Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Slums are informal settlements found in urban regions usually distinguishable by their crowdedness, congestion, and lack of basic amenities like sanitation and water. These settlements erupt due to the large rural to urban migration in search for livelihood and sometimes to escape a detrimental life. And with the world more globalized, this urban problem is expected to increase leaving no other options with the poor settlers but to live in squabble housing and face disgrace along with the risk of eviction from the urban governance structures. Hence, it is proposed that if vernacular architecture is brought in the scenario to convert these squatter dwellings into zones of self-help, local economy and social infrastructure; sustainable urban pockets can be created. Vernacular architecture is the use of nature and local adaptation to the environment by using available natural resources and building structures that are functional, i.e designed to assist in the community’s way of living. If such designs are applied to slums they can introduce cost-effectiveness in up-gradation of the housing due to use of locally available resources that can be recycled and reused, cutting the need of deploying external labour and inclusion of community values to housing that can enhance social infrastructure and simultaneously local economy by ecotourism, markets etc. Incremental housing finance can be introduced by governments to gradually and sustainably transform slums that are made of sustainable materials and utilize minimal resources. To conclude, cities can use primitive yet evolved methods to meet Sustainable Development goals for the future.