For all the tough living that poor people have to endure in so-called slums, it is a life, in the broadest sense of the term, that they are leading. Robert Neuwirth (blog; profile), featured in this TED talk, offers a necessary reminder of that fact. In the talk, based on his book, Shadow Cities, he reads a short passage about Armstrong O’Brien, Jr., who lives in a “10-by-10 cell” in Nairobi, Kenya. A few pages after he introduces Armstrong—in a part of the book that he does not read—Neuwirth adds a worthy challenge:
After all, if society won’t build for this mass of people, don’t they have a right to build for themselves? And if they do, then isn’t there merit in their mud huts? If they are creating their own homes and improving them over time, then isn’t there something good—at least potentially—about a community without water and sanitation and sewers? And if that’s true, then shouldn’t the comfortable class stop complaining about conditions in the shantytowns and instead work with the squatters to improve their communities?
Why, yes, in fact, that is a good idea. As good may be the idea that we get out of the way of people like Armstrong, who know more about their situation than any outsider, a fact often ignored by otherwise well-meaning folk.
