In this lecture, Eugenie Birch draws heavily on history to illustrate the location, pace, trajectory, documentation and varied solutions of historic slum conditions in Western Europe and North America; tracking contemporary slum development in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and outlines the commonalities and differences with past experience. Birch places slum development in stages that correspond to the urbanization rates and peak growth of slums of the places in question, and discusses adaptations, their benefits and costs.

Drawing from the recent publication “Transforming Cities with Transit”, the director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development and professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, Robert Cervero, calls for elevating the role of public transit in creating sustainable urban futures. Concentrating pedestrian friendly, mixed-use development near transit stops, supplemented by congestion pricing, is one promising strategy.

The lecture is based on the realization that the current urban planning paradigm championed in the United States and Europe—the Containment Paradigm, also known as urban growth management, smart growth, or compact city—is inappropriate in the rapidly-urbanizing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Instead, it calls for a new paradigm for coming to terms with rapid urbanization: The Making Room Paradigm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GknqMC4B2o

The strategy brought forward by Claudio Acioly (UN-Habitat) uses streets as the natural conduits that connect slums spatially and physically with the city and treats streets not only as a physical entity for mobility and accessibility -- through which water and sewerage pipes, power lines, and drainage systems are laid – but also as the common good and the public domain where social, cultural and economic activities are articulated, reinforced and facilitated.