Forgotten Slums of Mumbai Mumbai, previously known as Bombay until 1995 is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is also the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India. Mumbai has a metro area population of 22 million people making it the most populous city in India. Mumbai also houses the highest number of millionaires and billionaires in India making it the wealthiest city in the country as well. The inequality of wealth is polarizing in Mumbai. It may be the wealthiest city in India but it is also home to Dharavi, Asia’s second largest slum if Karachi’s Orangi Town is counted as a single slum. Dharavi is located in central Mumbai and houses between 800,000 and 1 million people in about one square mile, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth (Chauhan, Mohanty, Subramanian, Parida, & Padhi, 2016). Mumbai, like many other rapidly growing cities in developing countries, suffers from widespread poverty due to unemployment, poor public health, and poor civic and educational standards for a large section of the city (Romero-Lankao, Gnatz, & Sperling, 2016). Mumbai has experienced rapid growth due to a massive migration of rural populations coming into the city driven by a promise of a “city of dreams” where “no one goes hungry”. While Mumbai has become a center for outsourcing by international business organizations many of these rural migrants end up finding employment in the informal economy. Development patterns in the
The city of Mumbai has seen much growth in the past years. A string of elegant hotels have been set up for travelers and high-class business men. An ever growing, top of the line airport has been built for those coming in and out of the country. From the outside, Mumbai seems to have taken a liking to being internationally integrated with the rest of world, otherwise known as globalization. This is not the case, however; as seen in Katherine Boo’s novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. This novel is set in a slum right next to the Mumbai International Airport called
Can living in poverty really define who you are as a person, or what your identity is? Are you subject to the fact that you are living in poverty? In the book The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros, the main character, Esperanza, struggles with this problem. Esperanza and her family are moving to a different house on Mango Street in the city of Chicago. Esperanza deals with many different things through her first year moving in, and some of them will really have a tremendous impact on her future. While Esperanza struggles to figure out who she is, and what she is doing, she begins to realize the deeper meaning behind everything and grows into the person she was meant to be.
The school excellence in Dharavi is excellence. There are an estimated 5000 businesses is Dharavi. Some consist of recycling, leather products, jewelry, food, pots, clothing and various accessories. 85% of people in Dharavi have a job. The biggest recycling industry is recycling. The recycling industry is reported to employ approximately 250,000 people, so it is a very big thing there. People who work in the recycling only make about a dollar a day. People who work in the recycling industry are called rag pickers and there have been at least 4 generations working as such. It is estimated that the neighborhoods of this slum contribute about 1 billion dollars to Mumbai’s economy. This community is filled with business and industry. Some of the industries in Dharavi have made some people rich. Those who have become rich stay in Dharavi because they don’t want to leave, it’s their home and they stay humble. The people of this slum are very organized,
Homelessness and poverty are no strangers to any United States citizen. On any day you are almost guaranteed to see a homeless person, whether it be a trip to a local Walmart, or a coffee shop in the city, the poverty-stricken are everywhere and completely unavoidable. In the United States there are some sobering statistics on poverty and homelessness. According to an article by Alana Semuels entitled “ The Resurrection of American Slums” the author talks about poverty in the United States. “The number of people living in high-poverty areas . . . nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million” (Semuels, Par 2, 2015). When people think of homeless people they think drug-addict, or mentally insane. What they don't think
While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.
Most people let society shape who they are and stick with the standards they are given. The stronger individuals don't let society rule them. Society shapes us by influencing the expectations of women and showing us false and true perceptions in one's identity.
Gentrification never happened to my neighborhood growing up. Maybe it was because I lived in a working class poor neighborhood growing up. I now live in Lincoln Park and I cannot tell you if it has been gentrified, yet I never felt segregation until I started living in Chicago. It was not the fact that predominantly black people live on the south side and white people live on the north side. It was the fact that it seems you keep to yourself. When I take the red line, I have dealt with black men hitting on me, same goes for other men of other races. Yet when I take the green line to the University of Chicago, as I sit being the only white person in the train car, it is like they are scared of me. Maybe it is a product of gentrification, that
The government also promises to the poor, better schools and hospitals. Balram’s father died because there was improper medical care in their home town, and the life expectancy in India is only 66.8 years. There are nearly 1,189,172,906 people in India and only 61% of the people living in India are literate. In New Delhi, though, the government does fulfill its promises to the rich. They live unaware and uncaring of the slums surrounding their middle class lives. The government makes promises of better livelihoods to its people that are never fulfilled; causing India’s poor to remain in the slums and the government to have little understanding of the problems poor people face.
The Esperanza Community Housing corporation (Esperanza Community Housing, 2011), more commonly known as “Esperanza”, opened its doors in 1989 to assist the residents of South Central and South Los Angeles with housing issues they were encountering. Esperanza is a 501 3(C) non-profit, and private social justice agency that now invests in its community aiding in five core areas:
Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, predicts the direction in which the world’s cities are headed, and how the changes in living conditions are only going to deteriorate if certain trends continue. The title of his book explains Davis’s vision for the future of cities as he feels there is enough evidence pointing towards an exponential rise in slum populations across the world’s largest cities. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on many issues regarding the rapid rise in developing cities’ slum populations, although he offers very one-sided arguments geared towards those who feel the current system is causing more problems rather than improving current conditions. This causes Davis to overlook the problems of slums as resolvable through different modes of assistance such as international aid programs. Instead, he views aid programs as the root cause of imbalance created during industrialization. Throughout the book, Davis presents information that confirms his preconceptions towards the slums. Therefore, all the evidence that is presented by him portrays confirmation bias as Davis fails to mention anything about the resolution of the problem of the growing number of slums and instead sees this problem as unavoidable. Particularly, Davis’ writing, although intended for the general population, is more geared towards critics who have similar ideas. Instead of providing the means through which the economy could be improved and the problem of slums could be resolved, it is
Poverty and oppression is a serious condition that is prevalent even in today’s modern society. Women and children are exposed to poverty and subjected to a life of injustice. One of the countries where such problems still occur is in India. Despite the country’s modernization, there lies an undercity where the disparity of wealth is transparent. These social problems are thoroughly described in movies and literature such as Slumdog Millionaire and Behind the Beautiful Forevers. In the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Catherine Boo, the author describes slum life for a set of individuals and the hardship that their social conditions confined them to. Another movie that gave insight to slum life in India is Slumdog Millionaire
This quote explains what it’s like to live in the Mumbai slum. The residents of Annawadi could get arrested or in trouble with authorities for doing virtually anything.
The overwhelming population in Bhopal means very few jobs that are out there for the public. " Even a meager, low-paying job is welcomed as a way to avoid abject poverty" (15).
According to Dictionary.com, “gentrification is the process of renovating houses and stores in urban neighborhoods to fit the middle or upper-income families, raising property value, but often displacing low-income families.” Gentrification has been an idea since the 1960s and had an effect on countless cities and neighborhood communities. Gentrification was first used by Ruth Glass in her book London: Aspect of Change in 1964, she noted that ¨gentrification can progress rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced, and the whole social character of the district is changed.” Nonetheless, gentrification has helped revive many cities and revolutionize them, especially with technological
Slums are hindrance to the achievement of economic growth and development. It is the duty of the government to plan effectively towards the achievement of quality life within the cities. Slums contribute towards the presence of criminal activities within the cities and unemployment hence a significant force towards the overall economic development. Upgrading of slums is vital in the process of offering economic, social, institutional, and cultural services to the city dwellers like other citizens.