Superslum

Superslum

By John Taylor; 2007 October 24, 09 Ilm, 164 BE

Today I want to call to your attention the book "Planet of Slums," by Mike Davis (Verso, New York, 2006) which yesterday I began to peruse. The book details the truly frightening growth of slums throughout the world over the past several decades. Who caused it? As what he calls an "enviro-socialist," Davis blames the world bank, whose policies of tight money and agrarian land reform have driven millions out of the countryside into cities that do not have money, plans or infrastructure to take them in. Over a billion people live outside the accepted laws, structures and strictures of society. They are left without homes or jobs, and in their desperation fall victim to crime and exploitation. Davis writes,

"There is nothing in the catalogue of Victorian misery, as narrated by Dickens, Zola, or Gorky, that does not exist somewhere in a Third World city today. I allude not just to grim survivals and atavisms, but especially to primitive forms of exploitation that have been given new life by postmodern globalization  and child labour is an outstanding example." (186)

The more I read about this terrible quasi-urban decline the angrier I get at the bad guy I call Adolph Nobody. The ideologues of today are like Charlie Brown in his pumpkin patch, eternally waiting for the appearance of their Great Pumpkin, the invisible hand of economic self-adjustment, an invisible hand, by the way, that does not appear in the writings of their hero, Adam Smith. Instead of a benevolent invisible hand making things right, we get Adolph Nobody, the lack of planning turning the lives of billions into hellish receptacles of pain and misery. Davis, at the end of his first chapter, writes,

"Thus, the cities of the future, rather than being made of glass and steel as envisioned by earlier generations of urbanists, are instead largely constructed of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks and scrap wood. Instead of cities of light soaring toward heaven, much of the twenty-first century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement and decay. Indeed the one billion city dwellers who inhabit modern slums might well look back with envy at the ruins of the sturdy mud homes of Catal Huyuk in Anatolia, erected at the very dawn of city life nine thousand years ago." (19)

Let me restate that: the first city in history, a 9,000 year old ruin in Anatolia, had far better accommodation than a modern city for most new, poor residents. This is why I am so committed to the idea of a world government that would as its first order of business see to it that there be a standard, modular housing unit issued to every human being at its birth. There is no way these illegal, unplanned superslums should ever have been allowed to come about, and there is no higher priority for a world government than to see to it that they are made into minimally humane places to live.

Before I read this I had no idea what a favela is. Inspired by Lewis, here is an interesting article about the favelas of Brazil, and their increasingly violent struggle for justice and recognition.

http://www.metamute.org/en/Slumsploitation-Favela-on-Film-and-TV

If you want a full scale review of Lewis's book, Derrick O'Keefe has written one at:

http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/commentary/planetofslums.html

Needless to say, if you crowd millions of people together without food, work or shelter, there is a potential for violence. As this reviewer of Davis's book points out, the American military is openly preparing for war in these slums, buying new equipment and changing the training of its troops, so as to be ready for urban or slum warfare. The world cop's leadership is convinced that this is where the war of the future is going to offer employment. And they have already proven themselves correct by embroiling themselves in the present quagmire in Iraq.

"The powers that be have already begun preparing for the new urban theatre of poverty, war, and resistance. Davis details the importance that Pentagon military strategists now place on MOUT, or Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain. Stressing realistic training (including in North American cities), the MOUT doctrine is a brutally rational perspective for the planners of empire. (205).

What got me interested in this book is its headpiece quotation, which is:

"Slum, semi-slum and superslum, to this has come the evolution of cities." -Sir Patrick Geddes

Readers of this blog will be well familiar with that great Scot who was not only the first regional planner, but also a friend of Abdu'l-Baha. Geddes was probably responsible for the Master coming to visit Scotland, and later on he planned the layout of Haifa in close collaboration with Abdu'l-Baha. As well he made an early design for a Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in India. According to the Wikipedia article, Geddes (1854-1932) was

"a Scottish biologist and botanist, known also as an innovative thinker in the fields of urban planning and education. He was responsible for introducing the concept of `region' to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term conurbation... Geddes shared the belief with John Ruskin that social processes and spatial form are related. Therefore, by changing the spatial form it was possible to change the social structure as well."

It goes on to tell how Geddes used Edinburgh's run down "Old Town" as a living testing ground for his planning theory. This place, including the Watch Tower with its giant camera obscura, the Master visited in 1913. His residential halls were an early example of planned slum clearance, which connected with the past rather than eradicating it. Although it does not mention Haifa, the Wiki article does say that, "He collaborated with his son-in-law, prominent architect, Sir Frank Mears on projects in the Middle East where in 1919 Geddes provided consultation on urban development of Jerusalem and authored 1925's master plan for Tel Aviv." As a biologist, Geddes had a unique insight into the environmental grounding of all cityscapes. Geddes is quoted by one Scottish university website as saying,

"This is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests." (Patrick Geddes) (http://www.ballaterscotland.com/geddes/)

Lewis Mumford, who was heavily influenced by Geddes, wrote that he was "...one of the truly seminal minds the last century produced: a philosopher whose knowledge and wisdom put him on the level of an Aristotle or a Leibniz." That is high praise indeed. Could it be that some of the Master's greatness had rubbed off on him?

Nor is it entirely out of the question that the rubbing did not go both ways. Consider that it was just after Abdu'l-Baha came back from His Western journeys that He wrote the series of letters we now call the "Tablets of the Divine Plan." Planning was not, as far as I can discern, a big part of the Master's leadership style before then. Certainly both men were heavily influenced by nature, especially by that combination of nature and artifice that we call the garden. Geddes is cited as saying,

"Everything I have done ... has been biocentric; for and in terms of life, both individual and collective; whereas all the machinery of the state, public instruction, finance and industry ignore life, when indeed it does not destroy it. The only thing that amazes me, therefore, as I look back over my experiences is that I was not caught and hung many years ago."

One of Geddes's books is available for free on the Net, "Civics: as Applied Sociology," at:

<http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13205/13205.txt>

In the introduction to this book, Geddes says, "Civics, as one of its main departments, may be defined as the application of Social Survey to Social Service." If I understand this right, he seems to be saying that this field of civics -- I think we now call it city planning -- should be rooted in what could be called "applied social science." If that is what he means, then I agree completely. I have always felt frustrated whenever I read social science. It is far too theoretical; it is absolutely divorced from active application and experimentation. Everybody who applies to become a sociologist or other social scientists should first be required to work as an apprentice town planner for several years first. That would larn 'em.

The spread of slums and superslums around the world under the rule of Adolph Nobody points to a dual winged solution, one wing being the knowledge-based regional planning or "civics" of Geddes, and the other planned application of spiritual principle, as pioneered by the Baha'is. Flying those two wings is the only way I can see to rise up once the superslum mess collapses. Meantime, let us think about how rational, world-wide, standardized planning might be worked out.