What can we do with a slum?
By Laurie Baker
A great deal. We can "recycle" it; that is to say, we can build at the same site low-cost structures that accommodate an equal number of persons, and provide plenty of open space and other facilities.[C.ELDOC.1071996]

Improving Urban Shantytowns
by Sarosh Anklesaria
Yet within some Indian slums a quiet revolution is taking place. The "Slum Networking Program" was pioneered by Cambridge graduate and civil engineer Himanshu Parikh,whose interest in the environment and habitat led him to challenge conventional "solutions" to slum development.

The official response to these slums used to be efforts to demolish the shanties and evict the squatters. But this simply resulted in the slum relocating elsewhere.

Against this backdrop of failed attempts to deal with the problem, Parikh's concept of "Slum Networking" learns from the lessons of the past and makes a radical proposition. Instead of seeing squatters and their communities as a nuisance — the inevitable consequence of malignant urban growth — Parikh looks for and reinforces resources within the community.[C.ELDOC.6009439]

Housing & slums : related government interventions
Review of Annual Plan 1998-99 and Provision for 1999-2000

Shelter is the basic human requirement that needs to be met on priority basis. Housing policies and programmes, while accepting that housing is essentially a private activity, has to recognise that state intervention is necessary to meet the housing requirements of the vulnerable sections and to create an enabling environment in achieving the goal of "shelter for all" on self-sustainable basis.[C.ELDOC.1071995]

Kensal House
So it was with Kensal House. Designed by the British Modernist Maxwell Fry (who was assisted by social reformer Elizabeth Denby), these two striking white blocks in west London were commissioned and financed by the Gas Light and Coke Company and intended for re-housed slum dwellers.

BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE:CAN SHANTYTOWNS LIKE TENT CITY BE A VIABLE OPTION FOR SOCIAL HOUSING?
BY Thomas  Hirschmann
A sunday-afternoon block partyis happening on Billy Lane, a street delineated by a row of ramshackle houses. But don't look it up on a map. You won't find it. It's in Tent City, the shantytown that's taken shape underneath the Gardiner on lands flagged for a future Home Depot.A recent article in the New York Times pointed to Tent City as an example of a city fraying around the edges. A Third World in our own backyard. But in Europe, shantytown communities like this are far more accepted as alternatives to traditional housing. In fact, forward-thinking architects and artists view them as valid and viable steps on the road to sustainability.[C.ELDOC. 6009453]

FOR  DEVELOPMENT'S  SAKE

Two lakh deserted to turn Mumbai into Shanghai
Mumbai, January 4: Recent slum demolitions in Mumbai have left tens of thousands of people without a home as the government tries to free up valuable space for development in Mumbai.

The demolition comes as the state is rolling out an ambitious 260-billion-rupee ($6-billion) infrastructure plan to "turn Mumbai into Shanghai", with better roads and public transport and more green spaces.[C.ELDOC.6009445]

Bill introduced to give slums protection
Indian Express, July 28, 2001

The new legislation which will confer legal protection on slumdwellers and pavement dwellers predating January 1, 1995, was introduced in the state Legislative Assembly on Friday.
The bill to amend the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971, will protect slumdwellers from eviction and treat them as protected occupants. It will make it mandatory for the government to relocate and rehabilitate pre-1995 slumdwellers if they are required to be evicted inthe larger public interest.[C.ELDOC.1071570]