The URBZ Team in Mumbai has embarked on a new project in Dharavi’s New Transit Camp nagar, where its office is located. Our landlord Paul Raphael has inherited a 200 m2 plot just down Dharavi’s MG Road. He built a simple structure to host activities for street children and elderly residents and asked us to help organizing activities there. URBZ is not a charity organization, but we believe in connecting deeply with people and neighbourhoods. We also see ourselves as natural connectors between local needs and global capacities.

URBZ teamsters Himanshu and Dipti started giving drawing classes to the kids every Sunday and we would like to expand our activities there. We have started meeting elderly residents and talking with them about the history of the neighbourhood. We want to archive these stories on our www.dharavi.org site. Our current projects for the Shelter include: getting drawing material, tables and chairs; providing lunch for 60 children every days; building a space to host a library and a tea shop on the site; and turning the empty space around the shelter into a clean patio for the children to play.

We have created a new section on the URBZ site dedicated to the activities of the Dharavi Shelter, where we explain what we are doing in more detail and request donations from anyone willing to support the Shelter and New Transit Camp’s residents. We are sending the link to this new page to all our friends and colleagues in the hope to raise enough to sustain the activities of the Shelter. It is amazing how much we can do with very little money. We calculate that with less than $1000 a month we could provide a simple lunch to up to 60 children every day!

Please visit our Dharavi Shelter page and if you are in Mumbai, come to visit the Shelter in person!

With settlements dating back at least 400 years, the Kolis were the earliest inhabitants of the archipelago now known as Mumbai. They are thought to be members of the Kul tribe, which migrated from the mainland mass of Aparanta at beginning of Christian era or earlier. Kolis occupied the islands in successive waves and engaged in husbandry and fishing.

Around 38 Koliwadas exist in the region today, having survived periods of Hindu colonization around the end of the 13th century, Muslim rule until the mid-16th century, foreign colonization first by the Portuguese and then by the British, and the explosive expansion of modern Mumbai.

The Kolis’ close connection with the history of Mumbai is evident in the city’s place names. The city’s original name of “Manbai,” “Mambai,” or “Mumbai” by some accounts derives from “Mumbadevi,” the patron deity of the Kolis. The earliest settlements in Mumbai were the koliwadis, which were named after local trees or other natural elements, as Kolis were then nature and tree-worshipers. For example, “Parel” is said to derive from “Padel,” the local name of a trumpet-flower tree. “Colaba,” Mumbai’s primary tourist and historical center, derives from “Kola-bhat,” which means “Koli estates.”

In the 17th century, Queen Elizabeth formally bestowed land tenure to the “Kolis of Dharavi,” an event commemorated in documents and a copper plate currently housed in a Mumbai museum. The Queen also gifted pistols to three Koli residents — Banduk Patil, Bapuram Koli and Kuptun Mangalaya Koli — as security against pirates that used to rob fishing boats.

The neighborhood of Shimokitazawa represents Japanese counter-culture more than any other place in Tokyo. Indeed, this is probably one of the first places that young architects, designers, artists, djs, or activists visiting Tokyo are taken to by their Japanese friends.

The narrow and crowded streets of Shimokitazawa have a perfume of freedom and anti-conformism. In Shimokitazawa styled-up youth look alternative and lead alternative lifestyles. Indeed that is one of the rare places in Tokyo where counter-culture meets politics.

The constituencies of Shimokitazawa are diverse. With its unique character, the area attracts many students, artists and other creative types. Meanwhile, affluent homeowners have settled around its center making the development of luxurious department stores a very lucrative prospect for investors.

Thanks to the two train lines stopping through, residents are just minutes away from Shibuya and Shinjuku Stations, which are two of the major centers of Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands of commuters living in South-East Tokyo pass through Shimokitazawa everyday.

Recently, a plan dating from 1946 for a 26-meter wide road throughout the neighborhood was resurrected by Odakyu, a large railway owner and real-estate developer. The government of Setagaya ward, which includes Shimokitazawa, championed the new road plan.

Planning in Tokyo is characterized by strong top-down interventions mainly in the form of infrastructure investment. At the same time, Tokyo is often described as a city of villages, composed of small neighborhoods of 3000 inhabitants or less, known as “chou”. The chou however, serves typically at diffusing information and decisions coming from above to the local level rather than bottom-up communication. In Tokyo, it is very rare that local communities succeed in stopping or even changing the plans of the government.

Some grassroots groups have emerged in Shimokitazawa to oppose the plan and to propose alternatives. Their constituencies extend far beyond local residents. Many people, including musicians, architects, and academics, from Japan and abroad recognize the importance of preserving Shimokitazawa, with its rich urban subcultures and relaxed atmosphere.

Beyond the fate of the neighborhood, the urban policy of the city is in question. Many cities around the world begin to recognize that citizens must be involved in the planning of their communities.

Shimokitazawa: A continuation of the spirit of the Urban Typhoon workshop 2006, this team explores one of the most artistic and fun-loving part of Tokyo.

http://www.vimeo.com/5692330
Road Rage in Shimokitazawa