Is Tokyo a slum?

slum /slŭm/ n. A heavily populated area characterised by substandard housing and squalor.

By definition, Tokyo is heavily populated. It does not, however, have substandard housing or squalor. Japan's economy has ensured that its residents have a high standard of living. For these reasons, no one in their right mind would call Tokyo a slum city.

However, Tokyo has been compared to another place that does have the 'slum' label often associated with it. Dharavi is a district of Mumbai which according to Wikipedia is the one of the largest slums in the world, and often features in popular culture such as the film Slumdog Millionaire. The planning firm Ubanology, who has one of its offices located in Dharavi, has investigated similarities between the urban forms of Dharavi and Tokyo, and prepared for Dharavi what it calls the "Tokyo model". Urbanology argues that until the 1960s, much of the housing in Tokyo was basic, built to satisfy the need for housing following the large-scale destruction of Tokyo in 1945. Of course the government was focusing on meeting residents' basic needs, and so little attention was paid to the overall structure of the neighbourhoods.

In this respect, Dharavi is very similar. The government of Dharavi and Mumbai struggles to meet basic health requirements, let alone dictate the urban form of Dharavi. And so Dharavi, like Tokyo before it, has grown quite organically.

This is probably best illustrated by the following pictures:

These images, taken from Dharavi.org, are photomontages, taken from typical cityscapes. Tokyo is on the left, and Dharavi on the right. They perfectly illustrate the similarities between the urban forms of these two cities.

Urbanology argue that the Tokyo model explains the urban form over much of Asia; and, furthermore, that it is an urban typology worthy of implementation in its own right, as opposed to the western high-rise and car-centric typologies which are often inappropriately imposed over these cities.

Looking at urban development in Asia in this manner, it also calls into question exactly what a 'slum' is. And in this respect, rather than viewing areas as 'slums', is it more appropriate to consider such areas as 'transitionary' areas, looking for government to provide basic services knowing that in the future the housing found in these areas will be improved as the local economies improve? Surely this is a much better solution than viewing 'slums' as an eyesore and bringing in the bulldozers.