the streets," says Christian Werthmann, a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard.
Anyone else offended by some Harvard (Jewish) elitist saying this shit?
And have you checked the Downtown Crossing lately?
Some frustrating parts of slum life - the close quarters and the need to cooperate with neighbors in endeavors like obtaining services - have an upside: they can contribute to a strong sense of community. And although many shantytowns are dangerous, some actually have very low crime rates. Writing recently in the New York Times, two researchers affiliated with the Indian nonprofit Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research defended the highly developed slum of Dharavi as "perhaps safer than most American cities," protected by the watchful eyes of close-knit neighbors.
Just wondering why you Zionist shits in the media spend so much time dividing us with your agenda-pushing garbage then!
There is an ethos of self-reliance in communities independently built and continually rebuilt by their residents. Over the course of years or decades, residents may upgrade from cardboard to corrugated metal to brick, add floors on top of the roof. They are invested in their creations, and typically prefer them to the feasible alternatives.
This is making me really, really, sick.
"When people are relocated to places where government thinks they can be housed in a better way, they often move back," says Hank Dittmar, chief executive of Prince Charles's Foundation for the Built Environment. Living in a legal neighborhood would usually mean more money for less space, without the prospect of improving or expanding. And it might entail constraints that don't apply in the slums - for instance, zoning laws about where it's acceptable to operate businesses.
You would think agenda-pushing shitters would get a clue about those zoning REGULATIONS, but.... you would again be disappointed.
Another major concern of contemporary urban planners is ecological sustainability, and shantytowns get high marks for that, too. Teddy Cruz, who has spent a great deal of time in Tijuana, says, "These slums have been made with the waste of San Diego. . . . Aluminum windows, garage doors. Debris is building these slums."
Still, most shantytowns remain difficult and unhealthy places for people to live and grow up.
BUT(?)
They are also reviled by their wealthier neighbors, and as cities expand, sometimes they find themselves in the crosshairs of developers eager to build on their prime real estate. Some countries continue to clear slums: In 2005, Zimbabwe perpetrated brutal demolitions, called Operation Drive Out Trash, which left hundreds of thousands of settlers homeless....
How about ISREAL'S BULLDOZING of PALESTINIAN SLUMS, huh?
Why not MENTION THAT?!!!!!
Their richness suggests to some that the dominant American mode of living, for all its suburban comforts, has come at a price.
Then I'll bet you are prepared to give up your luxurios lifestyle, right, shitter?
Municipalities might want to reconsider zoning laws to allow residences to double as businesses....
Of course, if a guy like Ron Paul says that, he's nowhere to be found in your s***rag, so F*** OFF again, Globe!
We might also emulate the low-rise, high-density model, which is conducive to neighborliness and requires no elevators. On a more basic level, these places can teach us about where, for better or worse, urban life appears to be headed....
You HAVE BEEN WARNED, America.
Now WHAT ARE you going to DO ABOUT IT, America?
Eat more shit? WHERE ARE YOU?
