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Slumming It: Kevin McLeod


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I encourage everyone to watch this. It should be on the national curriculm for all western school children to watch and see how the other half live.

 

Western society only exsists in its present form due to millions of people like this, without them cheap food, clothes and stuff will be no more.

 

For those in the UK, episode one and two are here http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevin-m...slumming-it/4od

 

Also watch " Blood, sweat and tshirts ". a group of 6 young fashion students travel to india to see / work and live where our cheap clthes come from.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/blood-sweat-tshirts/

 

There was also a series on the food industry in the far east. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kpd2z

 

Its all jaw dropping stuff and in my view I cant see really how different our society is than in times past with falsed labour.

 

 

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can anyone explain why india is so poor? most of the ex-communist countries its pretty easy to explain as the 1945-1990 period was a write off, but india has been a free market more or less and open economy throughout and as failed to raise the standard of living, maybe high population growth has cost.

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can anyone explain why india is so poor? most of the ex-communist countries its pretty easy to explain as the 1945-1990 period was a write off, but india has been a free market more or less and open economy throughout and as failed to raise the standard of living, maybe high population growth has cost.

 

 

Who says India is poor? If your western living standards is a measure of prosperity, in a TEOTWAKI scenario, you will be know what it takes to survive. Remember, No amount of preparation, will enable you to survive. Financial freedom is what people choose to have. Is that how you define rich?

 

I used to live about 30 kms from Dharavi, we knew it existed. But there are many more areas like this in Mumbai/India. My mother when she was a young lady during a medical inspection of Dharavi was lost within that square mile. The place has not changed much even now. We still go there to buy things, and the things you an buy there are of the same quality that you can find ( for a very high price) some very expensive places in the UK.

 

I got a friend who immigrated from Bangladesh to Mumbai about 10 years ago. He makes his living my selling some incredible hand made embroidery in Chittagong. His prices are so low, that I feel sorry for him. But for him, the money I pay him to buy his stuff is the market rate. He make a good profit by selling things in Mumbai. Think about the poor from Chittagong. He lives in Dharavi and I have had food with him in his own home- which you and I will call a shanty.

 

Most people in Mumbai are immigrants. Compare immigration into Mumbai which has made the city rich, to immigration into the USA which had made US a country forefront of development.

 

Another important thing, if rupee becomes non existant, the people of Dharavi will still survive on the basis of Barter as they produce most things required to live, including food.

 

I look at UK today and I think you guys are really poor. What council houses have done is to hide the squalor seen in Dharavi! What benefit payments have done, is to prevent people from seeking employment on a land fill site. The good thing in India is every Tom, Dick and Harry ( OR Sachin, Mohan and Ramu) know the government is not there to support them in whatever form they can. If they got to take care of themselves and their families, no one else will.

 

The British Empire wants to 'civilize' the 'people in rags'. What they could have done was learn from 'The White Mughals'. I think the time will come when they will need to do the same.

 

People in India might not be essentially financially well off, but they are actually a lot richer than those who have lived only on benefits.

 

If you want to know why some countries are rich while some a poor read Prof John Kay's book

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Who says India is poor? If your western living standards is a measure of prosperity, in a TEOTWAKI scenario, you will be know what it takes to survive. Remember, No amount of preparation, will enable you to survive. Financial freedom is what people choose to have. Is that how you define rich?

 

I used to live about 30 kms from Dharavi, we knew it existed. But there are many more areas like this in Mumbai/India. My mother when she was a young lady during a medical inspection of Dharavi was lost within that square mile. The place has not changed much even now. We still go there to buy things, and the things you an buy there are of the same quality that you can find ( for a very high price) some very expensive places in the UK.

 

I got a friend who immigrated from Bangladesh to Mumbai about 10 years ago. He makes his living my selling some incredible hand made embroidery in Chittagong. His prices are so low, that I feel sorry for him. But for him, the money I pay him to buy his stuff is the market rate. He make a good profit by selling things in Mumbai. Think about the poor from Chittagong. He lives in Dharavi and I have had food with him in his own home- which you and I will call a shanty.

 

Most people in Mumbai are immigrants. Compare immigration into Mumbai which has made the city rich, to immigration into the USA which had made US a country forefront of development.

 

Another important thing, if rupee becomes non existant, the people of Dharavi will still survive on the basis of Barter as they produce most things required to live, including food.

 

I look at UK today and I think you guys are really poor. What council houses have done is to hide the squalor seen in Dharavi! What benefit payments have done, is to prevent people from seeking employment on a land fill site. The good thing in India is every Tom, Dick and Harry ( OR Sachin, Mohan and Ramu) know the government is not there to support them in whatever form they can. If they got to take care of themselves and their families, no one else will.

 

The British Empire wants to 'civilize' the 'people in rags'. What they could have done was learn from 'The White Mughals'. I think the time will come when they will need to do the same.

 

People in India might not be essentially financially well off, but they are actually a lot richer than those who have lived only on benefits.

 

If you want to know why some countries are rich while some a poor read Prof John Kay's book

 

 

Well said.

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d2thdr, you manage to turn reality on its head and make it sound reasonable. on second thoughts why not run for political office in india. you could explain to an urchin living int he most decrepid sh1t hole that he is prosperous and he has you to thank for his prosperity. i have been to india and its significantly poorer than sri lanka which i have also visited. i am also invested in bangladesh (gcm resources) so i know what a total sh1t hole that country is. infact if they could get their electricity situation and port sorted out then they stand a good chance of under cutting even the chinese on wages (chinese wages are over twice the bungla-desh wages for low value added manufacturing).

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Cannot view that video in my country.

 

Over at HPC somebody posted a description of Victorian Manchester by Friedrich Engels. Here's a snippet:

To the right and left a number of covered passages from Long Millgate give access to several courts. On reaching them one meets with a degree of dirt and revolting filth, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere. The worst courts are leading down to the Irk, which contain unquestionably most dreadful dwellings I have ever seen. In one of these courts, just at the entrance where the covered passage ends, there is a privy without a door. This privy is so dirty that the inhabitants of the court can only enter or leave the court if they are prepared to wade through puddles of stale urine and excrement. Anyone who wishes to confirm this description should go to the first court on the bank of the Irk above Ducie Bridge. Several tanneries are situated on the bank of the river and they fill the neighbourhood with the stench of animal putrefaction. The only way of getting to the courts below Bridge is by going down flights of narrow dirty steps and one can only reach the houses by treading over heaps dirt and filth. The first court below Ducie Bridge is called Allen's Court. At the time of the cholera [1832] this court in such a disgraceful state that the sanitary inspectors [of the local Board of Health] evacuated the inhabitants. The court was then swept and fumigated with chlorine.... At the in the Irk flows, or rather, stagnates. It is a narrow, coal-stinking river full of filth and rubbish which it deposits the more low-lying right bank. In dry weather this bank presents the spectacle of a series of the most revolting blackish-green puddles of slime from the depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gases constantly rise and create a stench which is unbearable even to those standing on the bridge forty or fifty above the level of the water. Moreover, the flow of the river is continually interrupted by numerous high weirs, behind which large quantities of slime and refuse collect and putrefy. Above Ducie Bridge there are some tall tannery buildings, and further up there are dye-works, bone mills and gasworks. All the filth, both liquid and solid, discharged by these works finds its way into the River Irk, which also receives the contents of the adjacent sewers and privies. The nature of the filth deposited by this river may well be imagined. If one looks at the heaps of garbage below Ducie Bridge one can gauge the extent to which accumulated dirt, filth and decay permeates the Courts on the steep left bank of the river. The houses are packed very closely together and since the bank of the river is very steep it is possible to see a part of every house. All of them have been blackened by soot, all of them are crumbling with age and all have broken window-panes and window-frames. In the background there are old factory buildings which look like barracks. On the opposite, low-lying bank of the river, one sees a long row of houses and factories. The second house is a roofless ruin, filled with refuse, and the third is built in such a low situation that the ground floor is uninhabitable and has neither doors nor windows. In the background one sees the paupers' cemetery, and the stations of the railways to Liverpool and Leeds. Behind these buildings is situated the workhouse, Manchester's "Poor Law Bastille." The workhouse is built on a hill and from behind its high walls and battlements seems to threaten the whole adjacent working-class quarter like a fortress....

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/p-health/slums.htm

 

Chronic malnutrition was still common in early 20th century England. Things only began to get "good" for the working class British in the '50s.

 

Lest ye forget.

 

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Let me know if anyone finds an alternative link to the video!

 

With a million people crammed into one square mile, Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

To experience the good and bad of one of the biggest slums in Asia, Kevin McCloud goes to live there.

 

Whoops!:

I got this message:

This video contains content from Channel 4, who has decided to block it in your country.

 

Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Like Hong Kong maybe?

Mong Kok*, which is 10 minutes from where I live, IS the most densely populated place on the planet.

 

Tai Kok Tsui, is in between here & Mong Kok, and it is rapidly gentrifying.

I took some photos this past weekend, and may share them here (or elsewhere on GEI.)

 

== ==

"Mong Kok" : means "crowded corner" in Cantonese

 

BTW, I wouldnt want anyone to think that I am living in hardship.

I found this newish video that photographs a bus trip right through my neighborhood:

 

Bus K16 Nam Cheong--Tai Kok Tsui:

 

It even goes right past the gate to the place where I live.

The journey stops just short of going into Mong Kok.

I dont think you will see many signs of poverty or slums here

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Whoops!: I got this message:

This video contains content from Channel 4, who has decided to block it in your country.

 

Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places on earth.

I found this alternative:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6...&q=Dharavi#

++

 

I can tell you: Mong Kok and Tai Kok Tsui are crowded, but they are not "slums".

Although some people there may live in the HK version of "squalor"

 

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Personally, I think everyone at some stage in their life should slum it. I remember spending one of my student years squatting in an abandoned hospital, no power, utilities.... though we did manage to hook up the gas and eat some mean roasts. George Orwell's "Down and out in London and Paris" is a great read. Personally, I think experiences such as this enable us to appreciate other aspects of life [besides the drive to material betterment]. It also helps us realise how fortunate we actually are, in certain respects, and then gives a sense of perspective... to how the majority of the world lives. Wouldn't want to live in a bubble right [or a gated community for that matter]?

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Personally, I think everyone at some stage in their life should slum it. I remember spending one of my student years squatting in an abandoned hospital, no power, utilities.... though we did manage to hook up the gas and eat some mean roasts. George Orwell's "Down and out in London and Paris" is a great read. Personally, I think experiences such as this enable us to appreciate other aspects of life

I agree.

And I am so pleased that my gf is not keen to "live the expat lifestyle", as many do here in HK.

 

I think we live rather well, but we are financing everything with our own money, and so we live in a small space.

 

As it happens, I had lunch today, with an old colleague from many years ago. He has a VERY BIG job here.

which comes with a car and driver, and expense account privileges which are far out of my league now.

 

I was pleased to find that he has stayed down to earth. I think the way he does that is that he has a great wife,

and is happy to devote his weekend to his wife and three boys.

 

He had seen our previous (much larger flat), and was a bit surprised that we could live in such a small space,

 

Other friends that came over to visit us last weekend, saw many merits in how we live, and understood why

we like it.

 

Everyone has to make the choices that suit them. I am very glad that we were flexible enough to find a nice

compromise that suits us well (for the time being.)

 

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Personally, I think everyone at some stage in their life should slum it. I remember spending one of my student years squatting in an abandoned hospital, no power, utilities.... though we did manage to hook up the gas and eat some mean roasts. George Orwell's "Down and out in London and Paris" is a great read. Personally, I think experiences such as this enable us to appreciate other aspects of life [besides the drive to material betterment]. It also helps us realise how fortunate we actually are, in certain respects, and then gives a sense of perspective... to how the majority of the world lives. Wouldn't want to live in a bubble right [or a gated community for that matter]?

 

I agree.

 

Our family adventure took us to the west coast of Ireland in a motorhome and thence to a small, rented property where the only means of heating and cooking was a peat/wood fuelled stove and money was so scarce that the eldest, who was 16 at the time, had either to walk the ten miles to college each day or hitch a lift. Our kids learnt more in those three years than would ever have been possible in the comfort of our previous home. Not saying it was an easy time, but it did make one appreciate even the smallest comforts. We reverted to the national peasant dish - bacon and cabbage and potatoes since it was the cheapest - which got served up probably three times a week alternating with minced beef in a hundred different ways. And on Sunday, if they were lucky, a roast chicken! Wow! Was that appreciated! And even that got recycled - bones were boiled to make a nutritious stock and scraps of meat from the carcass added to make Monday's meal.

 

They also all mucked in with preparing the site we bought and laying the foundations for our new house. Had personal tragedy not intervened I daresay we'd be living there now, in a house built by all the family mucking-in togther. As it was, we had to return to the UK.....but that's another story.

 

Despite the deprivation, as adults, they look back on that time with great affection. Even the five-year old learned to split logs with an axe - and nearly twenty years on, he still has five fingers on each hand!

 

 

 

 

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I still cannot seem to find a source of this...

 

SERIES 1 EPISODE 1

Kevin McCloud: Slumming It (49 mins)

9pm Thursday 14 Jan 2010

Channel 4

As Kevin enters Dharavi he finds open sewers, rats and hazardous chemicals everywhere. But this is also a highly organised place, with thousands of tiny industries and a strong sense of…

Some graphic scenes and mild language

 

SERIES 1 EPISODE 2

Kevin McCloud: Slumming It (48 mins)

8pm Friday 15 Jan 2010

Channel 4

Kevin concludes his trip to India, meeting the dustmen and the scavengers of Mumbai's city dumps, as well as the urban developer who plans to tear down Dharavi slum and start building all…

Contains some graphic scenes and mild language

 

= =

 

Kevin McCloud discovers a world of curious juxtapositions in one of the most extreme urban environments on earth: Dharavi. Having heard bigwig architects, planners, even Prince Charles claiming that Dharavi has the answers to some of the biggest problems facing our Western cities, Kevin embarks on a journey to lift the lid on this place himself. With a million people crammed into one square mile, Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places on earth. It is also one of Asia's biggest slums. As a way of experiencing the good and bad of Dharavi first hand, Kevin decides to live, work, sleep, eat and wash there... And he's terrified at the prospect of doing so. In the first programme, as Kevin enters Dharavi he finds open sewers, rats and hazardous chemicals everywhere. However, he also discovers that it is a highly organised place with thousands of tiny industries.

 

... a teaser / not the real deal ...

India Season | Begins 13th January | Channel 4

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cross reference

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....mp;#entry153360

is it worth merging threads ?

From the other thread - will be deleted there

Dr Bubb,

 

I think the following programme may interest you. Not sure whether or not you can access it but here is the link.

 

Slumming It

 

I believe that what the presenter, Kevin McCloud, rightly points out, is that there is a cohesiveness and energy and community spirit that exists within slums, however overcrowded and unhygienic, which is lost with redevelopment into high rise flats that are ostensibly more comfortable.

 

The trick would be to find a way of retaining the energy and community spirit of a slum neighbourhood whilst simultaneously catapulting it into the 21st century in terms of hygiene.

 

 

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