Archive for the ‘urbaniation’ tag

The Benefits of Slums #

March 9th, 2009 | In Worth Considering 

While they obviously have their nontrivial problems, unplanned urban development has some characteristic that unlikely people are praising:

Prince Charles of [Wales], who founded an organization called the Foundation for the Built Environment, praised Dharavi (which he visited in 2003) for its “underlying, intuitive ‘grammar of design’ ” and “the timeless quality and resilience of vernacular settlements.” He predicted that “in a few years’ time such communities will be perceived as best equipped to face the challenges that confront us because they have built-in resilience and genuinely durable ways of living.”