[multipliCity] resource: planet of slums/mike davis

[Tripta B Chandola]

My research interests are essentially involved around the  
'marginalized spaces' in the city, the process of marginalization of  
these spaces and their interaction with the 'larger' city, the so- 
called 'real' city. One of the ideas I am pursuing is to understand  
the marginalized spaces an active and involved agency in the process  
of the 'marginalization'. In that vein, Mike Davis work has always  
fascinated me.
_______________****____________________

On May 11 in International House's Great Hall at UCSD, urbanist,  
author and Professor of History at UC Irvine Mike Davis spoke to an  
audience of about 200 people about slums. Citing the UN-Habitat  
report, "The Challenge of Slums," Davis outlined the tragic facts  
about slums, including 1 billion current slum dwellers, an  
overlapping 1 billion people with no formal connection to their  
national or the global economy, and 2-3 billion people over the next  
half century most likely destined for slums. Summarizing his recent  
book, "Planet of Slums," Davis argued that slum expansion has reached  
a limit - an absence of free squatable land and the declining ability  
of slum dwellers to occupy survival niches has given rise to  
sectarian violence, child abandonment and other rational responses to  
desperate circumstances. He concluded with the hopeful picture of  
slums as incubators for burgeoning resistance movements.


In conclusion, Davis presented the grim hope that the slum dwellers  
are beginning to challenge their bleak future:

"I think what is happening in the world right now is an astonishing  
process of experimentation under extraordinarily complex and  
different local conditions of slum dwellers, of abandoned poor  
people, 16-17 year olds in forgotten slums in every big city in the  
world, contesting that abandonment, fighting for some kind of future."

"Whether that is some radical new form of avante garde form of  
modernity, or whether it is to abolish modernity. Whether it is the  
nihilist attack on the rich in the center and all the symbols of the  
city from which people are excluded, or it is extraordinary new  
attempts to find a citizenship that will encompass everyone."

"It takes all kinds of forms, but it is the beginning of some kind of  
rebellion of people we have otherwise consigned to oblivion."

Includes audio and partial transcript.

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/116000.shtml