Why official planning does not work in hyper dense areas in India. http://socratesarchitects.com

1. To zone or not to zone
Why official planning doesn't work in hyper dense areas
The applicability of contemporary strategies of urban planning is under increasing
scrutiny when it comes to dealing with equitable housing in swelling cities. There
is a growing awareness of the limitations of urban planning, as we know it. A first
step towards new strategies is recognising that the chaotic urbanism of informal
settlement holds lessons of how cities can be built without zoning or regulation.
Studying such areas offers a tabula rasa in thinking city planning. A useful case to
study user generated urbanism is in informal settlement area. It shows both the
power of informality and the counterproductive effects of zoning in hyper dense
areas. To get a sense of what density means in informal settlements, we need
some figures. In developed countries, well known dense cities are New York City
(10,500 p/km2) and Tokyo (14,000) . Estimations of the density in informal
settlements show figures that reach from 300,000 to over 400,000 p/km2, which
is more than ten times that of Cairo (31,600), world’s densest city. Considering
that in swelling cities often over 50% of urban population lives in informal
settlements, while occupying only 5% of the land, it is clear that overwhelming
densities are found widely and that as a result, the pressure on open space is
enormous.
Photo 1. Big open public space found in informal settlement area, hosting a cricket match.

2. Photo 2. The surrounding houses double as tribunes.
The presence of wide open public space is probably not the first that comes to
mind when imagining the effects of high population densities. Miraculously, wide
open spaces do exist in informal urbanism. They serve many purposes, such as
cricket ground, community gathering and playground for all. Obviously, there is
the everlasting threat of newcomers who seek a place to put up a shelter.
However, somehow against that incoming tide of squatters, communities manage
to keep space open.

3. Photo 4. Public gathering in a squatter area.
One of the secrets behind surviving in such very high densities lies in the
multipurpose use of both public and private space. The recipe for successful
multipurpose use is to rely on the power of informality. It is typical that most
westerners who visit extreme dense areas for their first time, point at the lack of
zoning in the streets. They claim that sidewalks are needed to make traffic safer,
that curbs would help, as would separate lanes for hand carts. It is the planner’s
mind that, in the name of ‘order’, introduces all kinds of obstacles in public space,
forcefully introducing formality. What they apparently do not see is that zoning
itself is space consuming. By allotting space to specific activities, that space is
rendered useless for other activities that take place at different moments in time.
Only non-designated space can be used all day long, meeting needs exactly when
they occur.
Photo 5. Informality at its best: user generated zoning.
There is an interesting parallel between urban design and the design of rooms in
housing. In western housing design, rooms are designed for a specific use.
Rooms get a function and are named after it. Bed room, study, kitchen, living
room, etcetera. This segregation leaves many rooms unused for most of the time,
much unlike the traditional Japanese house in which the function of the room
changes during the day. By changing futons and furniture, the room is adapted to
what is needed. The key to traditional Japanese design is the creation of an open
plan. Everything can change as no elements are fixed, even walls can move by
means of sliding partitions. When everything is moved to the side, a smooth,
obstacle free floor is all that remains.
On a more detailed scale, furniture is a similar institutionalisation of use. The
introduction of chairs and a table reduces the use of a room to sitting around a
table. The absence of furniture makes it possible to use a room for whatever
comes up. Especially chairs are indicative for this phenomenon. In smaller
homes, chairs are often the first item no longer to be found. Sitting can be done
on the floor or on a bed doubling as a sofa.
It is exactly this concept of a smooth obstacle free floor that is the most

4. successful formula for multipurpose use of public space. Activities and the
number of people involved in them change throughout the day, as do the areas
occupied by them. By leaving the boundaries between activities unmarked, these
boundaries can freely move to an optimum.
Photo 6. Use of the street around 10am. Few people and little traffic.
The daily routine on an average main road could look like this. In early morning,
the street is relatively empty. Commuters walk to the railway station, buying a
take away drink from early vendors. Waste collection is present as always.
Busses and cars drive by. By ten o’clock, shopkeepers start opening their
business. Some street vendors start exhibiting their merchandise. Around 11 am,
road traffic is increasing. Pedestrian presence slows the trucks and busses down.
Noon. As the tropical heat is increasing, pedestrians and vendors leave the scene.
Car traffic becomes predominant. Between 3 and 4 pm, vendors take over the
street again, this time en masse and hold their ground till 10 pm or later.
Meanwhile Muslims do their prayers, thus creating a temporary open air mosque.
Taxis drive by all day and continue all night.

5. Photo 8. Around 6pm. The street is converted into a marketplace.
Photo 9. Friday prayers. Part of the street is converted into a mosque.
All activities claim space, put pressure on other activities and then later allow
others to take over space again. This flow in the use of space is most efficient
when it is not hindered by physical markers such as curbs, fences, boulders, or
even walls. Moreover, such street furniture items can be counterproductive in
densely used areas, as they mainly split the ever-moving zones of activities
rather than limit them to the intended space. In Rahul Mehrotra’s terms, the
static city is at odds with the kinetic city here (1). The static city is the physical

6. city as it is built; the kinetic city is made by the events that take place in a city.
Ideally, the static and the kinetic city are in harmony.
Photo 10. Counterproductive zoning. The fence on the curb inhibits pedestrians returning to the
sidewalk.
Especially fences on curbs along the sidewalks show how informal forces override
the intentions of planners and urban designers. Such fences are designed to keep
pedestrians on the sidewalk and to reserve the road for motor vehicle traffic. The
sidewalk however is the realm of shopkeepers, street vendors, and their
customers and can be so crowded that non-customers prefer to walk on the other
side of the fence. Once there, it is hard to return to the sidewalk, making the
whole scene less safe than without the fence.

7. Photo 11. Counterproductive fixed zoning. Passengers at this busstop have to wait at the traffic
side of the fence, as otherwise they cannot enter the bus.
Photo 12. User generated rezoning. Street vendors using the fence as an ideal backing, knowing
that the traffic is what brings customers.
In addition, this parallel flow of pedestrians is seen by street vendors as potential
clientele, so the vendors pick a spot on the road side of the fence. Moreover, the
fence provides a nice backing. Thus a second lane of vending activities is created,
reinstalling the informal multipurpose use of space, squeezing the vehicle traffic
space even further than would have been the case without the fence. In an
attempt to make the fence (i.e. zoning) effective, authorities have declared street
vending illegal. Policemen have a tough job enforcing this ban as they are highly
outnumbered by their targets. As soon as a raid starts, the news spreads like
wildfire. Vendors pick up their merchandise quickly and hide it behind a tree, a
lamppost, in the subway or even in the shop of a friend legal shopkeeper. After
ten minutes, when the police have left the unlikely empty street, vendors put up
their business again and continue as usual.
The issue here is the incredible density of people. Of course zoning and planning
do work, as long as capacities meet the numbers. When congestion occurs,
people start looking for shortcuts and challenge the planned zoning and formality
as a whole. Shortly the cure (zoning) becomes worse than the disease, especially
when zoning is embedded in physical objects. As we have seen, physically
manifested zoning of use is space consuming and for that reason a problem when
dealing with hyper densities. The kinetic city is very much an alive thing, as it is
capable of permanently adapting itself to the context. This ongoing adaptation
marks the efficiency of user-generated zoning in informal settlement. In fact the
difference between formal zoning and user generated zoning is the use of time,
the use of the fourth dimension. It is what allows space to be used 24/7.
New strategies should give a significant role to informality. It is time to overcome
the limitations of 20th century urban planning and enter the realm of Post-
Cartesianism. A clear invitation to come and see the wonders of informal
urbanism was sent by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner in the
documentary Caracas, The Informal City (2). Klumpner says about Caracas: “But

8. why do I feel as a European that this city is a total chaos? I think it is a typical
response. There is a myth that the city is ordered and that myth exists in city
halls around the world. The reality is however, that the city has always been
chaotic. In Caracas all these forces stream freely and have produced new forms
of city that are not known to us.”
1 Rahul Mehrotra, ‘Kinetic City, Issues for Urban Design in South Asia’. In:
Shannon, Kelly and Gosseye, Janina (eds.), Reclaiming (the urbanism of)
Mumbai (Amsterdam, SUN Publishers, 2009) pp. 141-9.
2 Rob Schröder, Caracas, The Informal City. Documentary for VPRO television
The Netherlands,http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/backlight/Caracas-the-informal-
city.html
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Corrugated Steel
Emblematic for the other architecture
Photo 1. Mexican restaurant in Ebisu, Tokyo, Japan. A welcome natural look between the
average contemporary but sterile architecture. Corrugated steel in all its splendour.
Corrugated steel is probably the most iconic of all building materials used in
squatter settlements. It is a versatile product as it is strong, watertight, easy to
cut, and above all cheap. To many of us, corrugated steel may look ordinary and
simple but it is exactly this simplicity which makes it such a brilliant invention.
The core of it all is, needless to say, a steel sheet with a thickness of only 1 mm.
Such a sheet can be bent or folded in any direction, as a flat sheet has limited
stiffness. It is the corrugation which adds the typical structural character. A
corrugated steel plate can easily be bent in one direction, whereas at the same
time it is very rigid in the other direction.

9. The production of steel plate is straightforward. Solidified steel bars are rolled
until they have the required thickness. Cutting is as easy as cutting paper. Then
comes corrugation which requires the most basic of all machines. Let’s say that a
classic machine has gear wheels. A corrugation machine would consist of two
gear wheels only, nothing more than that. Turning one wheel will automatically
turn the other wheel . By feeding a flat steel plate between the two wheels, a
regularly corrugated steel plate will appear on the other side of the wheels. The
process is beautifully simple.
The resulting wave form sheets are excellent for roofing. Due to their stiffness the
sheets need limited structural support. Much like ceramic roof tiles, a limited
overlap of sheets will result in a water tight roof. The corrugation prevents
leakage to the sides of the sheets.

10. Photo 2. Corrugated steel in detail, thin like a curtain. Corrosion is typical for re-used sheets.
Steel and water are not exactly friends, which is why steel plates corrode. To
avoid this corrosion, steel plates are bathed in molten zinc, a process called
galvanising. The zinc keeps the water out and even inverts the corrosion process
of steel. Zinc has self healing properties in case of damage of the zinc layer, be it
to a certain extent. Galvanised steel can therefore not be bent, under pain of
corrosion. This is probably why recycled corrugated steel sheets have a limited
life, as in the process of demounting, they are often bent more than is advisable.

11. Photo 3. Temporary housing for road construction workers. Alibag, Mumbai, India.
The use of corrugated steel for housing has certain drawbacks. Due to its
thinness, it has zero insulation capacity, leaving the interior virtually fully
exposed to the fierce tropical sun. In the rainy season steel roofs are extremely
noisy. It means that corrugated steel creates comfort problems all year round.
This is probably why in Mumbai the use of corrugated steel is limited to the
temporary housing of construction workers on building sites. Such housing is
often provided by the construction company, in which case it is the easiest (i.e.
cheapest) material to use. Those people who create their own shelter apparently
prefer other materials than corrugated steel. It is something to consider in
rehabilitation projects too.

12. Photo 4. The architecture of the other end. Sheets made in mass production, thought of as a
system of repetition, applied in a system-less order.
As the production process is so simple, corrugated steel is ideal for mass
production. By its form, it is ideal for covering large surfaces such as roofs and
facades, as that would require the least of handling per sheet. This is what
distinguishes the architecture of settlements from architectural design. The latter
most of the times is an attempt to make something special with materials best
used in a system of endless repetition which fails where it meets other systems ,
whereas settlers are inventive in making something unique with individual sheets,
not hindered by any system at all.
The emblematic value of corrugated steel in squatter settlements lies in the fact
that it is indicative for the poorest ways of creating shelter and for the poorest
ways of offering relief.
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Removal
The only way is: up?

13. Photo 1. Slum rehabilitation in Andheri West, Mumbai.
A library of considerable size could be filled with all that is written about slum
rehabilitation. A seemingly endless number of studies, schemes, plans, proposals,
surveys, scenarios, evaluations, and elaborations are made by a similarly endless
line of planners, developers, urbanists, architects, authorities, slum lords,
students, social experts, economists, engineers, real estate investors,
associations, communities, contractors, governments, NGO’s, and so on. The
phenomenon is thus big that books (1) are written about it as such, in a variety
of qualities (2).

14. Photo 2. Apartment block towering over Thirteenth Compound, Dharavi, Mumbai.
There is little use in coming up with another plan here. Nor is it doable to explain
all strategies being used. This chapter will be limited to how people move from
informal settlements to housing and back(!). A short abstract on the mechanisms
of rehabilitation is inevitable though.
Slum forming is the result of mass migration into the city combined with too short
supply of proper housing. Migrants create their own shelter on whatever space is
available, turning the city into a vast campsite. The scale of it leads to incredible
densities, leaving little space for the development of adequate housing. Replacing
informal settlements by houses, requires a strategy of removing settlers to a
temporary location, clearing the land, building new housing, and relocating the
settlers into the new building.
Photo 3. Transit camps in Andheri West, Mumbai.
Temporary locations are called transit camps. These transit camps appear in a
variety of forms. Some look like stacks of cabins, others mimic apartment blocks.
One area in Dharavi, the New Transit Camp, was mainly a handing out of parcels
of land allowing people to restart their dwelling-career. By now it is an area of
certain urban quality as the inhabitants were able to generate their own housing,
upgrading it bit by bit, backed by security of tenure.

15. Photo 4. Stages of planned redevelopment. Slum on the right, transit camp on the left,
construction and relocation in the background. Andheri West, Mumbai.
Photo 5. The demolition of abandoned slum reveals its inner structures. The soil contains an
archaeology of the recent past.

16. Photo 6. As every boy in the world knows, construction sites are perfect playgrounds.
Photo 7. Incremental development (left) and planned redevelopment (high-rise) in Dharavi,
Mumbai.
The landscape of Dharavi is permanently changing. In the sea of informal
settlements many upgraded houses appear in the user generated process of
incremental development. It is a natural process in which end-users change and
adapt their environment directly. And thus it will deal will the issue of too high
densities as well. It guarantees that every unique need gets its own unique
solution. It is the process by which the much loved organic downtown cities
throughout the world have evolved. The crucial thing is: this humane process

17. cannot be hastened.
Probably it is the subtlety of this generating process that leaves many using the
word slum for areas that are beyond that poor early stage. Moreover, it is
spatially intertwined and gradual in time, making it harder to distinguish and
appreciate the qualities of incremental development.
Photo 8. Planned redevelopment in Dharavi.
Meanwhile some larger areas are cleared for planned redevelopment and filled in
with apartment blocks. More and more blocks are shaping the skyline. As long as
there is a piecemeal approach in this kind of development, it has the possibility of
adapting and mitigating the worst side effects of high-rise.

18. Photo 9.Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar, Parel, Mumbai. Four blocks of low cost housing for former
slum dwellers, flanked by high-end apartment blocks and office high-rise.
Building high-rise blocks too close to each other is where many a solution is
becoming an enhanced version of the original problem. The cause lies in the
scheme by which the project is financed. Authorities allow developers to create
profitable high-end housing in exchange for providing housing for the poor, free
of costs. This scheme is popular among developers and works quite successful in
the sense that it is producing a lot of low end housing. It goes without saying that
the land used to create the free housing for the poor, is kept to a minimum. By
creating lots of floor area (the essence of high-rise building) the available living
space per capita is forced up to the legal minimum. Still the density in terms of
land per capita is problematic and sometimes even worsens. Amenities such as
infrastructure, transport, commerce, schools, utilities, and qualities like daylight
and fresh air are all heavily over utilised.

19. Photo 10. Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar seen from Parel railway station, Mumbai. A recipe for
vertical slum.
Huge blocks are built only 10 feet apart. The effects on the quality of living are
dramatic. Dwellings in the centre of such three dimensional compounds enjoy
little daylight and near to no natural ventilation. Not to mention the lack of
privacy and the absence of psychological relief by a view from the window. In
addition, the images of newly built fresh painted condominiums are deceiving as
such no-revenue projects come with a standard lack of maintenance and thus
pauperize in a short time. Living on one of the higher floors will inevitably turn
out troublesome as elevators are not maintained either, which is a well known
reason for not building higher than four or five floors for low income housing.
Buildings offering such living conditions are often rightfully categorised as vertical
slums. They are the planned version of the City of Darkness (3), the Kowloon
Walled City in Hong Kong which was at its peak in the 1980’s home to some
35,000 people on a footprint of only 100 x 200 meters.
The problem of high density is the problem of too little land per capita to begin
with. Adding much floor area per capita to it, is of limited help as necessary
amenities will claim space outside the building as well. In fact the effectiveness of
saving land by adding more floors decreases dramatically between five to ten
floors (4) . The popular belief that high-rise is the cure for high population
densities, is a myth. As long as there are too many people in an area, there
simply are too many people in that area, no matter what fancy way they are
packed or stacked.

20. Photo 11. On the threshold in space and time: brand new housing meets the slum it will replace.
A fair way of grading development strategies is to look at the interaction between
user and building.
Only when people contribute, upgrade and improve, the building is a success.
As long as people maintain it, the building is satisfactory.
As soon as it pauperizes, the building is unsatisfactory.
When people move out often, it is a failure.
It is therefore no surprise when inhabitants of rehabilitation projects choose to
sell their condo and return to informal settlements. It is a practice often frowned
upon, and a show of healthy common sense.
Notes:
(1) Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, London: Verso, 2006.
(2) Planet of Slums gives an overview of the many programs carried out throughout the world
and is a useful book in that way. The downside of the book is its slash-and-burn prose. Not a
single program is critiqued positively, not even the demonstrably successful ones. Although
Davis presents a plausible analysis of the course of events that led to immense slum forming,
he refuses to even hint at a possibility of a way out. He thus takes an easy position. Too easy.
(3) Greg Girard, Ian Lambot, City of Darkness, Life in Kowloon Walled City, Watermark
Publications, 1993.
(4) Charles Correa, lecture for Urban Typhoon Dharavi Mumbai, 18th March 2008.
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Soap
Producing clothes in high quantity is one thing, washing them all is another.
Mumbai’s textile industry plays a major role in its economic history. The
production of textile in India was boosted by the American Civil war (1861-1865),
which interrupted cotton supplies from America to Europe. Great Britain, as the
colonizing power in India, was the liaison between Europe and the rising Indian
cotton and silk industry. Ever since has the textile industry dominated Mumbai’s
development. Many of the old mills are closed now, but the industry is still
present throughout the city. A very common sound heard when walking Dharavi,

21. is that of the sewing machines. An endlessly ongoing ‘rrrrrrt… rrrrrrt… rrrrrrrrrrrt’,
is the invisible signpost of the ubiquitous workshops.
(Click photo to enlarge)
A familiar sight in Mumbai is the Dhobi Ghat, the open-air laundry. Big ones are
located near Mahalaxmi Station. Some two hundredDhobis (laundrymen) wash
clothes here, collected from local households. The clothes are hung out to dry on
long cloth lines. The scale of the business is thus big, that it can be seen from
afar. It even attracts foreign tourists, leaving the local people in astonishment
about what on earth could be so interesting about ordinary laundry.

22. Except maybe for genuine dry-cleaners, laundry requires water. River banks are
good locations for Dhobi Ghats, as are some ponds. Flowing water is essential as
stagnant water will be polluted in no time. Step wells, stepped ponds and open
tanks, all fed by natural wells, are an important part of India’s water
infrastructure. Stepped ponds and tanks are often directly connected to temples
and are a place of religious and cultural significance. They symbolise the Ganges;
to bathe in such waters is to bathe in the sacred river. With the coming of piped
water, many tanks were filled and have vanished under new development. Of all
Mumbai’s tanks built in the 18th and 19th century, only two exist today – the
Bandra and Banganga tanks. *
In Dharavi a tank-like Dhobi Ghat is located next to the Sion footbridge over the
Central Railway tracks. It cannot be missed as the yelling of the Dhobis is
advertising the intenseness of the job, much like the sound of professional tennis
players. This is where the bigger pieces are treated. Not handkerchiefs and
napkins, but heavy blankets and carpets are washed here. Soaked with water
they are tossed onto flogging stones. One cannot be but impressed by the labour
shown here.

24. Once cleaned the laundry is put out to dry on the pebble beds along the railway
tracks. It is the last remaining open space in the vicinity, by its narrow shape
only useful in small plots, it is perfectly exposed to the sun, trains provide
frequent blows of wind, and stones to keep it all in place are abundant.
In its way, it is perfect.
*= Neville, Matthew, ‘Banganga. Enduring Tank, Regenerative Tissue’. In:
Shannon, Kelly and Gosseye, Janina (eds.), Reclaiming (the urbanism of)
Mumbai, Amsterdam, SUN Publishers, 2009, p 112.
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25. Abundance
Nothing Left Behind
The idea of waste is probably a misconception. In Dharavi virtually everything is
reused. The contribution of the recycling industry to the economy is thus big that
words like residue and leftover might be trashed themselves. The recycling
business provides three major components of economic activities. First, the
processing of waste, secondly the supply of raw materials, and third a lot of
labour, thus creating livelihood for very many people.
The essence of good reuse is in separation. The more materials are mixed up, the
lesser their potential for a second life. Jobs in recycling are therefore mainly
concerned with sorting and collecting. Especially sorting is very labour intensive.
At the closure of the markets, garbage is sorted into fractions like fruit and
vegetables, plastic bags, carboard boxes etcetera.

26. Biological waste is served as cattle food.

27. Waste is collected as much as possible on fixed locations. Often a small lot with
three walls. Birds, goats, and dogs pick anything edible from and around
containers. Textile residues from the fashion industry are used to fire the kilns of
the potters.
This waste collection is temporarily out of use. A concrete floor was just cast.
Goats are waiting till their familiar spot offers something to eat. Foot prints in the
freshly poured concrete illustrate their impatience.

28. Sorting is very time consuming. While the truck is stuck in a traffic jam, copper
wire is picked from electric motors. In the north-west of Dharavi, a whole
neighbourhood is busy with recycling. Its name is Thirteenth Compound. One
might find it a poetic name. Twelve is considered the number of wholeness,
closing many cycles, whereas this hardly known side of our world is the actual
closing link in the chain.
Thirteenth Compound is marked by huge quantities of goods stored on its roofs.
Whereas everywhere in Dharavi roofs only serve as a protection against the fierce
sun and the monsoon rains, the roofs in Thirteenth Compound are the
warehouses for light weight goods. Primarily plastics. It weighs near to nothing
but is voluminous. The roof is the perfect storage in this dense built area.

29. The scrap dealer is unloading his truck. Metals are easy to sort as their properties
are very diverse. Copper, brass, and bronze have divergent colours. Aluminium is
very light weighted. Iron is magnetic whereas other metals are not.
Rusty corrugated steel sheeting, if not for roofing, is used for façades.

30. Tins and steel jerry cans for food purposes can be sold after cleaning. The future
of such a can is destined by its condition. It returns to the original food factory
(the spotless), to a manufacturer of something liquid (the second hand), or to a
fuel and oil dealer (the slightly crushed).

31. All packaging materials like barrels and jerry cans are reused and sold. The same
applies to cardboard boxes. Spotless boxes are sold back to the factory, already
bearing the name of the manufacturer. Boxes in a lesser state are sold to
transporter who do not care about the name. Movers, for example. Only worn out
boxes are privileged to become raw material for the paper industry.

32. Amidst the dusty roofs of Dharavi, Thirteenth Compound is an oasis of colours.
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Tailor made
Dharavi is not only the destination for those from the countryside seeking the
economics of the big city. Mumbai citizens indeed are also seeking shelter after
eviction from other locations in the name of redevelopment. Slum areas are
demolished to make place for high-rise. Those who lived there are either
relocated in transition camps and find new homes in the high-rise, or cannot stay
as their livelihood does not allow them to. Many entrepreneurs need a business
on street level. Vending only works well on the ground.

33. The tailor’s shop is about 7 feet wide and 4 feet deep.
The demand for retail space in Dharavi is enormous. A shop of only 4 feet deep,
or even less, is therefore already worth exploiting. Vending often begins on a
cloth on the street, backed by a blind wall in an alley. A little stall is a step
forward. A built shop is the logical follow up.
The tailor’s shop on the left, beginning street vendors on the right.

34. On top of the shop a floor was created for a room. By extending this floor over
the street, more room is created inside. The extra floor doubles as a weather
shade, protecting the shop against sun and rain. The shop’s counter can be
moved outside, leaving more space inside the shop. Business is perfectly tuned
with the spatial dimensions of the shop. No stock is kept here, production is
located elsewhere.

35. In the shop, client’s orders are taken and delivered. All agreements regarding the
design are collected in the order book. All sizes of the customers can be found
here. Samples mark the chosen fabric. When a customer arrives to collect the
order, a staff member walks to the studio to fetch the gown.

36. Production takes place in the
studio on top of the shop.
Thus the distance between
production and retail is kept
very short and efficient. The
alley is in close proximity to
one of the busiest streets in
Dharavi, which is good for
patronage.

37. The shop and the studio are built to a blind wall. That wall is part of a bigger
house dating from times this was still a normal fishermen’s village. This story of
building to and building upon is typical for the architecture of informal
development and slum areas. The forces of society are clearly visible. The owner
of the house was willing (or had to be) to allow trading next to his property. The
width of the original alley allowed for a stall of only 4 feet. The stall was improved
to a built shop. On top of that came a studio, jutting out over the street. Thus the
entrepreneur found shelter for his business.

38. The story of this tailor’s shop is the story of many entrepreneurs in a slum. This is
also the story behind the many narrow alleys in slums. Just imagine the tailor’s
shop and his studio were not here. We would be standing in a very ordinary
street in a very ordinary village.