Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky, Dharavi, From Mega-Slum to Urban Paradigm

Abstract

With a population of nearly a million and physically covering a three-square-kilometre stretch at the heart of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, Dharavi is known to the world as ‘Asia’s largest slum.’ In the last decade or so, the crowded, labyrinthine slum has drawn the attention of entrepreneurs, real estate investors and politicians, sensing the money to be made and the votes to be got. A cursory online search reveals that it has been in national and international news, for being, among o...