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Housing the poor: a study of Aranya, India

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Housing the poor: a study of Aranya, India.

Thomas Barker
Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

ABSTRACT: Due to a growing number of urban poor in the major cities of developing countries, there
has been a large-scale international effort to implement an appropriate solution to housing the
urban poor. Some of these systems have worked and some have not. This paper will consider Aranya
low-cost housing in India as an example of an architecturally planned master scheme where slum
dwellers have been displaced from their illegal dwellings. The paper will also consider what lessons
can be learnt from its considered successes and its relevant failures to see whether or not this type
of development is pertinent as a contemporary means of housing the poor. The research finds that
four major areas are essential to making low income development plausible for the future:
government investment; adequate service provision; appropriate construction techniques; and
government regulations.

Keywords: Aranya, Housing, Slums

INTRODUCTION
Due to an inability to keep up with housing the massive increase in urban populations in developing
countries during the latter half of the 20th century, there has been a significant increase in the
growth of slum settlements. Since 1950 the proportion of people working in developing country
agriculture has declined by 20 to 30 per cent. (Sustainable Urbanisation, 2007) and the immigrant
urban poor have largely moved from the country side to the cities. They have done this voluntarily in
order to exploit actual or perceived economic opportunities and this increasing urban informal
sector is spectacularly visible in the many growing and large scale informal and squatter settlements
in urban centres. (Sustainable Urbanisation, 2007) Various attempts to find a valid urban and
architectural housing solution to the slum crisis have been initiated by a wide range of professionals.
Following some general background information to the problem of slum housing, this paper defines
the three main types of urban renewal that have been pursued to solve the problem. One of the
solutions has been to relocate slum dwellers to new townships and to demolish the slums in which
these dwellers have lived and this paper considers in detail the success of Aranya Township, India
where the new build solution has been implemented. Aranya Township is a respected example of
these new settlements but, despite the architectural brilliance of this township, it has failed to show
itself as an effective way to house the poor. This paper will describe how and why Aranya Township
has failed and determine if the lessons learnt support an alternative solution. Incorporating these
lessons may help to make these types of development a viable option for the future.

1. SLUM CREATION
One third of the world’s population lives in slums, a slum being defined by UN Habitat as “a place of
residence lacking one or more of five things: durable housing, sufficient living area, access to
improved water, access to sanitation and secure tenure.” (BBC, 2006) Otiso agrees that the main
contributing factors to the creation of slum areas are: (1) poor planning, (2) weak municipal
governments, and (3) excessive rural to urban migration rates. (Otiso, 2003) Slum areas are generally
formed by unprecedented rural to urban migration (Dündar, 2001) and the three conditions
specified by Otiso are the characteristic issues in slums in developing countries. A further difficulty is
that slums are often found along railway tracks, river banks, under flyovers and on pavements near
work places; (Chatterji , 2007) Thus there is magnified cost implications of supplying these areas with
basic services, and the difficulty in getting into the “chaotic jumble of ramshackle dwellings.”(Steele,
1998:115)

Various strategies have been used to attempt to redevelop slum areas by the state, voluntary and
private sectors in housing. These groups have a variety of strengths and weaknesses with respect to
housing service and delivery. (Otiso, 2003) And they have various ways they have used to redevelop
slum areas. These include: non-displacement through “enabling” (Beard, 2004:366) development;
displacement through demolition and regeneration; displacement through slum renovation and new
townships. However, each of the solutions highlights one of the major issues with hutment
redevelopment which is the problem that derives from moving people out of tight-knit community
groups with the existing economic ‘security’.

2. TYPES OF RENEWAL
Traditionally there have been three kinds of slum renewal. These are: self help, where dwellers are
supported by governments to reinvigorate their existing dwellings themselves; rebuild, where
existing slum dwellings are demolished and new housing arrangements are emplaced onto the
existing site and new-build where dwellers are moved into new housing in a new area. The following
sections further explore what these different systems encompass.

2.1 Self Help

Self help is a system introduced in which governments simply increase infrastructure and services
and allow dwellers to upgrade and maintain their dwellings themselves. This essentially requires
governments to supply security of tenure so that dwellers are comfortable in upgrading their
housing stock, as there is no fear that they will lose the land or the block. This is desirable on several
levels and, in particular local commercial activity allows dwellers to maintain their existing economic
structures and thus does not disturb these life-sustaining activities. (Mahmud, 2003) Also it does not
take them from the central areas in which they have located themselves in order to have the best
retail / commercial opportunities. One of the major complaints by slum dwellers in Turkish
Gecekondus who were displaced was the loss of neighbourhood relations and mutual support
because of the new complicated and intricate ownership structure, which was damaging the fabric
of society. That resulted in these projects transferring the economic and social problems to other
parts of the city.

Slum dwellers positioned within these ‘ramshackle’ communities create a culture of support and
fellowship. If the dwellings on the land that they are currently occupying are renovated then there
are possibilities for these community groups to be maintained and intensified. However, it is the
style of renovation that is important here, as inconsiderate renovation can be detrimental.
Property rights are not strictly enforced, where land registration and cadastres are incomplete,
where officially-sanctioned city plans are rarely taken seriously, where much land subdivision and
construction proceeds without permits, where enforcement is intermittent and often corrupt, and
where a large part of the citizenry cannot afford minimum standard shelter.(Angel, Civco, Sheppard,
2005)
Self help systems ‘enable’ squatters to own their own land in a secure way through government land
de-regulation and depots that supply materials at cost for house renovations. Through the supply of
better amenities such as education, medical and service provision as well as the improved housing,
this system allows dwellers to stay where they are, whilst at the same time increases their living
standard.
2.1 Rebuild
In rebuild development systems, existing slum sites are maintained but the buildings that are on
them are rebuilt. This is different from self help in that municipalities briefly move dwellers off the
land whilst they construct new tenements or buildings. This system is wrought with difficulties as
due to the high land cost in the areas that the slums have previously occupied, residents cannot
afford the better housing supplied to them. For example, in the Turkish Gecekondus the slum ‘client’
often couldn’t afford the rent of renovated or new build plots and thus the renewal had the affect of
moving residents to (and placing greater strain on) other city slums and their already weak
infrastructure.

It is not always appropriate to replace these areas with buildings. Le Corbusier, for example, in his
Modernist Athens Charter, suggested in 1943:
An elementary knowledge of the principal notions of health and sanitation is sufficient to detect a
slum building and to discriminate a clearly unsanitary city block. These blocks must be demolished,
and this should be an opportunity to replace them with parks. (Le Corbusier, 1973:70)

This does not help the housing issue and is an idealistic view of what to do with slum developments;
but this western modernist movement view inspired the rebuild method. Instead of simply
demolishing slums, they were demolished and on the land newer more modern buildings were
planted. Almost all developing countries have adopted zoning and land subdivision regulations, as
well as building codes and standards, but these have often been copied unchanged from
industrialized countries. (Angel, Civco, Sheppard, 2005) Thus the buildings that are constructed in
the place of the old slum developments in those countries do not properly respond to many of the
necessary factors that are needed for cultural and climatic particulars that are specific to those
areas.

2.3 New Build

The term ‘new build’ refers to housing developments where governments commandeer plots of land
predominantly on the outskirts of the city and housing stock is placed on them and inner city
squatters moved there. This is done through a site and services scheme. There have been other
examples of this where the new build developments are urban high rise apartment buildings.
Integral to the techniques used for the development of slum areas and the supply of infrastructure
and design of planning is that it is easier to develop new housing schemes than it is to redevelop old
ones. Funds, if managed properly, can be directed to where they are needed most. In this system
dwellers are relocated and can lose valuable economic placement, their goods no longer can be sold
at convenient-to-reach locations and thus informal income is compromised. Often developments in
the new areas have opportunities for work and new industry; however these may not be appropriate
industries for residents, as they may need to learn new skill sets. As the UN Millennium Projects
report suggests.
To facilitate the shift into the formal sector, local authorities should adjust their laws and regulations
to lower the costs and increase the benefits for people to formalize their enterprises. They should
also provide assistance to small enterprises to upgrade skills and increase access to productive
resources and market opportunities. (UN Millennium Project Report, 2006)

In this style of development the original communities are ‘lost’ and new communities are contrived.
Forming a harmonious community following this dislocation is a difficult and arduous task. In some
new townships the design allows for existing communities and family groups to be retained but
without such proper consideration ‘class’ may subvert the idea of ‘community’.

It is obvious that new townships receive better infrastructure than most dwellers have been used
too. However, this does not mean that the new infrastructure is satisfactory, or that it allows for
increased density. In particular, where infrastructure is to be shared, services can often fall into
disrepair and become hazardous rather than helpful. The “large majority of urban authorities in
developing countries do not engage in realistic minimal preparations… investing in the minimal
infrastructure.”(Angel, Civco, Sheppard, 2005:101)

3. ARANYA LOW COST HOUSING, INDORE, 1983-89

Due to “unprecedented dimensions of rural to urban migration” (Dündar, 2001:391) during the
middle of the 20th century, many of the developing nations saw a massive increase in city
population densities and struggled to provide sufficient housing for these new developments. This
happened in “India, resulting in urban areas where nearly 23% of the population of well over 800
million now live” (Steele, 1998:114) and “in India… many of the present environmental maladies
have been attributed to the pressure resulting from high population density.”(Siddiqui, Pandey,
2003:600)

To counter the problem of illegal squatter settlements, (this “urban cancer” (Ward, 1976:331)), the
Indian government sought to engage different architects and urban planners to consider and
implement unique housing solutions. In the township of Aranya, in the Indore Valley, the Indore
Development Authority commissioned Vastu-Shilpa Foundation (VSF) (led by Balkrishna V. Doshi) to
perform work on a new housing development primarily designed for the Economically Weaker
Sector (EWS).
The following is an appraisal of the solution for Aranya Nagar (Aranya low-cost housing) on which
construction started in 1983. Indore, a commercial centre for the state of Madhya Pradesh, is typical
of urban areas throughout India in that it suffers from acute housing shortages. The solution of the
housing shortage was not only to upgrade slums but also to create a new ‘site and service’ scheme
to provide for new housing (Steel, 1998:115). A policy such as this offers some hope of lessening the
pressures of large-scale migration from subsistence agriculture directly into the biggest cities. It can
also provide alternative settlement systems designed to achieve more balanced regional
development. (Declaration of Vancouver Symposium, 1976)

Turner outlines much of the problem with slum settlements, where typically up to 45% of the
population is below 15 years of age; fertility is high but so is infant mortality (particularly from
gastro-enteric diseases); household size is six but there are about eight or nine people per house;
unemployment is high among women and young people, unemployment is common among heads of
household (usually men); education and skill standards are low; the majority of households own
their house (but not the land) and a small portion are renters and only a very small proportion of
houses have sanitary facilities or water supply. (Turner, 1980) Although men are considered the
heads of household women are understood to play a key role in the economic security of dwellings
without which the dwelling would perish. (Mahmud, 2003) These poor conditions that are found
throughout many slum areas are also referred to by Abelson who found further that half of adults in
slums are illiterate, few slum households have private tap water, only half the slums have public tap
water, and less than one in five slum houses owns a toilet. (Abelson, 1996) These descriptions
accurately depict the situation in Aranya and were the catalyst for the Indore Development
Authority to commission Aranya which is described by VSF as “an holistic environment rooted in the
socio-cultural and economic milieu of the urban poor.” (Doshi, 1988:28)
To counter these issues VSF set out four objectives in its design: (1) to create a township where a
sense of continuity and fundamental values of security exist in a good living environment; (2) to
achieve a community character by establishing harmony between the built environment and the
people; (3) to create a balanced community of various socio-economic groups, encouraging co-
operation, tolerance and self-help generated through a physical planning process; and (4) to evolve a
framework through design, where incremental development can take place within legal, economic
and organisational guidelines.(Mahmud, 2003) These objectives seem similar to a simple statement
by Patrick Geddes almost 40 years before the inception of Aranya namely that “town planning is not
mere place-planning nor even work-planning. If it is to be successful it must be folk-
planning.”(Geddes, 1947:22) Four main issues have been responsible for the lack of success of the
project. These are: government investment, Construction Standards, service provision and retention
of dwellers. These issues are described in more detail below.

3.1 Government Investment

The total investment in housing in India declined from 34 percent in the First Five Year Plan in 1951
for national development to a mere 7.4 percent in the draft of the Sixth Five Year Plan. (Ekram,
1995) This was a drastic reduction in the amount of money that governmental bodies were willing to
give to the development of housing and resulted in a massive growth of ramshackle hutments. The
reduction also related to the monetary provision by government for the upgrading and constructing
of housing at the time of implementation of Aranya low cost housing and Ekram later noted that the
public sector contribution to Aranya was only 1.5 percent of the total. (Ekram, 1995)(Government of
India Planning Commission, 2008) This was still a “Rs. 100 million” (Hill, 1998) (US $2,175,805 year
2000 rates) contribution by the government to the project.

This reduction in funding called for a partnership with the private sector. However, there is no
evidence of any NGO activity concerned with community participation. (Khosla, 1995) The reason is
outlined by Otiso who states that the problem of NGOs are that they lack in-depth knowledge of
local communities and that included in this is that they fail to promote community participation
themselves : “this sector cannot single handedly meet the needs of poor urban residents because it
lacks the capacity to do so.” (Otiso, 2003:222) In lieu of this he suggests that there be trisector
partnerships [that] foster success by utilizing mutual strengths and skills, promoting community
participation, local capacity building, self help and empowerment, efficient resource mobilisation
and diffusion of best practices. (Otiso, 2003:223)

During implementation there should be a joint venture between many bodies involved and that this
should result in a reduced monopoly by any one body.(Sivam, 2003) Rather than NGOs the onus
should be on Community Based Organisations (CBOs) to deliver the services and community support
for development schemes as these are ‘grass-roots’ community organisations. The development and
community participation in Aranya was assumed by the architect as an accepted cultural
phenomenon, but this was not so. Due to the inability of the relevant bodies such as the Indore
Municipality Council (IMC) to force dwellers to stay at their allotted site, the scheme was made
ineffective.

3.2 Construction Standards

Due to the elimination of price controls the cost of living heavily increased in India during the Sixth
Five Year Plan. What government housing stock was produced was usually still above the financial
means of the urban poor, whose inability to obtain affordable housing and services thereby
continued due this imposition of unattainable building and infrastructure standards. (Otiso, 2003)
Concentration on poverty levels by government did not come into the fore of the Five Year Plans
until the recent Tenth Five Year Plan 2002 – 2007.(Government of India Planning Commission, 2008)
This all lead to slum dwellers finding it very difficult to afford or maintain new living conditions.
Because of the intricate ownership structure, these projects also tended to exclude dwellers and
thus shift the problems to the other areas of the city. (Dündar, 2001)

At the inception of Aranya there were only 80 display homes built in order to show the flexibility of
housing and the kind of space that could be expected from the overall development once complete.
VSF wanted to concentrate on a scheme that would allow for “flexibility and elasticity at all levels of
planning [that] should ensure that the proposals put forward can respond dynamically to any
feedback received.” (Doshi, 1996:28) After the initial display homes were constructed the rest of the
project was left to be built by local residents without appropriate municipal support. Unfortunately,
there is still a tree-less 81 ha building site (Khosla, 1995) almost 10 years after the inception of the
project.

Aranya depends on ‘material banks’, financed by the higher income groups. However, there was no
institution that was responsible for these material nodes. (Steel, 1998) The structures were
constructed with load bearing brick walls, plastered and painted, and floors were cement concrete.
The CRC roof was always constructed at a later stage as it was a high investment item. (Ekram, 1995)
Formulated service and infrastructure designs were rigidly followed.

For the middle and higher income groups, normal market mechanisms ensured that houses were
constructed for those able to afford them, and although provision was made for the lower income
groups, the method of housing delivery left them in a disadvantageous situation. It is necessary for
means to be made available for the poorest families to provide depots where at-cost building
materials may be obtained, as well as financial assistance and technical advice. (Turner, 1980) Many
strategies have failed due to reliance on inappropriate designs, construction technology, and
conventional building materials. (Otiso, 2003) This is evidenced by the use of the complicated and
expensive CRC roof that left dwellers unable to house roof themselves simply and rapidly. “This can
be solved by decisions to involve the private sector in housing delivery” (Sivam, 2003) and allowing
NGOs to provide technical, financial, and material assistance. (Otiso, 2003) Which alleviates the
municipality from concerning itself with much of the fiscal burden and thus allows it to concentrate
on the management of the site and provision for further infrastructure.

3.3 Service Provision

If governments do not allow for a relaxation in building regulations to allow for a more generic
service provision of at least some adequacy, slum dwellers are left with an insurmountable health,
welfare, and sanitary situation. In the case of Aranya, the idea that every house had a service core
could have been detrimental over all rather than helpful. Thus it is imperative for governments to
relax perceived standards in order to encourage minimal living conditions. Turner supports this
relinquishing of many of the municipalities “inappropriate middle class values” (Ward, 1976:340)
and states that
At the very lowest level, which is where the pressure is, the concept must be; a piece of land with
security and very basic services, which may be no more than a common water point and pit latrines
with unmade roads and footpaths.(Turner, 1980:80)
Although VSF supplied service cores all of the land plots, a local report in 1995 by Khosla claims that
at Aranya water was only available half an hour a day. (Khosla, 1995) Is this truly a sufficient amount
of supply for the 60,000 people originally proposed for this settlement?

EWS Service provision allowed for (i) site, plinth and service core (latrine and water tap); (ii) site,
plinth and service core (latrine and bath); (iii) site plinth and service core (latrine and bath) and one
room. (Ekram, 1995) Although this provision is an admirable sentiment by the architects, Turner,
however, argues that this is inefficient and that its assumption is that dwellers can afford this service
and is indicative of the question “do you want water on tap in each house?”(Turner, 1980:81) rather
than “do you want water at a… common point for a group of houses at a cost much less per
month?”(Turner, 1980:81) One must be careful however in the supply of service cores as Abelson,
who disagrees with Turner, evaluated 170 slums in Visakhapatnam where government targets were
for a public tap for every twenty households and a public toilet for each ten households. Abelson
saw there was evidence of low maintenance of one third of the water supply and some public
latrines were out of order within one year. (Abelson, 1996) At the time of the study, Abelson notes
that the slums had weak institutional and financing methods for maintaining improvements and
maintenance was left to dwellers, rather than being the domain of the municipality. He outlines that
without proper organisation structures in place public service provision can be detrimental to the
project rather than helpful. The other issue with public services is that as the area densities there is a
greater strain on the public amenity and infrastructure and thus it soon is unable to cope with the
necessities of the future.

3.4 Retention of Dwellers

The Aranya Low-Cost Housing Scheme won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1996 but despite
constructing this award winning township one observer in a local report expressed alarm at the
prevalence of brokering on the project site.” (Steel, 1998:121) This is not uncommon in slum
redevelopment schemes. Dündar states one perceived problem was “illegal rent transfer to slum
populations who have managed to obtain houses on land belonging to others” (Dündar, 2001:393)
so that the population that the low cost housing development was built for earns money through
selling or renting to other non-participants. Indeed it was envisaged that rooms would be rented out
by dwellers, but not whole plots. This problem is again supported by Turner’s idea that unrealistic
standards will inevitably result in the eventual occupation of the housing by a higher-income group
than the intended families, who are unable to afford the rents to pay for the level of service
provided. (Turner, 1980) In the case of Aranya, ‘only 15 to 20 percent of the original plot owners still
held the plots originally allotted to them, with the resale price of plots averaging approximately ten
times the original purchase price. (Steel, 1998)

Although the program in Aranya allowed for the dwellers to obtain security of tenure the Indore
Development Authority quickly undermined the this by sending out ‘demand letters’ which outlined
to the “beneficiaries the amount of unpaid instalments, the interest due on these, as well as the
extent of the penalty for non-payment.”(Khosla, 1995:2) The effect was that dwellers were
encouraged to sell up to avoid these consequences and thus spoiling the attempt by VSF to
construct community involvement. This is in contrast to the method adopted by the Grameen Bank
who loan money internationally their “loans are to communal groups, rather than individuals,
making it harder to default. Loans are also only made to women since [they] are found to be more
reliable than men in repayment.” (Steel, 1998:124) This system encourages the community aspect of
the site and services scheme. In his slum evaluation, Abelson claims the Municipal Corporation of
Visakhapatnam prevented households from selling pattas (‘good’ housing) when they are used for
Housing Corporation loans or for the first five years of the grant. (Abelson, 1996) This encouraged
those individuals who borrowed money or took government grants to be able to live in the new
housing and to stay in the housing rather than earn money from it. Conversely the “VSF research at
the grass roots suggests that the monthly incomes of the EWS groups are underestimated in the
national statistics as they do not take into account the incomes from the informal sector and the
practice of subletting to augment the incomes.” (Balkrishna, 1988:28)
In Aranya Township, Indore Valley, India, many residents sold their newly allotted land, Weak
governance allowed the “prevalence of brokering on the project site.”(Steel, 1998:123) Also in
Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna where a similar solution was imposed, “all of the architect's best
intentions… were no match for the avariciousness of the Gournis themselves, who took every
opportunity possible to sabotage their new village in order to stay where they were and to continue
their own crude but lucrative version of amateur archaeology.” (Steele, 1989:17) These two brief
examples show that when developing new townships for slum dwellers, a strong connection
between the economic and community sectors (and to a lesser extent with infrastructure) must be
developed. The goal is to supply better housing and infrastructure to these communities and thus it
can be assumed that it is not just better service that is the reason for the failure of any slum
redevelopment scheme, but a culmination of many factors.

CONCLUSION
New build developments can be prosperous developments that are successful and fully aid the
community they have been aimed at to help. Architecturally most of the master planning has been
successful in its understanding of the needs and requirements of the people it has aimed to help and
of the culture that it has been built within. However without the guidance of governing bodies to
make sure that the project is properly implemented and controlled there can easily be a failing in the
overall scheme and thus a failing in the intentions of those involved in the construction of the
development.

The severe lack of services and minimal sanitary environment is one of the major reasons to
establish new communities for the urban poor. There must be caution in this area, as described in
Aranya, where the service provision was perhaps too much and made the dwelling unaffordable for
the general slum dweller. Also, the spread of so many individualised services put a strain on the
available amount of the potable water that was available to the site, causing them to be ineffective
for the delivery of the essential needs of the individual.

Construction techniques can be new to the community provided that there is a governed institution
that will spread the information of how to easily construct with the new technology. Materials for
the construction must be readily available to the dwellers and at a price that is affordable and
inspires the dwellers to house themselves in a more appropriate manner. Complicated high cost
building materials and techniques should be avoided as this can subvert the effort to place a roof
over the heads of the ‘needy’.

There must be control in place over the use of land as it is necessary for the proposed recipient to
actually be housed in the development otherwise the goal of the project is undermined, and thus
the project becomes detrimental rather than helpful to the target community.

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