The Homegrown City

A radical new perspective of the relationship between the city and slum: from the researchers and architects behind the groundbreaking design practise URBZ.

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By the middle of this century, over 3 billion people will live in settlements typically called slums or referred to euphemistically as "informal". These unplanned, though often functionally integrated neighbourhoods are seen as the antithesis of the planned metropolis. But, as Echanove and Srivastava argue, the homegrown city is a fragile yet resilient part of an urban system, which has been dismissed and brutalised for too long.


The Homegrown City is about how cities develop and evolve through the actions of those who use it. Echanove and Srivastava present this user-generated city, in opposition to the speculative and commercialised approach that dominates the urban imagination today. They argue that the starting point to solving questions from unequal distribution of wealth, to access to housing, or the environmental crisis lies in a grounded approach to urban development, which recognises the value of collective intelligence and citizen participation.

Through a series of case studies from Asia, Europe and the Americas the book challenges the way we look at the city by connecting it to those who build it, pointing to how it can grow for the benefit of all.

URBZ is the groundbreaking design and research group founded in Dharavi, Mumbai, 2008 and now working across the world. Their hugely influential work has been exhibited in major museums and institutions in the US, Europe and Latin America. The Homegrown City is their first book on the most urgent questions of the 21st century.