 city in the middle of a jungle and very soon land is inaccessible to people even though land was free 10 years before 10 years later it's totally inaccessible to people even when you find some oil for example or whatever this is just pictures of Colombian cities all over the place and then you can see the land you know the owner of this land is very happy about this illegal development because then the government has to bring water and roads and buses and then these land goes up very much in price it's very likely that the owner himself gave this half free to these people so he would force government to bring utilities there it really happens very often in Bogota this is the surroundings of Bogota where about half the city initially started as illegal Bogota is very high up in the mountains about 2600 but these slums are even much higher up illegality of course leaves poor public spaces inadequate locations no parks adjacent to Bogota there are tens of thousands of hectares of flat land but the poor continue to be forced to illegal neighborhoods because the private the land is private and if people have higher incomes of lower interest rates or whatever or higher government subsidies then whatever we gain from subsidies or from higher income then land prices go up and you lose whatever you have gained elsewhere so you can never catch up it's like the dog the rabbit in the dog races the you know doesn't matter how fast the dog races it will never catch the rabbit so this is the new new slums growing up this was a severe failure of the Colombian state that half of Colombian cities grew out initially as slums in some more and some less my respectful suggestion is in order to avoid the same mistake Indian government should acquire most of the rural land around its cities or else the same thing will happen and Mumbai will be two or three or four times as big and the problems will only get bigger as architect Charles Correa was mentioning before that this is not going to be solved if we continue to do the same we have to do therefore as everywhere two things one slum improvement make slums legal supply them with water source schools parts public transport pedestrian bicycle infrastructure but also we should do something to avoid the city from continue to growing in slums what is it that we are going to be doing one thing is to do the solve what they exist but then what to do so that they don't grow in the future we have legalized in Colombia traditionally slums this isn't more or less in the process of improvement now legal I mean as they are so freely so almost legal so they really have streets and then we put all services and then becomes the legal city the normal city like this and we improved a lot like this and then we shops and the normal city in the working Colombia has a very Colombian utilities have a very high cross subsidies upbringing people may pay up to ten times more for the same water as the poor people and this is how about 100% of homes in Bogota have running water and electricity practically 100% are connected to sewage systems more than 90% have drainage system nearly 90% have pipe gas through cross subsidy system beyond making low income neighborhoods legal and provided them utilities I would like to emphasize on something different measures can be taken or to truly create inclusion a sense of belonging and even of pride respect for human dignity small public works with high community participation can strengthen community organization create self-esteem but we have to work on pedestrian infrastructure I mean we cannot just simply put roads through these slums or through poor neighborhoods because these are for cars we have to make infrastructure for people sidewalks parks schools libraries infrastructure for people so this is the type of thing we made hundreds of these things communities themselves proposed them design them out and go in contracts with them to be built smaller pedestrian streets like this or sidewalks stairways such as this but I'd like to emphasize that the real conflict for space and funds in cities between cars infrastructure the real conflict is between cars infrastructure and social infrastructure such as schools libraries hospitals and parks if we really want to solve the problems of the poor we have to make a very crucial political decision and it somehow decide that we are going to make more and more and more and more highways every time we have a traffic jam because there is a huge conflict for space and for funds if we decide that every time we have a traffic jam we are going to make bigger highways it will never be possible to solve the needs of the poor in poor cities like temples quality buildings are symbols which create values such as churches wearing medieval towns children's nurseries schools libraries this is for example in a very poor neighborhood top quality school with the best architecture and conditions or this one here and you can also see the mass transport here another top quality school in the border of the city in very very high up in the mountains schools like this in the poorest neighborhoods here even a pedestrian street only in the poorest neighborhood and then community centers indoor swimming pools schools here we made this library great library then this this was very poor around here then this attracted a little bit higher income developments even shopping areas and of course this whole area dispensing free food can help the poor but it does not create equality and self-esteem good architecture for people not for motor cars can create equality and self-esteem and I'm not saying this is a picture of lack of democracy clearly in this society car owners are more important than pedestrian this is a picture of under development of lack of respect for human dignity this is in Nairobi clearly the road is well-paid by the pedestrian spaces are just mud again in Dar es Salaam people do not exist except if they are car owners even children in school children public pedestrian space is a symbol of respect for human dignity so if we are going to improve so long we have to make investments in pedestrian quality pedestrian spaces in low-income communities where people do not have cars quality pedestrian infrastructure creates inclusion and equality