A critical review on:

Planet of Slums
Mike Davis latest book.
Mike Davis 2006: Planet of Slums. New York: Verso.

By: Nikara Movafaghi As a part of Urban Theory course in fall 2008

Introduction
The cities of future rather than being made out of glass and steel as envisioned by earlier generation of urbanites, are instead largely constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic and cement blocks[in short] cities of future are in the hands of slums. (Davis, 2006, p.13, 45).

170 years ago, Charles dickens in Oliver twist put a light on the life of children in darkest districts of London, to show how inequality and difference between the rich and the poor (mainly caused by industrialism) can unprecedentedly be terrible. This time Mike Davis, a left scholar from the north in the planet of slums takes a look on the global south and shows that, how the conditions in our time are not much different to two hundred years ago and in the era of democracy and technology, the era of human right and social justice, how our planet reproduces thousands of Oliver continually in the slums of Nairobi, Mumbai, Cairo and so on. Planet of slums that at first was published as an article with the same name in New Left Review in 2004, was emerged basically from the UNHABITATs report the challenge of slums in 2003. A report including the latest studies, and surveys of 30 years involvement with slums problems and solutions, that warned about one billion people who are living in slums of the world and emphasized on an urgent worldwide effort for reduction of urban poverty in the world (UN-HABITAT 2003). Planet of slums is including the same theme; the roots of slums and urban poverty in the post modern time and its social, economical, political and ecological consequences. So as a first question one may say that what was the need for another report in presence of UNs comprehensive one? I say report because the majority of books body is massive information about different case studies in related subject. The author in an internet interview makes some points in this respect when he mentions:I must confess that I have been surprised by the near silence that greeted the publication of the

landmark United Nations report( Jurjevics, 2007). So it seems that the start point of the book was neglecting of raising mega slums from main agenda of political discussions. But as we see Davis is looking for roots of urban poverty in global scale rather than local governments on one side and in historical context rather than existing conditions in another side, its certainly more (not much, as Ill argue later) than a duplication of UNS report. The following is going to be a critical review that argues both the form (methodology and the organization) and content (ideas) of the book form my personal point of view, with getting help of other critics of course.

1. Challenging title Three years ago people of a relatively slum area generally known as moft abad( official name of district) which means a land that has been squatted in Tehran forced municipality not to use this title in official writings anymore, because of intensifying the negative imagination of the area that it may cause(Gozineh,2008). In a similar expression, Tom Angotti an Urban studies Professor from City University of New York quotes from Bostons Mel King African-American community activist that for me the term slum means that somebody else defined my community in a way that allowed them to justify destruction of it(Anagotti,2008). UNs report with mentioning the different characteristics of slums such as Lack of basic services, Substandard housing or illegal and inadequate building structures, Overcrowding and high density, Unhealthy living conditions and hazardous Locations, Insecure tenure; irregular or informal settlements, Poverty and social exclusion and Minimum settlement size emphasized that Slums are too complex to define according to one Single parameter and some of these futures like physical ones can be exactly measured but the other like social capital are impossible to be exactly measured(UN-HABITAT,2003). In other hand some African countries drastically exaggerate the statistics related to the poverty to get more international humanitarian Aids(Anagotti,2008) and some other countries tries to hide their urban

poverty in their census(Davis, 2006) . So the statistics are not strong to be based on for generalizing the idea of slums. It means that the one billion slum dwellers that Davis is talking about can be placed in spectrum that in one side people with relatively acceptable conditions of life are located and in another end the poorest. But its not the point for Davis who as a left socialist tries to condemn global capitalism or neoliberals by focusing on a visible phenomenon like slums as one of its direct consequences. So for him another title say planet of the poor does not make much sense as slums unlike the poor who are more general, are mainly tied to cities and physically located in easily distinguishable margins, and places for concentration of urban poverty. In the same way several experts have criticized even UN because of using the world slum in its reports. For example Alan Gilbert in a an article describes slum as a dangerous word and mentions that The UN has employed the word in order to publicize the seriousness of urban problems and to improve its ability to attract funding...but in using such an emotive word the UN risks opening a Pandora's box because it stabilizing the old ngative images of slum that even after improving the physical environment, they will remain. And then answering the question what is dangerous about this term explains that What makes the word slum dangerous is the series of negative associations that the term conjures up, the false hopes that a campaign against slums raises and the mischief that unscrupulous politicians, developers and planners may do with the term (Gilbert,2007). 2. Organization of the book As it was mentioned before, the first idea of the book was an essay with the same name. But the book is mostly following the same theme whereas several case studies have been added to support the main ideas. The book begins with a glance of urbanization history in last century and then in chapter 2 it discusses about formation of the slum as a result of rapid urbanization. Three later chapters are talking about taken approaches in facing with slums as an urban problem in the past three decades and then chapter 6 focuses on the social and ecological consequences of the slums. Three final chapters mainly discusses on effects of global capitalism in formation the slums and informal economy.

In this way, the only big difference is the way of ending the discussion or the final part that will be discussed later. But a lot of examples, names and numbers for each subject with the presence of the least figures or graphs, make it difficult for reader to keep concentration on what is presented. It seems that the planet of slums is a selection part of UNs report with more examples, more exaggerated and intentionally in a story-like structure in order to become far from a more formal report- like structure of the challenge of slums. As problem of the book formally, we see that there is no clear start point for different discussions or at least some good crossreferencing for different part of the book. For example the discussion about SAPs starts as minor subjects in the first pages as well as the other parts, but it is focused on in the last part. Besides, even where the SAPs are mainly discussed, because there is no proper sorting of cause and effects, equally in whole the book its difficult to draw a conclusion from the discourse. Even in the end of any parts that one conventionally should find the main point of the idea, reader doesnt find so.

3. Anti urbanization: urbanization without industrialization It has become a habit that for discussing about slums we should start with urbanization as the start point of story, as we see in UNs report, D. Urban (a prominent urban expert in KTH university)s lecture, and as well as in the planet of slums. Davis starts discussion with pointing that now more than half of the world population are living in cities and mentions that for the first time [in history] the urban population of the earth will outnumber the rural and he describes this process negatively with statements like back to dickens and big bang of Urban poverty(Davis,2006). Again as Angotti argues, what is the problem with rapid urbanization? Why we shouldnt think that its natural that rural habitants have right to choose urban areas with much more variety of facilities, to live in? And if its say that the migration of the rural is mainly because of their poverty, one may argue that is the rural poverty better than urban poverty? What about the remained 50% of the population who most of them may live in conditions even woes than urban slums? (Anagotti, 2008).

But it would not be a good supposition that Davis is not aware of the fact that the majority of prospered economies in the world have been tied with urbanization in metropolitan areas like New York and London in the west and Shanghai and Hong Kong in the east. The problem as he cites, is that in most of the developing world three quarters of the future population growth lacks the powerful manufacturing export machines of china, Korea and Taiwan. in other word specifically everywhere in the global south urbanization has been more radically decoupled from industrialization, even from development per se. and as a result we can see in most cities in third world like Nairobi, Bombay and so forth the size of citys economy often bears surprisingly little relationship to its population size and vice versa(Davis,2006). So in major part of his book, Davis tries to say that the new coming population in absence of strong economy is directly going to slums and informal market. Above all, the latest report of UN, State of the Worlds Cities 2008/2009 harmonious cities shows that urban inequality specifically in Africa is pretty more than rural one. It proves and echoes Daviss concern about urbanization and big gap between rich and poor in big cities and mentions The 21st century is the Century of the City(UNHABITAT,2008).

4. Globalization, neo liberalism and mass production of slums. As a matter of fact the main idea of the book is that the globalized capitalism forces in form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that were imposed mainly by IMF, World bank and Washington Consensus on third world countries from 1970 have been the major reason for urbanization without industrialization, so called surplus humanity and informal urbanites in the slum. Referring to several case studies that have negatively affected by Sapping supports these reasoning. In Daviss point of view there is a distinction between urbanization that had root in industrialization in 19 and 20 century and the urbanization that was mainly caused by SAPs in latest decades of 20th century. Davis talks about Karl Marx and Webber social theory that believed that the great cities of the future would follow in the industrializing footstep of Manchester, Berlin

and Chicago (Davis, 2006) where movement from rural to urban centers equaled to growth of manufacturing and consequent increase of wage laborMarxs industrial proletariat. This development was also meant to see a growth in agricultural productivity to feed swelling cities through the application of large-scale modern farming techniques. But Davis explains that what happened was opposite: the great cities in the third world didnt follow this approach and instead they more closely resemble Victorian Doblin and Naples with concentration of poverty and lack of industrialization. Davis mentions two main culprits for what happened; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and as he explains in a lecture, In the 1970s former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became head of the World Bank at a time when the world was overflowing with surplus petrodollars parked in banks which were eager to loan it to the Third World, and later when these countries went into debt around 1980 the World Bank and IMF started imposing structural adjustment programs to force Third World countries to readjust their economies according to the Washington consensus. Then by focusing on several case studies mainly in sub Saharan countries, Davis shows that how national market deregulation [under pressure SAP and IMF strategies] pushed agricultural products into global commodity market, where middle as well as poor peasant found it hard to compete (quoted in Conlan, 2006). Davis concludes that SAPS with imposing three instructions on indebted counties; privatization, liberalization and stabilization, and consequently decreasing investment on public health, services and infrastructure, were deliberately anti urban. Although UNs report, the challenge of slums, also confirms distractive effects on the economy of the third world countries but it counts it only as one of the main routs of the slum production. Whereas in Daviss belief it is the most prominent reason. I agree with Angottis argument that Davis conclusion about SAPs effects on third world cities in many cases does not provide enough explanation. He tries to convince you as a reader that for example SAPs adopted, then urban conditions worsen for the poor Anagotti, 2008. But in fact urban poverty is product of a set of related factors and as Davis himself admits that most of those countries that were sapped were already involved heavily with poverty and the social state in the Third World was already withering away even before SAPs (Davis, 2006). Again when Davis talks about riots in protest to SAPs, he never

explains what did those people want, or who were those people and what was the main reason of their protest. Davis also partly underestimates the role of governments in producing poverty and slum in last three decades. In a part of his book ,the treason of states Davis points to some political process like revolution in china, dictatorships in Latin America that were directly influential on poverty and slums and also mentions some pioneering and effective efforts (mainly in massive housing projects) by Castro in Cuba, Nasser in Cairo and Nehru in India which all remained incomplete, although he concludes that the slums was not the inevitable Urban future, but we can see the governments are about in focal point in UN's report when it says An important message of this report is that slums and urban Poverty is not just a manifestation of a population explosion and demographic change, or even of the vast impersonal Forces of globalization. Slums must be seen as the result of a failure of housing policies, laws and delivery systems, as Well as of national and urban policies. The most important factor that limits progress in improving housing and living conditions of low-income groups in informal settlements and slums is the lack of genuine political will to address the issue in a fundamentally Structured, sustainable and large-scale manner.[so] Slums must be seen As the result of a failure of housing policies, laws and delivery systems, as well as of national and urban policies. Now by remembering my work experience in Tehran municipality, that it was wasting most of the money that had borrowed from the World bank for renovation of deteriorated urban context , I can clearly understand who global efforts for reduction of urban poverty and improving slum condition are failed when they come to inefficient governments like Iran which are fully involved with corruption. 5. Over dark world
..The doctor said to give him boiled water, not to give him food with grease, and not to let him walk in the water. But waters everywhere; he cant set foot outside the house without walking in it. The doctor said that if I dont take care of him, Ill lose him (quoted in Davis, 2006, p.142).

Its not a part of les measurable of Hugo, but its a quotation from a slum dweller in planet of slums. By the name of the book we can guess what kind of planet Davis is talking about. It seems that for Davis another world is impossible when we see the same pessimistic view in his other books: Monster at Our Door, Late Victorian Holocausts, Dead Cities, and Ecology of Fear. By this way he is dubious to any positive work that maybe done for improving the gloomy world that he presents. He uses a unpleasant statement of the amalgam of socialism and liberalism to describe association of Architect John Turner with the World bank for providing affordable houses of the slum dwellers with the idea of site and service that was thought as an effective way at that time. Again when talking about NGOs, Davis shows his negative view to increasing developing self-help programs are done by UN HABITATE by calling it illusions of self- help. In this respect Angotti again criticizes him for neglecting these efforts when he says while he [Davis] includes a well-deserved critique of self-help programs and conservative NGOs, he is apparently blind to the progressive urban social movements. We can see such a hopeless approach in discussing about well-known and effective program of Gramin bank in Bangladesh for offering Micro credits to the poor and even in describing Bangalore, one of the cities with the most successive economic prosperity in the India. Maybe thats not really a critic that why Davis takes a pessimistic approach to describe and criticize the flows that cause poverty and slums, but undoubtedly it would be a weakness if someone like Davis purposefully exaggerate some conditions to reach a definite goal , capitalism. For example UNs report on slum as the main basic source for planet of slums includes some significant positive points as possibilities that should not be ignored about slums. They can serve as the first stopping point for immigrants because they provide them with the least affordable housing for new coming poor. May be this kind of view to slums; pushes us to believe that the slums should exist because the poverty never can be diminished. Another positive view to slums as report says, is socio-cultural values that they may have: Slums are places in which the vibrant mixing of different cultures frequently results in new forms of Artistic expression. Out of unhealthy, crowded and often dangerous environments can emerge cultural movements and levels of solidarity unknown in the suburbs of the rich (UN-HABITAT,2003). This negative view, which is spreading over the book, is, even more visible when it

comes to the main challenge globalization, capitalism and SAPs. These issue was already discussed, but to add a complementary comment one can see that Daviss approach to positive aspects of SAPs for example is not convincing as reader can see in most cases he starts the evaluation with statements like except for small exceptions,apart of few case and so on, and then there is almost no pointing to these few cases. In a review of the book in Sunday Independent the author calls Daviss dark description of our planet as political pessimism and points to some potentials of slum dwellers in to be so called cultural innovators when he mentions: He could, for example, have pointed to the large gay section of the Cato Manor settlement in Durban where homosexual marriage was pioneered in South Africa in the 1950s or noted that so much American music stems from a shack dweller Woody Guthrie (Pithouse, 2006) . 6. Generalization, simplification As it was said, planet of slums is mainly about the urbanization, poverty and slums in third world countries, global south and developing countries as well as their global routes. In different chapters of the book with a lot of case studies, Davis by jumping from Easter Asia to subcontinent, from there to Latin America and then to Africa tries to find some common points to generalize. But its clear there is much difference between slums of a rich developing country like Iran and a poor one like zair and such a comparison does not make any sense. Again in a lack of categorizing of the countries, reader hardly distinguishes these harsh differences. So thats why after reading the book. One may unrealistically conclude that he is really living in a planet of slums. Planet of slums in another way distorts the reality about our society and makes it difficult for reader to have a realistic judgment. As we see Davis simply divides the society between rich and poor, middle class and squatter, formal and informal. From Nagotis view This bifurcation of the world into two giant categories, urban and rural, supports the anti-urban bias that has strong roots in the US..And the picture of one huge urban informal sector spanning the globe is simplistic and a grotesque distortion of reality (Anagotti, 2008). The urban socio-cultural and economical networks and relations are much more complicated that can be easily put in two categories.

7. Planet without people Planet of slum is a book for one billion people. But except for occasional pointing out in slum ecology part we surprisingly cant see many discussions about the poor themselves. There is a lot about their environment, there economy, global forces and so on. But it is reasonable and also a smart approach. The exaggerating picture of poverty that he shows, so if he focused on the poor rather than poverty his work would never carry a professional value, mainly criticizes Davis. And probably thats why his book is about free of compassionate terms like innocent . 8. Informal proletariat When Davis compares the contemporary urbanization in third world, mainly caused by capitalism, with 19th century urbanization, he refers to Marxs communist manifesto and explains that industrialization in 18 and 19th century made a new working class, proletariat, with a power of historical agency. He analogously argues that the new urbanization by mass production of slums and surplus humanity in this slums and finally informal socio economical environment that they are, similarly has lead to emergence of a new informal proletariat. Actually this was the main theme of Davis former article Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Proletariat Urban Involution and the Informal Proletariat. In a part of the book, a surplus humanity, he shows that emerging of this informal working class without recognition and rights or proletarian without factory has not been spontaneously, but it has important historical antecedents such as Naples in modern Europe. Davis with focusing on several African countries economy shows how informal working class is increasingly raising its presence in economy. But there is an unclear point here: if industrialism proletariat was a revolutionary class... because it had no vested interest in saving or perpetuating large-scale private property and .. Its location in modern industrial production conferred extraordinary capacities for self-organization, science and culture (Quoted inJurjevics, 2007) .so what kind of power informal dweller of marginal slums has? Are they important as working class because of their number? Davis believes that contemporary informal proletariat like its formal pair wears radical

chains, but it has been expelled from social production.. And, in many cases, from the traditional culture and solidarity of the city. Living on the slum outskirts, cut off from formal employment, and exiled from traditional public space, it searches for sources of unity and social power (Quoted in Jurjevics, 2006). This will be more discussed later.

9. Epilogue
[The Lord says:] The time will come when the poor man will say that he has nothing to eat and work will be shut down . . . That is going to cause the poor man to go to these places and break in to get food. This will cause the rich man to come out with his gun to make war with the laboring man . . .. blood will be in the streets like an outpouring rain from heaven (Davis,2004).

In his books Epilogue, where we expect author to make a final inclusion about what he has said, Davis mentions pentagon and Air force Academys studies and plans for preparing American army for fighting in Labirnebtsof urban slums. He explains that the future of warfare lies in the streets, high rises and sprawl. Then he raises the question that who exactly is the enemy..? And here Davis ends his book with opening some other questions: If informal urbanism becomes a dead-end street, wont the poor revolt? Arent great slums just volcanoes waiting to erupt? And to what extent does an informal proletariat possess that most potent of Marxist talismans: historical agency? Davis doesnt implicitly propose any solution for slums problem but two years later, in a lecture he mentions that The only way the human species will survive this century and the environmental disasters brought about by indiscriminate capitalism is to make the cities our arks is to construct public spaces and then he explains what he means by public space: Privatized consumption turns us all into addicts of wealth. It cant meet the sorts of needs public institutions can.. but cities also have the potential to bring people together for public purposes(Quoted in Conlan,2006). In fact offering such an approach after heavily blaming global capitalism is not

surprising. Davis points to a new book under way, the poor governments that may include answers for these questions. It was mentioned that the final part of the original article in 2004 was removed in the book. In that part that was named Marx and the holy ghost he points to Islamic fundamentalist movements in some African and middle eastern slums like Justice and Welfare in Morocco and claims Indeed, for the moment at least, Marx has yielded the historical stage to Mohammed and the Holy Ghost. If God died in the cities of the industrial revolution, he has risen again in the postindustrial cities of the developing world(Davis,2004). Now we can understand that what kind of historical agency Davis is talking about that informal proletariat owns. We can guess the main ideas of Davis new books when he explains that Today, on the other hand, populist Islam and Pentecostal Christianity (and in Bombay, the cult of Shivaji) occupy a social space analogous to that of early twentieth-century socialism and anarchism.). he should be happy that UNs latest report backs his founding : The rise of radical Islam in Africa, from the outskirts of Jakarta to the slums of Egypt, is well documented but the continent is also experiencing a Christian shift, with Pentecostalism winning converts from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo(UNHABITAT,2008). Davis probably will tell us in his new books that the youth of the slums are potential dangerous enemy that American military is preparing itself to face them. As he says in the end of his book slum children are the street weapons of anti-state forces He argues that they may be both threat and possibilities for states in the future. 10. The future of slums: roles and players As it was previously emphasized planet of slums is trying to seek the origins of slums in global scale and inevitably what has been proposed implicitly by Davis, is macro changes in say global economy. But it seems that this kind of solutions doesnt really direct us to come up with some effective changes in slum dwellers life and it may cause the main problem be over simplified or complicated. Although discussing about approaches dealing with slums is out of the purpose of the essay and also is impossible to be covered, here is a short look at the past and future solutions for slums and importance of key players. Urban poverty in general and Slums in particular are complicated phenomenon, based on UNs report, that need

more explicit and comprehensive solutions than producing public spaces Davis suggests. Davis discusses, slum dwellers are informal people that have been excluded from socio economic systems of cities. But as they are a physical and spatial manifestation of urban poverty and intra-city inequality we can see that until last decade most global and local efforts for dealing with problem have been done with focus on this physical aspect. As Vestbro sorts the general solutions for slums Low-cost housing, Slum clearance, Core housing, Site-and-service, Affordable housing, Self-help housing and Upgrading (Vestbro, 2008), in all approaches the main problem is supposed to be the lack of good housing and infrastructures. But these physical concentrated approaches with ignoring the socio -economical problems of slums. UNs report, as the most comprehensive resource for the issue, mentions that National approaches to slums, and to informal settlements in particular, have generally shifted from negative policies such as forced eviction, benign neglect and involuntary resettlement, to more positive policies such as self-help and in situ upgrading, enabling and rights-based policies. In this report with a evaluation of several experience of slum upgrading projects in different countries, as a min important guidelines for governments and policy makers, it says that strategies for development of cities most significantly include the effective approaches for improving the livelihood of the slum dwellers and going beyond of physical aspects like housing and infrastructures and they also should be provided with enough and sustainable resources. It points to an example in this respect that It is now recognized that security of tenure is more important for many of the urban poor than home ownership, as slum policies based on ownership and large scale granting of individual land titles have not always worked. So the future programs for slums should be focused on their social and economical inclusion in urban system. Actually the famous architect John F.C Turner did one of the first efforts in this issue by publishing his book called housing by people. In this book Turners mainly discusses about who decides for whom (Communist University, 2008) with criticizing the existing process of house production for the poor in three categories of planning, constructions and management) that in which the power is

concentrated in the hand of authority, suggests a totally conversed process that calls the birth of enabling strategy (Vestbro, 2008) in which the role of authority is relatively weak, popular sector has a grater role Figure 1: source: Vestbro, 2008 (figure 1).but as Davis emphasizes that we shouldnt give up the problem for the poor themselves to solve, and UN report confirms, a strong political will from the governments and comprehensive planning strategies and suitable resources are preconditions for any successful approach for slum upgrading. Architects and planners may be in the middle of this process. Because Planners with the team that they lead, are aware of both the downer (slums and its dwellers life conditions) and upper part of the process (authority, long term strategies, resources and so on) can be a proper connector between two parts and make a balance between the requirements of slums and the resources and possibilities that are at the disposal of the authority. Architects in turn are closer to the problem itself. They can mainly investigate the physical environment of slums and seeking for innovative building technology and spatial configurations that are appropriate for the local conditions of slums. For example we can refer to the appreciated attempts of Architect Hssan Fathi in Egypt as well as Iranian Architect Nader Khalili who developed new methods for housing for the poor by developing local technology. While the former integrated knowledge of the rural Egyptian economic situation with a wide knowledge of ancient architectural and town design techniques. He trained local inhabitants to make their own materials and build their own buildings. Unfortunately both of them couldnt complete their work because of ignorance from the authority.

11. Conclusion

Planet of slums is a further warning about the future of the cities as well as societies in third world that the author believes that in many cases consequences in this respect will include the first and second world too. The book was written to draw attentions to UNs report. Although Its undoubtedly a worthy work to read but it still suffers from a political pessimistism that has shadowed over the book and there is visible and hidden effort to blame capitalism in whatever way that is possible. This is not only my claim. We can see some similar critics about him: Davis distorts or makes up facts to overdramatize his case against the contemporary capitalist city(De turenne, 1998). Finally it can be said planet of slums in comparison to the challenge of slums that is politically neutral, reveal some other valuable facts about our planet . References 1. Angotti Tom, 2006: apocalyptic anti-urbanism, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 30.4 December 2006 pages 9617 available at: http://abahlali.org/files/2007-review%20of%20Planet%20of%20Slums.pdf on December 5th ,2008. 2. Archnets digital library, 2008:biografy of Hassan Fathi, available at: http://archnet.org/library/parties/one-party.jsp?party_id=1 on December 17th ,2008. 3. Communist University, a review of Housing by People. Available at http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1976,+Turner,+Housing+by+Pe ople on December 17th ,2008. 4. Conlan Mark Gabrish,2008: lecture by Maike Davis on planet of slums in t san diago, Zengers Newsmagazine, on December 5th ,2008, available at: http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2006/09/118268.shtml on December 5th ,2008. 5.Davis Mike,2007: planet of slums, New York: Verso

6.Davis Mike,2004: planet pf slums,new left review 26 mar apr 2004 p,5-35, available at: http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/cceia/v22i1/f_0007576_6439.pdf on December 5th ,2008. 7.De turenne Veronique,1998:Is Mike Davis' Los Angeles all in his head ? available at: http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1998/12/cov_07feature.html on December 5th ,2008. 8.Gilbert Alan, 2007: The Return of the Slum: Does Language Matter? in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 31 Issue 4 Page 697-713, December 2007. available at: http://www.abahlali.org/node/3058 on December 5th ,2008. 9. Gozineh, Architects, 2008: the renovation scheme for moftabad, Tehran, Iran. 10. Jurjevics, Juris , 2006: Review:Planet of SlumsMike Davis, San Diego Weekly Reader, available at: http://sdreader_test.www.clients.ellingtoncms.com/staff/juris-jurjevics/ on December 5th ,2008. 11. Pithouse, Richard ,2006: Review:Planet of SlumsMike Davis. Sunday Independent, available at: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,10,2578 on December 5th ,2008. 12.UN-HABITATE,2003: the challenge of slums, Earthscan Publications Ltd London and Sterling, VA, available at: http://www.unhabitat.org.jo/pdf/GRHS.2003.pdf

13.UN-HABITATE,2008: State of the Worlds Cities 2008/2009 harmonious cities, Earthscan Publications Ltd ,London and Sterling, VA, available at: http://www.clc.org.sg/pdf/UN-HABITAT%20Report%20Overview.pdf on December 5th ,2008. 14. Vestbro, Dick Urban, 2008, a lecture on : informal settlements,ABE faculty, KTH university, Stockholm.