Quote:
Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax
So for all those who are so upset about Africville do you have any solution for the slums in any city like Bombay, Rio de Janero? They should be maintained and glorified? They should conduct bus tours?
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First of all, the slums in those cities are often a step up from some of the conditions in rural areas many of their inhabitants come from--they're an in-between step in urbanization.
The "solution" to the slums is not to destroy them and put up a master-planned monolithic housing project based on a purely hypothetical understanding of local needs. It would involve understand the reasons the slums exist, and working within those communities to improve infrastructure, social mobility, transportation, etc
Bulldozing communities, "slum" or not, and breaking up the social bonds that exist by moving people into other communities, often just makes things worse, as the long and failed legacy of slum clearance and subsequent housing projects in North American makes clear.