13.1. Slum Upgrade

Aus Pattern Language Wiki

Within the Polycentric Region, do not leave areas of disconnection, poor sanitation, and low safety, but work to upgrade and integrate them into the surrounding fabric.


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Problem-statement: How can we help those who live in slums to enjoy a better quality of life and greater opportunities, without forcing them to leave their existing social networks and move to places that might actually make their lives worse?


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Discussion: Informal settlements — slums — often have many positive qualities, including existing neighborhood relationships, cultural creativity, resource efficiency, and remarkable levels of innovation and resourcefulness. But they often also lack mobility and access, good utility service, sanitation, security, and other essential conditions necessary for quality of life.


The approach often used in the past was to force slum dwellers to move to new buildings which included utilities, sanitation and other amenities. But this approach is expensive, and history shows that it often fails. People lose their web of social contacts, and the new buildings often become even more unsafe than the buildings from which they moved.


We are recognizing that a key aspect of healthy urbanization is its self-organizing character, where people work “bottom-up” to address their own needs, and to create remarkably complex, well-functioning neighborhoods with strong social capital.¹


At the same time, people need transport and utility systems and they need a public realm that is sufficiently structured to promote safety in numbers and “eyes on the street” to improve security.


In essence, a major source of the problem we have comes from two incompatible geometries. The geometry of an informal settlement is evolved almost exclusively from the bottom-up. This is the geometry of organized complexity, adapted by incremental building according to the residents’ immediate needs. By contrast, the geometry in the minds of government planners, or construction companies that most often undertake social housing projects, is rigid and top-down. Bulldozing the slum and moving its inhabitants into neatly-ordered boxes with infrastructure and sanitary amenities is not a viable solution, as history has shown.² The negative aspects — the loss of adaptive complexity in the built environment, and the loss of networks of relationships that are severed by the top-down geometry — can outweigh all the genuine positive benefits of better sanitation, better connectivity and so on. In many cases, the relocated residents have turned against the built fabric that they identified as dehumanizing, and destroyed it.


As an alternative strategy, many cities have begun to implement strategies to upgrade slums in place, reinforcing their best qualities and addressing their weaknesses with pro-active policies. For example, the city of Medellín, Colombia, instituted participatory budgeting to allow neighborhoods to decide their own allocations for infrastructure, including escalators and overhead cable cars. Beautiful new civic structures like libraries were placed directly in the center of slum communities, promoting a mixing of populations and an opportunity for commerce across a wider section of the city.³


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Therefore:

Do not assume that the only remedy for informal settlements is to demolish and relocate. Instead, institute policies for slum upgrading, allowing people to stay in their homes and communities, and improve their quality of life.


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Provide secure Land Tenure and processes for Incremental Self-Build. Provide resources for upgrading through a Neighborhood Planning Center and through Data With The People. …




¹ This approach is sometimes known as “community-driven development.” See for example this World Bank report, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTUSU/Resources/cdd-urban-upgrading.pdf. The World Bank also offers an online resource for learning about slum upgrading, available at https://olc.worldbank.org/content/upgrading-urban-informal-settlements-self-paced.


² See series of articles being published online on ArchDaily: Salingaros, N.A., Brain, D., Duany, A.M., Mehaffy, M.W. and Philibert-Petit, E. (2019-2020) Socially-Organized Housing. https://www.archdaily.com/922149/socially-organized-housing-biophilia-connectivity-and-spirituality


³ A more detailed account of the remarkable upgrading work in Medellín is in the case study section of this book. See also Calderon, C. (2008). Learning from Slum Upgrading and Participation: A case study of participatory slum upgrading in the emergence of new governance in the city of Medellín, Colombia. Stockholm SE: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Planning and Environment.



Mehaffy, M. et al. (2020). SLUM UPGRADE (pattern). In A New Pattern Language for Growing Regions. The Dalles: Sustasis Press. Available at https://pattern-language.wiki/.../Slum_Upgrade



SECTION I:

PATTERNS OF SCALE


1. REGIONAL PATTERNS

Define the large-scale spatial organization…

1.1. POLYCENTRIC REGION

1.2. BLUE-GREEN NETWORK

1.3. MOBILITY CORRIDOR

1.4. 400M THROUGH STREET NETWORK

2. URBAN PATTERNS

Establish essential urban characteristics…

2.1. WALKABLE MULTI-MOBILITY

2.2. LEVEL CITY

2.3. PUBLIC SPACE SYSTEM

2.4. BIOPHILIC URBANISM

3. STREET PATTERNS

Identify and allocate street types…

3.1. URBAN GREENWAY

3.2. MULTI-WAY BOULEVARD

3.3. AVENUE

3.4. SHARED SPACE LANE

4. NEIGHBORHOOD PATTERNS

Define neighborhood-scale elements…

4.1. STREET AS CENTER

4.2. PEDESTRIAN SANCTUARY

4.3. NEIGHBORHOOD SQUARE

4.4. NEIGHBORHOOD PARK

5. SPECIAL USE PATTERNS

Integrate unique urban elements with care…

5.1. SCHOOL CAMPUS

5.2. MARKET CENTER

5.3. INDUSTRIAL AREA

5.4. HOSPITAL

6. PUBLIC SPACE PATTERNS

Establish the character of the crucial public realm…

6.1. PLACE NETWORK

6.2. WALKABLE STREETSCAPE

6.3. MOVABLE SEATING

6.4. CAPILLARY PATHWAY

7. BLOCK AND PLOT PATTERNS

Lay out the detailed structure of property lines…

7.1. SMALL BLOCKS

7.2. PERIMETER BLOCK

7.3. SMALL PLOTS

7.4. MID-BLOCK ALLEY

8. STREETSCAPE PATTERNS

Configure the street as a welcoming place…

8.1. STREET AS ROOM

8.2. TERMINATED VISTA

8.3. STREET TREES

8.4. STREET FURNISHINGS

9. BUILDING PATTERNS

Lay out appropriate urban buildings…

9.1. PERIMETER BUILDING

9.2. ARCADE BUILDING

9.3. COURTYARD BUILDING

9.4. ROW BUILDING

10. BUILDING EDGE PATTERNS

Create interior and exterior connectivity…

10.1. INDOOR-OUTDOOR AMBIGUITY

10.2. CIRCULATION NETWORK

10.3. LAYERED ZONES

10.4. PASSAGEWAY VIEW



SECTION II:

PATTERNS OF MULTIPLE SCALE


11. GEOMETRIC PATTERNS

Build in coherent geometries at all scales…

11.1. LOCAL SYMMETRY

11.2. SMALL GROUPS OF ELEMENTS

11.3. FRACTAL PATTERN

11.4. FRAMING

12. AFFORDANCE PATTERNS

Build in user capacity to shape the environment…

12.1. HANDLES

12.2. CO-PRODUCTION

12.3. FRIENDLY SURFACES

12.4. MALLEABILITY

13. RETROFIT PATTERNS

Revitalize and improve existing urban assets …

13.1. SLUM UPGRADE

13.2. SPRAWL RETROFIT

13.3. URBAN REGENERATION

13.4. URBAN CONSOLIDATION

14. INFORMAL GROWTH PATTERNS

Accommodate “bottom-up” urban growth…

14.1. LAND TENURE

14.2. UTILITIES FIRST

14.3. DATA WITH THE PEOPLE

14.4. INCREMENTAL SELF-BUILD

15. CONSTRUCTION PATTERNS

Use the building process to enrich the result…

15.1. DESIGN-BUILD ADAPTATION

15.2. HUMAN-SCALE DETAIL

15.3. CONSTRUCTION ORNAMENT

15.4. COMPLEX MATERIALS



SECTION III:

PATTERNS OF PROCESS


16. IMPLEMENTATION TOOL PATTERNS

Use tools to achieve successful results…

16.1. FORM-BASED CODE

16.2. ENTITLEMENT STREAMLINING

16.3. NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING CENTER

16.4. COMMUNITY MOCKUP

17. PROJECT ECONOMICS PATTERNS

Create flows of money that support urban quality…

17.1. TAX-INCREMENT FINANCING

17.2. LAND VALUE CAPTURE

17.3. EXTERNALITY VALUATION

17.4. ECONOMIES OF PLACE AND DIFFERENTIATION

18. PLACE GOVERNANCE PATTERNS

Processes for making and managing places…

18.1. SUBSIDIARITY

18.2. POLYCENTRIC GOVERNANCE

18.3. PUBLIC-PRIVATE PLACE MANAGEMENT

18.4. INFORMAL STEWARDSHIP

19. AFFORDABILITY PATTERNS

Build in affordability for all incomes…

19.1. INTEGRATED AFFORDABILITY

19.2. COMMUNITY LAND TRUST

19.3. MULTI-FAMILY INFILL

19.4. SPECULATION TAX

20. NEW TECHNOLOGY PATTERNS

Integrate new systems without damaging old ones…

20.1. SMART AV SYSTEM

20.2. RESPONSIVE TRANSPORTATION NETWORK COMPANY

20.3. AUGMENTED REALITY DESIGN

20.4. CITIZEN DATA