Urban planners aim to eliminate slums-with a mathematical approach

Researchers are testing a tool based on a "topological view" of cities and slums to improve the design of growing urban areas
Read the story: scim.ag/2Nv8Gw1
Read the paper (free): advances.scienc...
CREDITS
--------------
producer
Meagan Cantwell
citation
C. Brelsford et al.
Science Advances 2018
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700362
photos and video
Pond5
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
Slum Dwellers International
Anni Rosalen and Carmen Schlatter
Luis Bettencourt and Christa Brelsford
Meagan Cantwell and Jessica Hubbard
script by
Meagan Cantwell
Sarah Crespi
Catherine Matacic
music
Nguyên Khoi Nguyên

[@tornofthe45]

Did she just say "it turns out roads are what connects all the parts of the city" I feel like she directly ripped off my 5th grade essays about roads.

[@being5013]

Maybe she has done that??? And maybe you are one of the smartest beings in the universe???

[@Prash1c]

LOL! I admit that they may have oversimplified this for the lay audience--but this may also include children as their target audience. Also, urban planning is more common sense and practical than say molecular biology so perhaps, it's easier to end up too simple sounding.

[@5mnz7fg]

So, this method does not eliminate slums but makes them more habitable. Ok, it's a progress anyway.

[@florisr9]

It does eliminate slums by stimulating economic development of the inhabitants.

[@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person]

Eliminating slums doesn't always work. These people are still poor. IF you take their homes,they will either move to another slum or live in the streets which is even worse. We have to improve their finances,and giving them easy road access helps with that.

[@419prince]

You can't "eliminate" poverty with a blink, it takes time and one way to fuel that process is by taking approaches like this one

[@Ishantyagiofficial]

Demolish slums and build public housing flats with 10+ years of free maintenance by government, problem solved. Providing roads for those who don’t own a proper vehicle is foolish, aa 500ha slums can be transformed into 50ha apartment flats. Rest of that land can be used to develop the city

[@sid-fp6bi]

@@Ishantyagiofficialroads are not always for cars, they can be for people

[@simpublic89]

Amazing, I think this could be used to introduce a lesson to secondary or A level students to stimulate some interesting activities in Maths lessons.

[@adamchase8985]

you can take the gangster out of the ghetto ... but you cant take the ghetto out of the gangster.

[@handl3_me]

Is that you Pacino?

[@jurginschuhardt4858]

It's time we figger out how to help gangsters change their ways. If we don't the consequences will be bad.

[@rcs2012]

The design approach is quite interesting, but I would say upgrade slums instead of elimate slums.

[@MrDarksparka]

is the tool already out?, whats its name who/ who are the producers of the tool? this could help a project that im doing alot

[@sophrapsune]

Roads connect people to services. Who would’ve guessed?

[@manatee8911]

Problem is cheif, where you gonna put the people who got their houses teared down by road development

[@sertaki]

I hope there will be more reports about this, this is a fascinating project. Improving the access to infrastructure and the rest of society should in theory enable these communities to have many more opportunities to change things, even with the limited ressources they have. Isolation is most likely the biggest problem here (apart of the obvious lack of money) and changing this should pave the way to more impactful paths these communities can walk down.

[@brianc4632]

Derek Brandell Ever heard of public transportation and emergency/service vehicles? It seems the video has mentioned that several times and people in lower socioeconomic statuses depend on them because independently owning transportation is way beyond their budget.

[@manonjones3329]

This approach is called Space Syntax, has been in development since the 70s with Bill Hillier and Julienne Hansen

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Impoverished communities don’t build or plan roads, the govt does that. You can’t just build a road from ghetto to center city- that’s why it’s harder to travel out of and more expensive to buy food in underserved communities. If you don’t see their suffering is intentional then you will Never be of Any help. Go feel good for thinking halfway and doing nothing.

[@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person]

Yes you can. How the hell is this doing nothing when ambulances,post office and even trucks with products can enter deep into a slum and serve anyone there? IT doesn't need to be a damn paved street with signs, just a road access there will solve wonders! They went to that slum,they asked the people there to help with the research, they studied each house or else they wouldn't know which one has water or bathrooms. You are the one thinking halfway, just wanting to leave this problem for the government, and brooding over the fact the government never does shit to help them.

[@Ishantyagiofficial]

@@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person Demolish slums and build public housing flats with 10+ years of free maintenance by government, problem solved. Providing roads for those who don’t own a proper vehicle is foolish, aa 500ha slums can be transformed into 50ha apartment flats. Rest of that land can be used to develop the city

[@shahriarfardin777]

From dhaka capital of bangladesh a city of unplanned slum

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

If you’re going to fix anything or help anyone you have to actually care about those people. Roads and infrastructure are lacking in slums because the over arching culture sees these people as lesser value. They don’t want them having access to the rest of society or they may become functional voters who don’t prefer the wealthy people over the masses

[@wtan1851]

Misnomer. It doesn't eliminate slums. It should be slum upgrading. In the end, it isn't math but politics that gets in the way of road rationalization.

[@jeremiasrobinson]

Math to save the world!!

[@EqualToBen]

yea it'd be some cool charity work to go and find willing communities to help apply this to :) nice vid scimag

[@anggapranata9619]

Jakarta and all city in Indonesia need this

[@asdfghjkl2501]

same with Philippines

[@pradeepsrivastava4880]

Whole world tbh except Europe. North America and east asia

[@thetrickster9885]

@@pradeepsrivastava4880 Whole World except the western world. Australia and New Zealand also come in this

[@neeraj8069]

Demolish slums and build public housing flats with 10+ years of free maintenance by government, problem solved. Providing roads for those who don’t own a proper vehicle is foolish, aa 500ha slums can be transformed into 50ha apartment flats. Rest of that land can be used to develop the city

[@Ishantyagiofficial]

yup, in logon ne logon ko slums m rhne ko encourage kar diya hai thank god ki Hum mumbai main Public housing bnate hai recently i check that BDD chawls are being demolished and wahan par 50 - 50 and 30 - 30 floors ki building bnagi jisme logo ko public housing milegi aur 10 maintanence aur jo jagah and falt bacj jayegi vo builder apne marzi se bech sakte hai

[@everettduncan7543]

It would ease each slum's access to public transport as well

[@townplanningandurbanmanage2663]

That is not possible for every country. That is easy to say but every country cannot afford it . The best possible way is rehabilitation. And Secondly You should Study about sociology that demolishing a site affect a society in many ways. 3rd Every Soil Cannot bear a high-rise structure.

[@gamingrobertobarte5475]

and the thing is must people who lived in the slums owns the land they dont wanna let anyone buy it idk why

[@nicholasdranfile9312]

Wow This small move makes a bigg difference.

[@newgoliard6059]

Trump calls my neighborhood a slum so we're arguing semantics here.

[@TheCJUN]

Roads!? What about income inequality?

[@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person]

With better roads,it's easy for people to commute to work and for business to go to the slums.Nobody wants to open a retail shop and hire locals if there's not even water in the store,notheless roads connecting to the rest of the city.

[@fosahistorica2537]

Yeah y think te same , is better and cheaper to convert slums into pedestrian areas

[@OmPrakash-tn3gm]

Indian should approach towards this

[@AaronTheHarris]

Was not expecting the comparison to inefficient Las Vegas sprawl to be brought up...very cool! Would love to learn more about the connection.

[@protohale]

A billion people live in slums around the world and many of them don't have access to any kind of infrastructure. Scientists are trying to solve this problem with a mathematical approach to urban design called "topology".

[@ipconfigearth102]

Dumb… cycling lanes - walking lanes are more important vs car centric planning

[@fosahistorica2537]

Is not better a cheaper to convert slums into pedestrian Japanese-like suburbs.?

[@raegold024]

I know what this is going to look like when it's finished. A suburb.

[@hannyyadav4621]

nice

[@BronzeOrwin]

"It's the roads, guys, totally not the massive mountains of laws in big cities."

[@Eternalentropy]

Slums generally aren't white. That's all I'm saying.

[@kefsound]

Zero information, only platitudes.

[@rodrigomuller]

Eliminate?

[@nitingadia4925]

Regardless of the integrity of what they've done, the fact that the authors use the term "slums" and not "informal settlements" shows that they lack credibility and respect for the the people they're trying to help. Scientists needs to be up to date on not just science. This was very disappointing.

[@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person]

Political correctness never helped anyone, and it just serves to appease the easily offended millenials from the top of their ivory towers. Not all slums are informal. Take Cidade de Deus in Brazil for example,which was built by the government as a social housing program back in the 60s to take people out of slums and it turned into one of the most dangerous places in Rio de Janeiro,even the movie with the same name as the community wasn't filmed there,such was the violence in that place at the time. You can call the place comunidade all you want like the Brazilian media, but it doesn't matter if the place is called comunidade or favela or complexo or slums or shanty towns, their lives didn't improve by calling their place with a more political correct name.

[@nittyjee]

@@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person I can't agree with you more, I actually was also slightly cringing when I wrote that hahaha I've gotten so caught up in being PC, I'm in the process of cleansing myself of it. I appreciate your comment, and it was also interesting. I also feel we might be on a similar page - govt housing can be "slums" too. Where this had been coming from for me is that the removal of people was with the word "slums" in unused public land as something to demolish, and "public housing" as something to replace it. In the US, it was called "Urban Renewal", later mocked as "Urban Removal". At the heart of all this is not housing or poverty, but the fact that it's illegal to use that land. They were settled informally without purchasing or renting the land. Most of the time, if they started to improve their homes, they would be bulldozed. There are some slums that were impossible to demolish, and many people there have felt safe enough from governments to start improving their own homes with walls with bricks and electricity and water. That's happened in Mumbai, where they couldn't get to them in time to demolish them and put them into "vertical slums" as they call them there. In my opinion, slums should be left alone, so they can improve themselves so they won't be, which would be absolutely inevitable, much faster than people usually think. In fact, they would ultimately be some of the most sought after places, with the highest land values. People have lived without deeds before they were invented, and their lands usurped or "enclosed", like it first was done in England. Either give people deeds or let them live freely where they do without them, like they did before them. Maybe that was more talking about substance than words? Thanks again for this. Would love to hear more of your thoughts, more learning the better.

[@bradbarker4041]

We will eliminate slums only when we eliminate poverty, which will only happen if we eliminate money.

[@Eternalentropy]

Commie.

[@sertaki]

Still, improving access to infrastructure and the rest of society is most likely the easiest and most cost-efficient way to quickly help these communities improve from within. The lack of opportunities to make their own situation better is the main problem here (on a local scale).

[@being5013]

Conclusions, Conlusions everywhere Oo

[@Ishantyagiofficial]

Demolish slums and build public housing flats with 10+ years of free maintenance by government, problem solved. Providing roads for those who don’t own a proper vehicle is foolish, aa 500ha slums can be transformed into 50ha apartment flats. Rest of that land can be used to develop the city

[@manatee8911]

@@Ishantyagiofficial no

[@tripplethicc626]

I was wondering if they could improve slums instead of removing it?????