Addressing Challenges in Slum Redevelopment

2015

Team Members

Sneha Rao, Michelle Hindman, Olivia Lu-Hill, Sean Murphy, Yash Shah, Zeqi Zhu

Adviser

Vikramaditya Khanna

Project Summary

Indian megacities face several unique challenges in providing even basic needs and services, notably housing, water, and waste management, for one of the largest and most dense populations in the world. Government campaigns launched in the past year, “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” (Clean India Mission) and “Housing For All by 2022” represent a nationwide call to action for a cleaner, healthier, and safer India.

Achieving these ambitions are complicated in an urban environment where core problems are magnified in scale and particularly daunting in Mumbai, where half of the city’s population is estimated to live in slums. Future slum redevelopment projects present an opportunity to learn from past policies, especially now as cities prepare citywide plans for executing the clarion call of “housing for all”.

Our aim for this project is to create a resource of knowledge for policy makers, developers, and architects involved in upgrading low-income informal housing and to develop a streamlined process that would benefit all involved parties, including slum dwellers and government agencies. Our research analyses of the Mumbai Model for slum redevelopment and of the existing implementation tools and practices, have given us insight into how the current approach can be improved upon.