Learning from the slums (1/2):literature and urban renewal
“Slumdog Millionaire” is the movie of the year. Its story of a young guy from Mumbai’s slum of Dharavi, who manages to change its destiny through the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” game has charmed many people, including the Oscars’ jury, who awarded the movie with 8 prizes. At the same time, the movie has created a debate around slums and how the movie portrays them. “Slumdog Millionaire” follows the mainstream vision of slums, described in the XIX century by writers like Daniel Defoe or Charles Dickens: dark, dirty places, with people packed in small rooms with no water facilities. In slums, riots are frequents, and police can hardly enter: the perfect place for criminals to hide and plan their threats to the society, and the perfect incubator for all sort of diseases. Dharavi walkway, (image: Flickr) Glasgow slum, 1871(image: Wikipedia) One of the first cities to enforce an urban renewal policy was Paris. Paris, quartier des Halles. Paris: a typical pre-Haussmann street. Rome.
Backpack Europe on Budget--Backpacking and travel info for budget travelers.
Amazing Places To Experience Around the Globe (Part 3)
Devetashkata Cave - Bulgaria Ben Bulben at County Sligo, Ireland Shark Island - Sydney Baatara Gorge Waterfall, Tannourine - Lebanon Abel Tasman National Park - New Zealand Myrtos Beach, Kefalonia - Greece Sichuan - China In The Gardens of Prague Castle Neist Point, Isle of Skye - Scotland Aiguill e du midi, Chamonix, France The Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve in Texas, USA 4 Hands - Etretat, France Río Tampaón in San Luis Potosí -México Madeira, Portugal Six Senses Evason Ma’In Hot Springs, Jordan Méandre - En-Vau - Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) More Amazing Places To Experience Around The Globe (Part 1 - click here) More Amazing Places to Experience Around The Globe (Part 2 - click here ) Discovered a place we should include in Part 4 of Amazing Places? We'll be publishing Amazing Places as a book in late 2012
PANTHEISM: the World Pantheist Movement
Lagos / Koolhaas
Lagos' population is expected to reach 24 million people by 2020, which would make it the third largest city in the world. Every hour, 21 new inhabitants set out to start a life in the city, a life that is highly unpredictable and requires risk taking, networking and improvisation as essential strategies for survival. Rem Koolhaas - winner of architecture's Nobel, the Pritzker Architecture Prize - is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard. For the past four years Koolhaas and students from The Harvard Project on the City have come to Lagos regularly to research the type of urban environment that is produced by explosive population growth. LAGOS / KOOLHAAS follows Koolhaas during his research in Lagos over a period of two years as he wanders through the city, talking with people and recognizing the problems with water, electricity and traffic. For example, in most North American cities we grumble about the traffic and turn up the CD. "Highly Recommended!
National Geographic Photo Contest 2011 - Alan Taylor - In Focus
National Geographic is currently holding its annual photo contest, with the deadline for submissions coming up on November 30. For the past nine weeks, the society has been gathering and presenting galleries of submissions, encouraging readers to vote for them as well. National Geographic was kind enough to let me choose among its entries from 2011 for display here on In Focus. Gathered below are 45 images from the three categories of People, Places, and Nature, with captions written by the individual photographers. [45 photos] Use j/k keys or ←/→ to navigate Choose: Many people pilgrimage to Uluru, but what is seen there often depends on where you've come from. Eruption of the Cordon del Caulle. Beluga whales in the arctic having fun. This is a streetcar in New Orleans traveling back towards The Quarter on St. This image captures almost 6 hours of climbing parties on Rainier going for the summit under starry skies. Russia, polar region of West Siberia, Tazovsky Peninsula.
Top 20 Earth Pictures found on Stumble Upon | Earth Pictures
Everybody knows that Stumbleupon is an great source for beautiful photography, nature, pets, arts and much more. They have millions of users and they are probably the most wide used source for finding quality content. Today, we collected 20 popular photographs from Stumbleupon. Most of them have been seen for more than million times each. We hope you’ll enjoy… Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Photo Source Source Photo Source Source Suggested by ISSy; Source You don’t want to miss our new post: 20 Gorgeous Animal Photos. Check out more HERE.
Save the Sacred Headwaters by Wade Davis | Our Living Water
In a rugged knot of mountains in the remote reaches of northern British Columbia lies a stunningly beautiful valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the southern edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness, the Serengeti of Canada, are born in remarkably close proximity three of Canada’s most important salmon rivers, the Stikine, Skeena and the Nass. In a long day, perhaps two, it is possible to walk through open meadows, following the tracks of grizzly, caribou and wolf, and drink from the very sources of the three rivers that inspired so many of the great cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the Gitxsan and Wet’sutwet’en, the Carrier and Sekani, the Tsimshian, Nisga’a, Tahltan, Haisla and Tlinglit. The only other place I know where such a wonder of geography occurs is in Tibet, where from the base of Mount Kailas arise three of the great rivers of Asia, the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, vital arteries that bring life to more than a billion people downstream.
Statistics on Poverty, Urbanization and Slums | P.a.p.-Blog, Human Rights Etc.
Content 1. Trends in urbanization2. Numbers of slum dwellers3. Slums and human rights 1. Urbanization is on the rise. Two hundred years ago, Peking was the only city in the world with a population of a million. The half of the world’s population that lives in cities occupies only approximately 2.7% of the world’s land area. (source) (source) (source) (source) (source) Lagos and Cairo are Africa’s largest cities. ^ back to top 2. Many of the city dwellers, especially in the Third World, live in slum conditions. (source, click image to enlarge) The UN estimates that the number of people living in slums passed 1 billion in 2007 and could reach 1.39 billion in 2020, although there are large variations among regions. (source) (source, click image to enlarge) In most parts of the world, the proportion of urban populations living in slums has gone down: The proportion of the world’s urban population living in slums has fallen from nearly 40% a decade ago to less than a third today. (source) 3.
