An “Urban” can be personified as the movement of a pendulum where it ticks between high income, technology, sophistication, plentiful, fashion on one side and poor, slums, exclusion, refugees, homeless, left-out on the other side. A potential balance between the two would never be achieved as one might outweigh the other. Working with it rather than invalidating either can buy a balance.

One of the most pressing issues in today’s world is the slums and refugee camps. People are forcibly evicted from one place and are stationed at another part of the world other than their birthplace (Refugees) or in the same country (Internally displaced) have multi faceted problems. One such challenge would be discussed in this article. A count on refugees in developing world has surpassed millions in the past decade. People displaced basically lack hygiene living, sanitation, water and electricity facilities and more importantly a legitimate roof above them. “The ad hoc nature of the Government’s approach has led to varying treatment of different refugee groups. Some groups are granted a full range of benefits including legal residence and the ability to be legally employed, whilst others are criminalized and denied access to basic social resources.” The most important challenge is the prevention of criminalization of such refugees and thereby the denial of social resources to them. The argument on this article would reflect that: giving the refugees, a legitimate roof and status would reduce their marginalization and thereby prevent their criminalization.
The denial of resources often provokes them to find an alternative source of resources. The most common alternatives chosen by them are to get involved in illegal activities that make them vulnerable to be marginalized. A child bought up in such a setup would rather loot others than be an educated professional. This situation spreads through generations and makes them a demoralized and marginalized sector of the society. Thus the local population of the resident city resists hosting the refugees or immigrants. For this situation to be remedied, policies and governments should lay extensive focus on the “Right to educate and Right to Housing” concepts. Research statistics state that a person spends almost one-third to half his income on housing and maintenance of this said housing, and the remaining on day-to-day expense and transportation, thereby leaving almost nothing to expend on education. This is the most striking factor of this income spread. Once the housing expenses are subsidized, they might probably invest on finding themselves a secure job and education would be a tool for their participation in the labor force. Education need not be restricted to people of student ages, it can be spread out to the populations of various categories and different ages, including vocational training, skill imparting, school, adult education, child care etc.

A refugee camp exhibits a diversified outlook with immigrants of varying ages, sex, culture, religion and economy. This diversity could be envisioned as a mini city to a mega city by itself. For instance, “Held every 12 years, the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad is a centuries-old Hindu pilgrimage with origins in the first century CE. The gathering temporarily transforms an empty floodplain into one of the biggest cities in the world.” In correlation to the Kumbh Mela, this unaccounted population hosted in temporary shelters in the urban areas of a city has a metabolism of its own. This idea of a megacity on a permanent basis with basic facilities and necessary resources would engage this population with the cities. Provision of a legitimate roof and resources (land, water, electricity) would increase the rate of education, leading to a more sophisticated lifestyle in such areas. In this way the metabolism in a city (refugee camp) would flourish and the criminalization aspects of these vulnerable populations shall decrease rapidly. Housing must be envisioned in order to enable linkages to stimulate progress so as to free further generations from the agonies faced by the present, mainly through the options for education and vocation.

Karthikeyan Chellappan Nachiappan
B.Arch., M.A. (Housing & Urbanism)
Asst.Professor, MIDAS